The Tens, Vanessa Jones [i like reading books .TXT] 📗

woman that they didn't have the energy to deal with herself? Did they see themselves in Sophie so much that it shocked them? Made them want to run away and not face the shadows inside themselves?

It's true. I'm going mad. Nope, I've already gone mad. Surely, because I've lost a little weight, haven't washed my hair in a little while and the dark circles under my eyes have turned from lilac to slate, that I'm not completely worth abandoning. Is it not uncommon to let yourself go a little when the love of your life leaves you? Is it?

Sophie pushed her face closer towards the car's review mirror, palms pressing into the steering wheel. She waggled her eyebrows and smoothed her hairline away from her forehead. Deep valleys of scar white skin remained where hair used to be. Pulling her hands away from her head she watched as with them came half a dozen strands of hair, lifeless strings that floated down like leaves.

She was going bald at age thirty.

Still stuck on Bree's behaviour as she drove home, Sophie noticed a faceless man driving behind her. At first, she thought— hoped— it was Alex. But it was hard to tell. The reflection of the glary day wiped out his features although she spotted him rubbing a darkened chin with the back of his hand. The rest of his face was erased by his black forward wheeled drive. Sophie didn’t like the way his car is leering close to the edge of hers so she sped up, to see what the car would do. After a short moment, the car behind her seemed to speed up too. Which could have been totally instinctual and automatic on the driver’s behalf. Especially if they were in a hurry to get somewhere. But there was a gnawing in her gut that convinced otherwise. Instinctively, she shut off the radio to heighten her vigilance. When she ducked down a small residential side street, the sleek black car behind her sharply turned into the same street. That was all the proof Sophie needed.

She quickly rounded a corner into a smaller street lined with cream houses that all bore turrets of rose bushes, bumping her back tyre on the kerb as she missed the angle in her flight. Despite being terrified that someone would unwittingly step out in front of her, she sped up as fast as her sensibilities would allow. But her speed was halted short with a jerk of her foot on the brakes causing an alarming screech. The movement was enough to dislodge the hair from behind her ears and she gasped as the seatbelt squeezed her tight. A dead-end street. There was no one else in the street until two front doors either side of her flung open to investigate out the noise. Carefully and slowly, she made a big effort of turning her car around the cul de sac and headed where she came from, embarrassed to see that no car was following her.

Turning right out of the rose lined cul de sac before anyone would dare yell at her for disturbing their suburban peace, she spotted the dark car waiting, sandwiched in between two parked cars. She had a split second to decide whether to turn left and head back to the main road, pull up beside and confront him or speed past him. None of the options would give her any answers or seem to calm her racing heart down. In a moment of bravery, she shot past and blasted her horn at him. Just so he would know that she knew. 'I can fucking see you,' she said behind the safety of her car windows.

But she was wrong. She couldn't see him because as she blurred past, it wasn't a him at all. It was a woman. Although she couldn't really see into the driver's seat properly, she saw the unmistakable thin face and shoulder length hair of a woman and slim fingers resting on the steering wheel. Flicking her eyes to her mirror, the car didn't bother to follow her any further and Sophie began to feel a wave of humiliation as her heart went back to its regular beats.

Of course, no one was following me. Why on earth would they? A mere coincidence is all.This paranoia is going to kill you Sophie. She chided herself.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It wasn't long before Sophie was back ready to empty herself to Carla. An emergency appointment was arranged the next day, at Carla's insistence, after she briefly explained on the phone about her paranoia about the car following her. Even sketching it out loud with her words made her realise how untethered to reality she was. In moments.

Sophie scuffed her shoes across the welcome mat and embraced the pungent incense that clung to her hair the moment she stepped inside the reception room. Her days were empty without Alex but therapy quickly gave her a sense of something that neared purpose.

The therapy room door was open. Carla didn't get up from her chair and called for Sophie from the cave of her office. Her smile was so warm that it pricked Sophie's eyes a little. How could a person that barely knew her, have such softness for her? Even after all her delusions and hallucinations had been revealed. I guess that's what you do when you're getting paid, she thought. Which reminded Sophie that she would soon have to work out a way to get an income. Without Alex and her job, she was unsure how the bills would get taken care of.

Carla bent over the low coffee table that sat between them and waved her hand over a mug of urine coloured water which was emitting cylinders of steam. 'I made you a lemon and ginger tea. I know that's your favourite.' Carla gave her a reassuring wink. It certainly was her favourite. Or it was