“No, thank you.”
“Eggs?”
“I’m not that hungry.”
Actually, she’s starving, but he’s too much for her this morning. She can’t make herself smile back at him.
It doesn’t make sense that she’s lying here in all her clothes and she’s unused to things not making sense, but her brain is running at quarter speed so she’s struggling to find an explanation. And didn’t she have plans last night? To go to a party with Jemma? To see Matt if he was there?
And why does she feel so incredibly tired, as if she has a terrible hangover? Or as if she’s been drugged?
That thought gives her pause.
She can’t have been drugged, can she? Because she’s been with him since last night. So how could it have happened?
Unless he did it? Her blood runs cold. But there would only be one reason to drug her that she can think of, and, surely that can’t be what happened. Horrified, she tries to take stock of her body. I feel normal, she thinks. I’m in my clothes. I’d be sore if he’d done anything to me. I’d know if he had, wouldn’t I?
Slowly, her breathing settles down. Of course, she’d know. She’s fine.
“Are you sure you don’t want food?” he says. “You look a bit pale.”
She shakes her head. His face falls and she can’t help thinking that it’s a babyish reaction, and sort of gross. Although she’s as certain as she can be that he hasn’t touched her, the thought lingers like a foul taste.
“Maybe I’ll feel like it in a bit,” she says, throwing him a bone, and he brightens, which seems weird. What’s wrong with him? Why is he so needy right now?
She glances at the bedside table, sits up, and pats the bedcovers. “Did we find my phone?”
At least she remembers something from last night, even if it’s bad. The lost phone.
“I looked again,” he says. “But I couldn’t see it anywhere. I’m sorry, Imbo.”
Why is he calling her by that name? It’s what her dad called her.
She slumps back against the pillows and looks at the ceiling. This is an extreme level of tiredness. She should be bouncing after twelve hours’ sleep. He should just leave. She glances at him. Why is he still staring at her?
“Okay then,” he says when the silence gets uncomfortable. “Enjoy your tea.”
“Can you turn out the light?” she asks, moving to face the wall. “Please?” she adds after a moment. There’s a click and the room falls dark. She hears the door close softly but not completely.
Above her, there’s a window. Around the edge of the curtains, she can see the sort of depressing gray light that makes her want to curl up and stay in bed all day.
She tries to piece together the night before but nothing comes back to her. A headache ripples across her temples and settles into her forehead. She feels as if something is pinching her all over her body. Depression. It likes to get its hooks into her and tetherher to dark places, away from light and from people, places where blankness is a virtue, where you forget how to smile.
Her tea cools, untouched. He’s whistling, somewhere close.
The longer she listens the more the sound cuts through her and the more convinced she is that something isn’t right at all, though she doesn’t know what.
What was it that Mum said about him a few weeks ago?
“I swear, I think he’s lost his mind.” Edie had just put the phone down and her eyes were tightly shut as if she was trying to unsee something. The memory induces a cramp of fear. She’d been arguing with him, pleading, repeating his name in a tone that bled. Though Imogen hadn’t heard enough to know what the argument was about.
She hated the way that fatigue was etched into Edie’s face. It had been since Dad died. Imogen wanted her mum to be able to smile sometimes.
“What do you mean he’s lost his mind?” she asked.
“Oh, I didn’t see you there! You should knock, you know.”
“What did you mean?”
