Shame on You: The addictive psychological thriller that will make you question everything you read online by Heydenrych Amy & Heydenrych Amy

Author:Heydenrych, Amy & Heydenrych, Amy [Heydenrych, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction
Published: 2017-12-14T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 31

Holly then

It starts with a lump. She feels it before bed while standing naked in front on the mirror. It is hard as muscle, unmistakable.

She lies in bed that night, breathless and restless. Reading doesn’t help, nor does trying to think of something else. Her grandmother died of breast cancer, so did her aunt. At the back of her mind, she always expected one day it’d be her turn. Now, her fingers find their way to the lump until she has memorised its size and shape. She thinks, here it is, the moment everything changes.

The next day she skips breakfast and rushes out of the house before her mother can ask any questions. She holds her breath on two buses, wishing one of the bastards sitting down could give her their seat. She’s a sick person now, she needs it. I could faint right here, she thinks, then they would all be sorry.

The bus arrives at the Royal Devon Hospital without incident. Without an appointment, waiting to speak to a GP takes hours. Hours she doesn’t have, as she looks at the clock. It’s already 10 a.m., the time she usually unlocks the shop. She feels the vibration in her pocket, over and over again. She ignores it. Let them wait.

Later, she arrives at the shop dead-eyed and quiet. Nothing will be the same again.

‘Holly! Where the fuck were you? Do you know what trouble it was to find another key? And we already had customers outside the door waiting for the new Ivy Park merchandise!’ Andrea, the store’s deputy manager, fumes before her. She could have got Holly’s job last year, but Holly got the break instead. Any mistake now takes a lifetime to live down.

‘I had an emergency, OK?’

The other shop assistants circle, feigning disinterest. They smell a brawl and know which horse they’re backing. The stronger one.

‘Actually, Holly. It’s not OK. Tell us where the fuck you were. We have a right to know.’ Come to think of it, Andrea should have been manager. She is edgier, more in touch with what the cool girls want. Her hair is dyed pink this month – she flicks it now for maximum impact.

‘Ands, I said leave it. It’s private.’

She stands still.

‘No.’

So she gathers them around and in their tightly spun circle shares the devastating news.

Holly has breast cancer. The very first lie. It came out so simply when they were standing there wide-eyed and speechless. It was like they wanted to hear it. Telling them that she had a lump in her breast that may or may not be cancer was more confusing, less dramatic. It didn’t feel quite bad enough to earn their sympathy.

Their arms fold around her. Their tears soak into her shirt. Andrea tells her to go home, please, take some time to process all of this. For the first time, she feels like the only girl in the room.

She has to have surgery to get the lump removed. This is a small, harmless procedure that involves cutting out the mass and a biopsy to confirm there was no evidence of cancer.

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