She would have heard him leave. Wouldn’t she?
She strode through the house; the hallway, the living room, the downstairs toilet. All empty. She ran upstairs. Checked behind curtains, under beds, inside wardrobes. He wasn’t there.
She grabbed her phone and pulled up the app that connected to her doorbell camera, pulled up the video, and watched it through. Twice. The door had not been opened. Not for hours.
Was this what a hallucination felt like? It had been so real. God. Was this the pain meds? The stress? Too many years of working day and night without a break? She lifted her hand to her mouth and realized that her fingers were trembling and her lips were freezing cold.
She stumbled into her living room and sank onto a sofa, pulled a blanket up to her chin, and opened her phone. She was right, she desperately needed to call a doctor.
For herself.
Chapter Five
Ellie heavedherself off the sofa and through the house to answer the doorbell in her slippers. After spending the day feeling like she was being dragged through a hedge backward, making her get off her sofa was just mean. Especially since Nissy had finally deigned to come and sit on her lap and was purring gently when the bell rang. Still, if they’d come all the way down her narrow lane, the least she could do was give them directions to wherever they were really supposed to be.
She swung open the door, already wondering if she was going to need her phone so she could use the maps, only to find Victoria balancing two tubs of ice cream, a large apple pie, and a bottle of wine… and trying to press the doorbell again with her elbow.
Ellie chuckled, reaching to help with the pie and bottle, warmth filling her. “Vic! I’m so glad to see you! I didn’t know you were coming.”
Vic gave her a half-hug over their full arms. “You didn’t think I would let you spend all day in hospital and not check up on you, did you?”
In the past, she wouldn’t have doubted it. No matter what else was happening in their lives, they’d always looked out foreach other. But lately they’d seen less and less of each other. Ellie had invited Victoria out multiple times, only to be met with excuses—Vic was too busy, too tired, had a headache, was still at work—until Ellie had stopped asking. But she couldn’t say any of that. Not with Vic standing in her hallway, having come all the way to see her.
She smiled instead, leading the way indoors, and spoke over her shoulder, “You’re the best.” She meant it. Her best friend was with her, the pie was still warm, and the scent of rich butter and cinnamon-sugar rose through the air. It meant the world.
“So.” Vic grinned at her. It was a genuine smile, although she looked a little more brittle than usual. “Did they find a brain then?”
Ellie snorted as she grabbed a pair of bowls and started serving. “Probably would be more worrying if they did, right?”
“I don’t know.” Vic took out two glasses and poured the wine, moving around the kitchen with the comfort of long familiarity. “First time for everything.”
They both laughed as they carried their bowls and glasses through to the living room to settle into their usual places on the sofa.
They sat quietly, enjoying the hot pie and cold ice cream, before Vic met Ellie’s eyes, her expression serious. “How did it really go?”
Ellie swallowed a spoonful of choc-chip cookie dough ice cream and lifted a shoulder. “It wasn’t so bad.”
It had beenquitebad. Just the smell of the hospital made her start to sweat; she only had unpleasant memories associated with that sharp, antiseptic scent. Never mind spending the entire day there—alone—being jabbed with needles, poked and prodded, and even having to lie still in the claustrophobic MRI machine while it thudded and whirred. All while wondering whether they were going to find something deeply wrong withher. And she’d caught a cab there and back, which meant she’d felt completely out of control during the journey. It was difficult to see past the driver’s head, and he was singing along with the radio instead of concentrating. She’d almost asked him to bring her home so she could just drive her own damn car, panic attack or not.
Vic frowned at her, her gaze full of concerned understanding. “It was horrible then.”
“Yeah, it was horrible,” Ellie admitted before doing her best to lighten her tone. “But at least it was only for the day.” Unlike the last time she’d woken up in hospital—with two broken ribs, a punctured lung, and badly lacerated legs and arms. “And I didn’t have to stay the night.”
Vic huffed a rough agreement. “Why did you need to go back? Your message didn’t say, and I thought you were doing much better.”
Nissy stalked along the back of the sofa, bright eyes focused on the bowls of ice cream, and Ellie lifted her to sit on the cushion beside her, using the time to find the right explanation. One that didn’t give Vic any more reason to suggest she should sell her game. “I had some… visual disturbances,” she hedged.
Vic tilted her head to her side, chewing slowly. “Like a migraine?”
Not even vaguely. Unless a migraine looked like hot, brooding intruder who didn’t know his own name. She shook her head while she tried to work out what to say. “More like a weird kind of mirage.” That was a better word than hallucination, right?
Vic winced. “Sounds worrying. Do you have any ideas what caused it?”
“Not yet.” Who knew? Maybe something was very wrong. Or maybe it was stress, or a delayed response to the trauma. Or maybe she’d just lived in her own made-up world for too long.Or maybe it was real…. But she didn’t begin to know how to feel about that.
Vic patted her leg. “Are you better now, though? That’s the main thing.”
“It went away,” Ellie said quietly, instead of admitting the truth. She didn’t feel better. She wished hehadn’tgone away. She wanted him to have been real.
