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

impressed and Sophie would be so appealing, that Alex would reclaim his stake in their family and never deviate. He didn't even have to know that Sophie ever went through this unhinged phase. And this is definitely just a phase, she reminded herself.

Leaving her session with Carla feeling lighter, a spring had almost found its way into her step. It was an honest mistake; two keyrings could look the same.

As she came up to her car, Sophie stuck her hand in her pocket to find her keys. Her hand touched the piece of paper she found in Alex’s clothes with Carla’s address on it. It sat in her hand like a dead moth, reminding her of the anxiety and confusion she previously felt and she admonished herself for forgetting about it and not confronting Carla.

Looking around her, she made a split-second decision and spotting a sports clothing store, she ran into it. After a few minutes, she runs out with a new stiff cap and a heavy charcoal coloured cashmere scarf wound around her neck and hair to obscure her identity somewhat from a distance. If Alex visited Carla’s office, she wanted to be able to get as close to him as possible before he recognised her. She just needed to see his face. Whatever he truly felt for her, it would be held there. If he knew that leaving was a mistake and he didn't know how to come back to her, she would see it in the droop of his eyelids, the dourness of his mouth. If he was besotted with another, his eyes could never lie. Something within her, bubbling up from the middle of her bowel wanted her to pay attention. But the more she ignored the thought, tried to reason with it, logic it away. But it was no use. The stronger she fought with it, tried to meld it into another thought, the stronger it revolted. The thought was that Alex was having an affair with Carla. He had to have been. It explained the late nights at work, the distance he put between them, the paper with her office address on it. The similarity in keyrings only compounded Sophie’s belief more.

Sophie sat waiting in her parked car, near Carla's office, in amidst afternoon shoppers', in the boutique supermarket's car park. No one came or went from the office. There was certainly no sign of Alex. And Sophie's phone still remained unrung. The only movement was the increasing hurricane winding itself up inside her. The thin nights and the flaking off of her identity had left her weak; her legs and eyelids painfully heavy.

As five o’clock slipped by, Sophie had all but resigned herself to another night of mediocre wine, punishing nightmares and unanswered questions and she watched Carla, with assured hands, lock her office and slide towards her own car. The bright copper oval keyring hung from between her fingers. It was all Sophie could look at as she decided she was going to follow Carla home and confront her, and Alex, about their affair.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The day was grey all around them and Sophie was desperate not to lose sight of those devil red eyes of Carla’s brake lights that would lead her to wherever she was going. Home, she assumed. Sophie kept flicking her eyes back to the numbers on Carla's number plate and she it repeated over and over in case it slipped far away out of her mind. If she could just get a look at the keyring one more time, touch it, see it up close, she could be certain. If it really is new and not Alex's, I'll forget about this forever and can move on, she promised herself.

After both cars passed too many intersections and the city slipped further away, Sophie fumbled for her phone on the passenger seat, eyes still trained on Carla's car up ahead. 'Current location,' she requested from her phone, who parroted the name of the suburb that seemed only vaguely familiar. Fuck it, she thought. I'm doing this. And sat a reasonable distance from the back of Carla's car for a lot longer than seemed like a typical evening commute. When the grey cinder block buildings began to turn to dry pale yellow paddocks, Sophie was sure that Carla knew someone was following her and was just taking the piss. Making the follower drive along until they got bored or ran out of petrol.

It had been a long fruitless day for Sophie and she had convinced herself that Carla and Alex were, somehow, linked. And getting hold of that keyring would prove it, either way. The more she mentally chewed on it, the less it seemed likely that Alex was a patient. Sure, he was stressed at work the last time Sophie had seen him but nothing he couldn't manage. He certainly didn't appear to be unravelling into the state that Sophie had found herself in. The image of the two having an affair also looked starkly wrong in her mind’s eye. But the relief of explanation would soothe her. Once she knew for sure. The unknown was doing nothing but fuel the hallucinations, the midnight voices and the nightly escapades that ran her dreamscape. She was drained. And any kind of answers that she could find, no matter how disturbing, would provide her with some chunk of peace that she'd been hungering for.

Ahead, Carla's red lights grew brighter as she came up to a fence on the side of the road. Sophie kept driving past her as inconspicuously as possible, her head and spine straight, like she was about to be told off in a classroom. The red eyes dimmed in her rearview mirror as they waggled their way up a hill beyond the fence.

'Current location?'

'I'm sorry,' her phone said unapologetically, 'I am having trouble with your request.'

She tried ringing Alex again for good measure but