At First Sight Hannah Sunderland (free e books to read online txt) 📖

‘Shall I call you?’ I shouted after him.

‘No. No. Just …’ he replied ‘… don’t.’

Then he was off, walking into the darkness and leaving me confused on the driveway.

I would be lying if I said that I didn’t go straight upstairs, get into a shower that was too hot to be physically safe, and cry a little into the scalding water. The heart is like a rattlesnake in the way that if you leave it alone and don’t provoke it, it won’t hurt you. It’ll just carry on doing its thing, while you carry on doing yours. But once it senses danger, it begins preparations to protect itself. It remembers all the hurts that came before, the ones that almost destroyed it, and it knows that it can’t let that happen again. I’d provoked my heart again, letting it run away with itself on the childish idea that meeting a man in a café would be my happily ever after. But that was not how life worked in the real world. Maybe in the choruses of Eighties ballads or in the finale of TV shows, but life never came out that cleanly.

I turned my face up to the deluge of water that was almost too hot to bear and let it drum against my skin. I didn’t know what had happened to make him change so suddenly. It was as if he’d had a crisis of conscience, but I had no idea what had provoked it. What had that sudden guilt been about?

I hit the button on the shower and the water ceased to fall. I stood in the glass box for a minute or two, the water dripping from me like my whole body was crying.

A little over twenty-four hours ago, I hadn’t even known Charlie Stone, so why was I so upset?

I stepped out of the shower and wrapped myself in my fuchsia pink towel. A good sleep – that was probably all I needed and, in the morning, this would all be forgotten. I hoped.

Chapter Five

I had been wrong. A single sleep could not cheer me up, not even slightly. I sat on the sofa in my pyjamas after a poor night’s sleep, with my feet propped up on the coffee table and my bowl of Cheerios balanced on my boobs. I was knackered and had just wanted to stay in bed, but after waking up at the crack of dawn, I’d struggled to do anything other than lie there, staring up at my ceiling and getting gradually more annoyed at my sustained wakefulness.

I clicked the remote with my lazy left hand and found some mindless, colourful cartoon to numb my brain for twenty minutes.

‘You’re up early.’ Ned’s voice drifted into the room a moment or two before he appeared in the doorway. I spotted him in my peripheral vision, but didn’t turn. That would have been far too much effort. He walked over to the sofa and I looked up and found him eyeing me expectantly, his dark green tie lying limp and unknotted around his neck. ‘Go on then, what’s he like?’

I shoved a heaped spoon of cereal into my mouth and chewed down on the soggy little rings. ‘He’s like Prince Charming, but during a bad-boy phase where he joins a band and starts wearing jewellery.’

‘Okay, that was strangely specific.’

‘Yeah. Strange is the word I’d use too.’

‘Why?’ He paused but I didn’t answer. I didn’t know quite how to explain what had happened. ‘Well, at least give me a name. What did you do? How did it end?’ I didn’t need to look at him to know he’d sent a wink my way.

‘His name is Charlie and …’ I stopped and looked up at him with narrowed eyes. ‘We went to a bar, we almost kissed and then he ruined it all.’

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing happened. It was all going well and sparks were, you know, flying and whatnot. But then, abruptly he closed off, got kind of angry and then told me not to call him.’

‘Oh, and you have no idea what made him change his mind?’

I shook my head.

‘Did you eat in front of him? Because that would be enough to put any man off,’ he said in a vain attempt to lighten the mood.

‘Shut up.’ I managed a pathetic smile.

‘What did he get angry about?’

‘I have no idea. It was like he felt guilty about almost kissing me.’

Ned tilted his head in thought. ‘He’s not married, is he?’

I let out a long sigh and closed my eyes. ‘Shit. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.’ I scoffed at my own stupidity. ‘He’s married, isn’t he?’

‘Did he mention a wife or girlfriend?’ He perched himself on the sofa arm and fiddled with the ends of his tie.

I smacked my forehead with my palm. ‘No, but when I brought that up in conversation, he quickly changed the subject.’

‘It’s looking like you might have dropped the ball on this one, Nell.’

‘I’m a homewrecker. A skanky little homewrecker.’ I groaned in frustration. How had I even thought for one second that a man like that was single?

‘Don’t beat yourself up. If he is married then he’s the one who should be feeling stupid.’

‘He wasn’t wearing a ring.’ I thought back to the café when I’d seen the guitar callouses on his fingers. No, I don’t think I saw a ring. My hope flared.

‘Neither did I. Not every person does,’ he replied.

Hope, dashed.

My shoulders sagged.

‘Well,’ Ned said as he took hold of his tie and began knotting it, ‘even if he’s hitched, it was nice to see you getting out again. You’ve spent long enough doing whatever it is that you’re doing with that idiot, Joel.’ It was no secret that Ned didn’t think highly of Joel, not after those first few months when he’d show up outside the house. This one time he’d thrown pebbles at my window, only it wasn’t my window, it was Ned’s, and the pebbles