The Imposter, Anna Wharton [romantic story to read TXT] 📗

crinkles with confusion. Chloe almost sees her brain scrambling to make sense of the situation.

‘Chloe?’ she asks again.

And this time she has more time to answer, even to put on an accent.

‘Sorry?’

The wrinkles between the woman’s eyes fold further into her face as her brow furrows, and then she says it, just as Chloe knew she would.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, you just reminded me . . .’

But before she can finish her sentence, Chloe has rung the bell and the driver is slowing down. She runs down the stairs. Gets off the bus. She stands still at the bus stop. Her heart hammering against the inside of her coat.

It’s only when the bus pulls away and she sees it indicate left at the end of the road that her breath escapes her.

She looks around, not recognising this residential street where she has been dropped off. She has no choice but to wait for the next bus, so she takes her phone from her pocket and, with shaking hands, texts Hollie to let her know she’s going to be even later.

If truth be told, Hollie is the last person Chloe wants to see. And yet, she is the only person. As her best friend – as her only friend – Chloe knows she can see from her face something is wrong even as she approaches the table in the cafe. She is the one person who knows Chloe, really knows her, so well that she can’t fake it.

Hollie pushes her chair back and stands up as Chloe approaches.

‘What’s happened?’ Hollie asks.

It’s not that Chloe isn’t grateful for the concern written across her friend’s face, but she knows what’s coming next. What always comes next.

‘Is it Nan?’

Chloe shakes her head.

‘Well then, what? Chloe, you’re shaking.’

‘Just give me a second to sit down,’ Chloe says.

The cafe is not long from closing, and around them staff wipe down the last plastic tablecloths and stack chairs on top of empty tables. Her friend has seen her like this before, of course she has – she’s perhaps the only one – but Chloe needs to think, she needs to recompose herself. She can do this, she knows she can.

‘Shall I order you a drink?’ Hollie says, reaching for her arm across the table.

Chloe nods.

Hollie walks over to the counter and Chloe’s head falls into her hands. She looks up a moment later, gazing outside of the cafe and its steamy windows, at people bustling by. She’s looking again for that face in the crowd. She tells herself the woman has gone, that she’s on a bus heading in the exact opposite direction from where they are now. She even knows where she is heading, which street, which house, she can even remember the colour of her curtains. But she needs to be absolutely sure, she can’t relax. She’s hot. She takes her coat off, then pulls it back up over her shoulders.

Hollie returns to the table with a milky tea. She can already smell the sugars her friend has put into it for her.

‘Thought you might need something sweet,’ Hollie says. ‘They say it’s good for shock.’

‘Thanks.’ Chloe picks up the cup and takes a sip. It’s too hot, scalding her tongue, but she still drinks it.

Hollie doesn’t say anything, not at first. Instead she lets her friend recompose herself. But Chloe knows it’s coming, the interrogation.

‘Who was it?’ Hollie asks quietly and quickly.

Chloe’s eyes flicker up to meet hers and quickly duck away again.

‘It was nothing,’ she says, ‘nobody.’

‘Well, it obviously was—’

‘Can you just leave it, Hollie?’

Hollie sighs.

She reaches out for Chloe’s hand; they’re still shaking and she doesn’t want her friend to realize. She flinches away.

‘You can’t go on like this, Chloe, you know that, don’t you?’

Chloe says nothing.

‘All these people . . . they’re in the past now.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Chloe says quickly but quietly.

‘Chloe, you can’t carry on living like this.’

‘Look, it’s fine. It was nothing today. It was just . . . it was just . . . someone I thought I—’

Hollie lowers her voice: ‘Was it anyone I knew?’

Chloe shakes her head quickly.

‘Chloe, I know you don’t mean to . . .’

Hollie is irritating her now, picking at a scab that is already healing. She always does this. Why can’t she leave the past where it belongs? Her blood is burning now, hot and red. She takes another sip of her tea and thinks of Maureen. She would understand. But she can’t even tell Hollie that, and now she wants to cry because she feels so alone, so misunderstood. She wants to be back at Elm House, in the safety and sanctuary of Low Drove. She knows now why the Kyles picked such an isolated spot. So no one can find them.

Hollie tries to take both of her hands across the table. Chloe shakes them free, pushing her chair back. She just wants to be back at the Kyles’ house.

‘I shouldn’t have come,’ Chloe says.

‘Don’t be like that.’ Chloe sees that flicker of rejection on Hollie’s face and feels better somehow, stronger. It reminds her of the same expression that woman had on the bus. Confusion, a hint of hurt sitting beneath it.

‘Can we just talk about something else?’ Chloe says.

‘Of course,’ Hollie replies, although she sounds less sure as she twists her thumbs inside her hands. ‘It’s just these people, they needn’t be ghosts, they—’

That’s it. Chloe gets up from the table. The cup clatters in its saucer, tipping over and spilling what was left onto the floor.

‘Look at this mess you’ve made,’ Chloe snaps at her friend.

Hollie is instantly wounded and a couple of people look round in the cafe. Why did it have to be like this? Why couldn’t she have just left it like she asked?

‘I just wanted to help,’ Hollie says.

‘Well, you’re not helping, you never help, you just go on and on and on at me every time. But you don’t understand what it’s like. You think you do, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. I know what I’m doing. I know who I am.’

‘Chloe.’ She reaches for her friend, but