Page 64 of Forever Summer

“Oh, yay. That sounds great. It will be good to get away for the weekend, do some male bonding, swap ghost stories, chant in the woods, hold a smoking ceremony or whatever you guys do.”

“Yeah.”

Oh my God, he wasn’t even laughing at my jokes; he really was rock bottom.

“Listen, I better go. I have to get all my stuff ready for the weekend, so …”

“Oh, okay, sure, um, you’re probably getting picked up at the crack of dawn.”

“Yeah, pretty early.”

“Okay, well, you get some sleep and call me when you get back.”

There was no immediate response; perhaps he was nodding his head. “Night,” he managed.

“Night.”

I held the phone to my ear, listening to the sound of the dial tone for the longest moment. Worried, deeply worried.

Thirty-Two

“The bloody doctor clearly has no bloody idea about bloody anything.”

I followed my mum who, despite a rather painful varicose vain problem in her right leg, still managed to storm through the hospital reception area pretty fast.

“April! Bloody April! I have to wait till then, can you believe it?”

“Nope, I can’t bloody believe it.”

“Don’t mock, Ellie,” Mum, snapped.

“I’m sorry, but can we please get something to eat, I’m starving.”

“I thought we were going to go to that place you liked?”

I stepped closer to Mum, accentuating the words so she clearly understood my desperation.

“If I don’t get something to eat I am going to bloody faint.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Ellie, no need to be so dramatic.”

Mum walked away, leaving me and my incredulous open mouth to follow.

Me? The dramatic one?

“And stop trying to catch flies,” she called over her shoulder, leading the way to the hospital cafeteria. It wasn’t exactly a flash city luncheon, but don’t be fooled. They had a mean butter chicken in the bain-marie.

Mum winced in pain, taking her chair. I actually felt really sorry for her; her whole existence seemed to be waiting lists and specialist appointments. If it wasn’t her tennis elbow, it was gallstones; she really had been in the wars during the past eighteen months. It was one of the greater reasons I delayed moving away from Onslow.

I checked my phone for the millionth time, hoping that Tess would have gotten back to me by now. I had left a rather sooky message on her phone last night in a desperate bid to find out what had been wrong with Adam, if she had known anything.

“Ellie, how many times do I have to tell you? Put it away.”

It was one of my mum’s absolute pet hates in life, for me to be texting during our time together. It was one of her rules, among many.

I sighed, pocketing my phone. “So, food. What do you want? I’ll get you something.”

Mum sighed some more, like the weight of the world rested on her shoulders.

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