After She Died by Collette Heather

Author:Collette Heather [Heather, Collette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-10-04T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

They ate at the little wooden table on the other side of the beam that separated the kitchen from the rest of the large room. The prawn salad was delicious, and dinner passed in a pleasant blur of light conversation. Cassie found herself unwinding and relaxing into his company – he really was so easy to get along with and for a moment, it was almost easy to pretend that she was just an ordinary girl without a care in the world, simply connecting with an interesting guy her own age.

Ethan was telling her about his family:

“I’m an only child. My parents moved up North to the Lake District. I visit them when I can, mainly at birthdays and Christmas. You know how it is. Oh God I’m so sorry. I’ve done it again, haven’t I?”

He looked visibly shaken from potentially having put his foot in it at the mention of parents. Cassie smiled reassuringly at him, in that moment genuinely not bothered by his faux pas because this was the first time that she had felt so relaxed in ages. In fact, now that she came to think of it, she felt positively fuzzed around the edges. Her mind felt fogged, her limbs heavy and relaxed.

“S’okay,” she said, mildly surprised rather than alarmed to find that she was ever-so-slightly slurring.

How much have I had to drink?

She put down her knife and fork, having had her fill of the prawn salad.

“So, tell me, what have you been up to today, then? If you don’t work, how do you fill your time?”

She focussed on his face, but truth be told, he was looking a little blurry. Under normal circumstances, his question may have brushed her up the wrong way, but she had too much of a buzz on to be irked.

“I…” she began, then stopped.

Because the truth was, she couldn’t quite remember. The tipsy unfurling of her mind aside, sometimes she got a bit hazy. Days had a habit of blurring into each other, especially when Hugh worked such long hours. There were times, like this very instance, when she simply could not remember details.

“I put a lot of work into doing the house up,” she said, picking her words carefully and finding it difficult not to trip over them. “Hugh gave me free rein to do what I wanted, and I put a lot of effort and thought into that. It took me a few years…”

She stopped speaking, fully aware of how lame and shallow she sounded.

“It’s completely understandable. Whatever gets you through. It’s all part of the healing process.”

“Yeah.”

Now she really was feeling rather odd. Her head was positively swimming.

“Are you okay?”

His voice seemed to drift to her from very far away and she stared hard at his face. He was definitely out of focus now, there was no two ways about it. She cupped the side of her face with her left hand, as if trying to collect her fragmented thoughts and now-spinning head.

“I don’t think I feel so great,” she mumbled, staring at her near-empty plate.

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