Page 57 of Lilly
Five minutes before my flat, Lucas suddenly sits forward. “Can you pull in here?” heasks.
The driver pulls the car to a stop in the petrol station as Lucas reaches for thehandle.
“Where are yougoing?”
He doesn’t answer. He just gets out and I watch as he walks over to the twenty-four hour servicewindow.
Two minutes later and he’s sat back in the car like nothing happened. He doesn’t say anything or give away where his thoughts mightbe.
I get out of the taxi while Lucas pays the driver. I head straight for the front door but Lucas hangs back. When I turn around, I see why. He’s pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and is in the middle of lighting oneup.
“Since when do you smoke?” I ask. I didn’t say anything when I saw him doing it last night. It was the first time I had seen or smelt any indication that it was a normal thing for him todo.
“Since I was about nine,” he mutters around the cigarette now hanging between his lips. “I’ll meet youupstairs.”
When I get in my flat, I’m relieved to see that Taylor’s door is open and the room is empty. Lucas and I need to talk and it would be better if we werealone.
Reluctantly, I put the folder down on the coffee table before getting changed into something more comfortable. I go to the kitchen and make myself a hot chocolate, hoping the warm sugar will be exactly what I need, and then I make Lucas a coffee. I take them both into the living room and sit down on the sofa to wait forhim.
After thirty minutes, I start to get concerned. Surely he’s puffed himself through enough fags to start getting his head together? I know he’s struggling with this. I could see it in every one of his features, but apparently this is happening, so we need to start discussingit.
I put on some shoes before making my way down to find him. On the way to the elevator, I can’t help but look at the stairwell. It’s a weird feeling. I thought everything that happened there that day had changed my life completely. But here I am with the one thing, or two, that I thought had been taken away from meforever.
Quickly pulling myself from my thoughts, I enter the lift when the doors open and head down. When I push the door open, a rush of cold night air hits me, reminding me that it’s still early summer and here I am in only a vest top and a pair of thin pyjama bottoms. When I look around, it seems to be empty. Where ishe?
I walk around the corner of the building in the hope he’s sat himself on the one benches out here, but it’sempty.
My heart starts to beat a little too fast as a feeling of dread starts to settle in mystomach.
He’sgone.
Tears start pouring down my cheeks, but the events of the evening prevent me from crying properly. I think I’m in shock. This can’t behappening.
I run around the building and through the car park looking for him, just in case I’m wrong, but I know I’m not. I know he’s gone. I can feelit.
I clutch my stomach as I look up to the stars above me. What am I going to donow?
When the cold starts to get too much, I make my way back up to the flat. The sight of the two mugs sat on the coffee table next to the maternity folder I was given tip me over the edge and I collapse into the sofa. Whole body sobs engulf me as I replay the events of the night that led to thismoment.
Theconfusion.
Thedisbelief.
Thejoy.
Thedevastation.
I can’t focus on the joy. It’s too early. I still don’t believe it’s actually true. It’s the pain of being abandoned after everything that happened in the last twenty-four hours or so that overtakes every otherfeeling.
At some point, I must cry myself to sleep, because a loud banging on the front door wakes me. I jump off the sofa and run to the door, hoping that it’s going to be Lucas, that he needed a few hours to get his head straight, but he’s back and everything is going to beokay.
Before I pull the door open, I brush my hair back with my fingers and rub the sleep from my sore, cried outeyes.
The person standing before me when I do open the door isn’t the person I was expecting or hoping for, but it is a very welcome sight. I fall forward into his arms and the sobbing starts all overagain.
“Thank God you’re okay,” he whispers in my ear as he holds me tight. “I’ve been going out of my mind all night. You weren’t answering your phone, but I knew something was wrong. You scared the shit out of me again,Lilly.”
Eventually, I compose myself enough to stand back and look at mybrother.
