Loving Danny by Hilary Freeman

Author:Hilary Freeman [Freeman, Hilary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781848123229
Publisher: Piccadilly Press

Chapter 10

Sunday was the longest day. I itched to call Danny checking my mobile and my watch every few minutes, wondering if it was too soon to call, whether he would be home yet, if he would ring me. I ate lunch with my parents, went for a walk in the park, bought myself a glossy magazine and read it page by page. Still, I heard nothing. By five p.m., I was restless and sick with nerves, fussing with my hair and my clothes and chewing the skin around my fingernails. The words I had confidently planned – and rehearsed – to say to Danny no longer seemed appropriate. Like any words repeated too often, they had become meaningless, nonsensical, a jumble of syllables and sounds. ‘Hi Danny,’ I had intended to say. ‘I’m so glad you’re back. Haven’t we been a couple of idiots? I’ve missed you and can’t wait to see you.’ But the longer I waited, the more my courage deserted me. I was afraid that if I dialled his number and he replied, all that would come out of my mouth was ‘Dannyyyyyyyy . . .’

The way things were, it would not have been sensible to send him another text. It’s so hard to choose the right words, to make sure they don’t have any other, unintended meanings. You can text something with one tone of voice in mind and it will be read in quite another. And, even at the best of times, Danny, always perceptive, had a tendency to analyse everything, to read between the lines. That day, even the inauspicious use of a question mark could have made things a hundred times worse.

Why hadn’t he called? Surely he must be home by now. Had he met somebody else in Brighton? Had something happened – a fight, an accident? Was he lying in a hospital somewhere, alone and frightened, unable to call me? I knew I was letting my imagination run away with me, but the idea that he was injured seemed preferable to the alternative explanations: that he simply didn’t want to talk to me, or worse, that he was over me.

At about seven in the evening, I put on my coat and told my parents I was going to the twenty-four-hour garage up the road to buy some cotton wool so I could paint my toenails. I couldn’t think of any other reasonable-sounding excuse for going out on a cold and rainy Sunday evening. I figured that the walk would kill a good twenty minutes.

I was about to open the front door when I noticed a small, white envelope lying on the doormat. That’s odd, I thought. We don’t get post on a Sunday. It didn’t look like a pizza-delivery flyer or a leaflet advertising window cleaning services. I bent down to pick it up and, on turning it over, saw that it was addressed to me. There was no stamp, just my name and address, handwritten. I recognised the writing immediately: it was Danny’s.

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