'Til I Found You - (A Nathan Sykes Love Story)

Chapter 9 - 'Ton Pere'

My heart was pounding in my chest. It was true. They had the pictures to prove it. The pictures were detailed, very detailed. They had caught everything on camera including all the tongue action. It wasn't something you wanted to see while eating your breakfast, that's for sure! I will admit, when I saw the pictures at first, I did nearly choke on my orange juice but once Nathan's happy, then that's the main thing. My feelings for him didn't matter anymore, now that he's back with Mollie. But it did hurt me knowing that she despised me but more importantly, he lied to me.

I shut the morning paper quickly on the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. Just as I suspected, it was a sleepy Jess followed by Nath. There actions were identical; they each took a bowl from the top press, filled it with coco pops, poured in the milk and dug in a spoon before shovelling the chocolaty milk into their mouths. They chomped in time to each other making me giggle. I tried to contain my little outburst but it was loud enough for Nath to hear it and when he did so, his head shot in my direction. A little smirk spread across his face, lighting up the room. He plonked the bowl down on the counter, spilling the chocolaty goodness on the marble counter top, before slowing making his way around to my side of the breakfast bar. He bent down and whispered in my ear ‘did you find that funny Frey?’ His tone was croaky, the normal way it was in the morning, but there was something different about it this morning.

**

It possibly had something to do with all the alcohol we drank last night. After finishing the two bottles of vodka, we made our way inside the house, only to find my mother unconscious on the sitting room floor. I presumed it was another case of alcohol poisoning, but this time, I just left her there to suffer. It was about time she suffered on my behalf and not the other way around. I did feel guilty about it at first, but the bottle of amaretto helped to forget. Apart from the appalling hangover the next morning and the guilt I felt about my mother, there was one good thing to come from the night of drinking; the letter.

I stumbled across the kitchen floor with a handful of empty drink bottles. The clock signalled three am, a new record for me. Nath slurred across the room, sitting at the kitchen table, supporting me to dump the bottles quickly and crack open the bottle of champagne my mother had purchased for my graduation party. My hand shook as I tried to open the lid of the bin, almost dropping the bottles to the tile floor below. Nathan stumbled on behind, quoting some of the famous lines from various Shakespeare plays; ‘good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be used well’, ‘I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine’ and ‘O thou invisible spirit of wine! If thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!’

The bottles fell from my hands onto the table, making an awful clatter. I pulled the bin open with both hands, only to find what I had predicted; empty wine bottles, vodka bottles and whiskey bottles which had all been emptied by my mother on her bender, but the white envelope stood out. It had ‘Freya, May 12th 1994 scribbled across the front in black, frilly handwriting; handwriting I didn’t recognise as my mother’s. The discovery was enough to sober me up. I pulled the letter from the rubbish and held it in my hands. Nathan’s hands were on my waist and his chin on my shoulder. His musty breath was obnoxious but understandable.

‘Maybe you should wait until tomorrow’ he whispered in my ear, tingling the minuet hairs on the back of my neck.

I nodded gently before forcing the envelope into my pocket and shovelling the empty bottles into the bin. The mood was dampened. The kitchen went from being full of noise, to a room full of an eerie silence. You could cut the tension with a knife. That’s when we decided to go back to his and sleep, although walking home in the dark, as drunk as skunks, was not the brightest of ideas!