The Toxic Friend by J. A. Baker

Author:J. A. Baker [Baker, J. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books

Driven on by anger and frustration, and carried along by the tide of people, Celia is over the bridge and almost at Eva’s door before she knows it. Dragging out the card, she checks the address one more time, even though she knows it off by heart and has Googled it at least ten times.

Wandering along the side street, she counts the numbers on the doors, wanting to be certain she gets the right one. She purses her lips. The numbers don’t run consecutively and many of them have annexes round the back and holiday lets attached. Jesus, all these tiny winding streets and higgledy-piggledy houses piled on top of one another. Why is this place so fucking confusing?

Feeling her anger building, she steps back and mentally counts them again, her eyes dancing along the rows of doors and windows, some modern, many refurbished, all of them exasperating and bloody confusing with their hidden numbers and unfathomable, concealed entrances.

The noise catches her by surprise. She is so unaccustomed to its ringtone that at first, she is convinced that it’s music from one of the arcades over the river or a child’s nearby toy, or anything at all, but not her phone. It’s the vibration in her pocket that finally alerts her to the fact that it’s ringing. Her palms are slick with sweat as she grapples with it and sees the name that is there right in front of her, flashing up on the screen. Eva.

Blood drains from Celia’s head and she wishes there was somewhere nearby so she could sit down – a bench, even a doorstep would do right now.

Eva is finally calling her. At long last. After all this time, with the worry and heartache Celia has endured, all the running around and endless messages, Eva is about to break her silence. And not before time.

Celia’s heart practically crawls up her throat as she drags her fingers across the screen and tentatively answers the call, her voice weak and scratchy with shock.

‘Eva?’

She is greeted with a drawn-out silence, then a barely audible sigh.

‘Celia, what exactly do you want?’ The ice in Eva’s voice catches Celia unawares. It takes her a couple of seconds to reply. Her eyes are wide with shock and the words when she says them feel disjointed and disconnected, as if they’re coming from somebody else.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d moved? I went to London looking for you.’ She doesn’t want to plead with her but can’t seem to help herself. She is feeling desperate. This is her chance to break through Eva’s armour, to penetrate the steel bars she has surrounded herself with. It’s now or never. She has to get this right.

‘Look, Celia, I can’t keep doing this with you. Not any more. You know this. We both know it.’

Celia feels a sickness take hold in the pit of her stomach. She needs to take back control. This is typical Eva. This is what she does. She commandeers situations and twists them around to suit her own ends.

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