‘Not any more than usual,’ I pat my belly, the move drawing Vish’s attention. ‘Don’t worry Ru already gave me the concerned talk. I’m fine, Vish.’
His expression doesn’t look convinced but his shoulders drop slightly. It’s not my responsibility to comfort him anyway so I look away.
My younger self would be kicking and screaming at me right now for the way I am treating him but why should I care? Ru wasn’t the only one that left me that night. Vish did too, they both did.
My thoughts are interrupted as I feel the distinct flutter in my stomach and I shoot upwards in surprise. ‘Was that…’ I ask, unable to believe what I just felt but movement appears in my stomach again.
‘Little fighter that one.’ Vish mumbles to my stomach. ‘Was raging that something happened to his ma.’
‘Little one was wriggling about the whole time you were out,’ Amelia smiles as she squeezes my hand.
She doesn’t need me to voice my worry, knowing me well enough to give me that reassurance straight away. The unspoken confirmation that my baby is alive. The tightness in my chest releases as soon as their words sink in. My baby is okay. And not only is he okay, he is moving around and I can feel him.
I can’t wait to tell Fauna about this new development in my pregnancy. Then suddenly it occurs to me. ‘Where’s Fauna? What happened?’
I’m about to start demanding answers, but just as I do, a bunch of elated voices from the hallway draw each of our attention.
I’d know that voice anywhere and it’s causing a racket outside.
Not bothering to ask Amelia’s permission I quickly swing my legs from the make shift doctors bed and make my way to the wooden doorway on wobbly legs. The bump to my head has made me feel a little unsteady but it’s not the first time I’ve been injured and powered through. Plenty of us have been knocked unconscious, sprained a wrist or ankle, and had to persevere.Pain is nothing new to me and I will never let any of my weaknesses show.
Vish doesn’t miss a beat, firmly placing the palm of his hand on my back for support. I don’t need it, haven’t needed it in years actually. My skin crawls at the contact but I can’t be arsed to make a move to push him away, too focused on seeing my best friend.
But it’s not just my best friend I see, it’shim.
Chapter five
Liam
With each day that passes and with every morning that I wake with just the memory of her I can feel the darkness steadily creeping in, taking over. It’s pollution tainting me with its vicious claws, each stab of pain deep and unforgiving. This disease can only be cured by one thing: finding the woman who has completely taken over my heart, my life, my entire existence. There’s only one problem: I can’t find her anywhere.
I’ve had my fair share of misfortune in this life, both before the apocalypse and after it. But the suffering I felt then is incomparable to the agony I have felt over these past months.
Ru and the lads have helped me, supported me in my search for her but it has been no good. The emerald-eyed beauty hadadmitted that she was travelling, that she wasn’t staying where we had by chance crossed paths. Still I searched the area. All but turned it upside down in hopes that I would find her or at least some traces of her existence. But I found nothing and that cycle has repeated itself in a vicious hellscape ever since.
There are moments, dark moments where I question my sanity. In the darkest hours of this winter I’d asked myself repeatedly if I’d been so lonely that my mind had conjured up the perfect beauty as a way to help me cope.
We’re all lonely at the stadium. Some admitting it more than others but we each know it. We can see it behind the masks we wear.
The huge football stadium across the river has been home for years now, completely transformed from a place where violence once reigned unchecked. An alleged community. A family, yet with one wrong move and the slightest bad mood that ideal would come crashing down and violence would ensue. The blind haze of a football fan in a rage.
I hated the place when Ru – Ruaridh our leader – first took me there, not able to see it for anything other than what it was to me. The cause of so much pain and suffering, so many fearful late nights. But once I walked through the walls protecting our little community it became obvious that this was not a football stadium anymore, not even slightly. Fifty-thousand seats removed, all to make room for crops, storage and enjoyment. The place was bustling with life and I couldn’t find it in me to walk away.
Not until I found her.
Something in me changed courses the day I met the emerald beauty. As the lads pointed out I’ve spent more time away from the stadium than I have in it since I met her and they are not wrong in that either.
I have been away.
And I’ve spent the entire time looking for her.
A few weeks ago I’d decided to bring my search back to Glasgow, having scoured the boarders as thoroughly as I could there was something in me drawing me back here. Like a sixth sense telling me this is where I needed to be.
With no company but the whistling wind that has found a gap in the rotting window frame of the flat I am using as a base I lie here in the darkness trying to find an ounce of rest so I can continue my search for the formidable woman who has my soul.
‘Liam you there, mate?’ Vishrut’s voice crackles over the radio pulling me from my pitiful mind.
Vishrut, another brilliant guy that has had my back since I joined The Skulls. Him, Ru and I have managed to form an unspeakable bond over the years, one that I am lucky to be apart of.
