The Guilty Friend by Joanne Sefton

Author:Joanne Sefton [Sefton, Joanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-05-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Misty

1988

Second years moved out of college, although for the most part they moved into college-owned houses in residential streets a few minutes’ walk away. They still generally ate in the buttery and the college cleaners still came round to make the beds. Although there was a little hysteria around the idea of living out, it was pretty obvious that Crocodile Dundee-level survival skills were not going to be required of them.

Misty, Alex and Karen had arranged to share a six-bed house with three other girls in their year. It seemed promising, but over the summer Alex had written to say she’d been readmitted to hospital. She’d blamed the stress of exams, and then not being able to get herself back on track afterwards. Her weight loss had dipped into the ‘danger zone’, she wrote, but her tone was as effusive as ever and she was insistent that she would be coming back and was looking forward to sharing the house.

Misty hoped she was right. She’d been shocked by the way Alex had tumbled back into her illness. However long she spent thinking about it, she found it impossible to understand her friend’s thought processes and motivations. Misty recognised that comments from other people could be unhelpful (and she was dismayed at the way Karen seemed to continually want to undermine Alex) but fundamentally Alex was the one who wasn’t eating: she was desperate to fix things, yet she couldn’t bring herself to do the tiny, simple thing that would fix everything.

But Alex had made it back. In her usual dramatic style, she’d arrived at the house four days after term had started. Eric Penrith blocked the road with an antique black Bentley that shone like a black beetle. His daughter emerged from the passenger side into the brittle October sunshine as a tiny black-clad frame topped with sunglasses and a billowing-bright silk scarf. When a driver stuck behind the Bentley honked his horn, she simply waved.

Following a deal struck with her director of studies, Alex was spending a long weekend at home at least twice during each eight-week term. She seemed to be managing, and had put on a bit of weight, although Misty wouldn’t dream of asking her how much. Now it was November and Alex was due back from a weekend at home. Misty was sitting at her desk with her textbooks spread out on the desk in front of her, staring out of the window looking for a Bentley.

The first time, Alex invited Misty and Karen to go home with her. Although she’d gone alone this time, there was still the prospect of seeing Eric when he collected Alex or dropped her off. The thought of it made it difficult to concentrate.

‘They’re coming!’ Karen’s voice sang down from her attic room. Misty heard her rushing down the two flights of stairs. Five minutes later her red hair was mingled with Alex’s curls as the pair of them huddled together on the sofa giggling at a magazine article that Karen had saved to show Alex.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.