Save Her, Abigail Osborne [ebook reader for surface pro txt] 📗

dear was in jagged pieces floating around her feet and she just couldn’t put it back together again.

Her brain tried to break it down. Her friend was being beaten up by her husband. Sam knew about it but was pretending that he didn’t. Greg denied he had done anything – of course.

Then there was the whole someone putting worms on her and trying to drown her in the pool debacle. She had not thought about that in so long because she had been consumed by Sophie. Now she thought about it, she was relieved nothing had happened to her since the note. She wouldn’t have been able to cope with any more.

She fingered the necklace. It had been given to her to scare her, but she found it comforting to wear something so similar to what her mother had worn. It made their connection stronger. It calmed her mind and made her feel less alone. Her marriage was crumbling; the good man she thought she had married was actually an immoral coward. She tried to focus on that as it was much easier to think about leaving Sam when she hated him.

Looking around the garden, she took a big swig of wine. She had always known she would be leaving this house but she had never imagined that she would be leaving Sam as well. Tonight will be my last night here, she vowed. Tomorrow, I will find Sophie and we will leave.

Another message from Sophie lit up on her Fitbit. Why wouldn’t she leave her alone? She needed this night to wallow. To grieve for her marriage. For her centre. For the beautiful children with autism she was teaching who could not cope with change, who would not understand why their teacher, one of the few people who understood them had upped and vanished in the night. A solitary tear ran down her cheek, dropping onto her jeans. She wiped at her eyes. The trail from the tear felt eerily like the slime left behind by the worm on her face. Shivering, Flora tried to quieten her mind. Stroking the necklace again, she finished her glass of wine and poured herself another. It was a Chateau Petrus, 2014. As much as she spurned the wealth Sam came from, she would miss the fine wines she had become accustomed to.

Again, her Fitbit notified her of a message from Sophie. It seemed she would get no respite from the crazy world. She picked up the bottle and her glass and weaved unsteadily back into the house. The wine was working its way around her body, loosening her up deliciously. Her phone was in her bedroom and she made her way slowly up to it. She did not want to see what Sophie had to say. Nothing she heard was good anymore.

As she moved through the house she stopped every now and then to say a mental goodbye. As much as she never felt at home here, it had been the place she had been her happiest. She stopped halfway up the staircase, remembering Sam tackling her to the floor on this very spot. She couldn’t even remember why, all she remembered was the laughter that rang off the walls. Her face broke out in a smile despite how morose she felt. They had been so happy. So confident in their future, together forever. But his love of his family had broken everything.

Tipping the bottle, she dripped red wine up and down the steps. She almost wished she could be there when Cecelia saw a £2,000 bottle of wine had been spilt on the carpet she had chosen for her favourite son. She leant closer, fascinated as the red liquid spread across the carpet. It looked like dried blood. Her Fitbit buzzed again and she sighed, taking another gulp out of the bottle, seeking the sweet oblivion only excessive drinking could bring. With each swig she felt the neurons in her brain going to sleep, no longer allowing her to worry about the state her life was in. The alcohol was drowning out her worries and relaxing every muscle in her body. She made her way up to her room, stopping frequently for more sips of wine.

Reaching the bedroom, she tossed the empty bottle on the bed and looked around for her phone. It was charging on the bedside table. She stumbled over to it, the world feeling fuzzy around the edges. Sophie had sent her several messages, but she was struggling to focus on the screen, so she called Sophie instead. ‘Well, hello there, Sophie-wophie.’

Silence greeted her words. Flora began to giggle. Why had she never realised before what a great sense of humour she had?

‘Flora.’ Sophie said her name with such pain and desperation that it instantly sobered her.

‘What’s wrong, Soph?’

‘He tried to kill me.’

Flora’s eyes welled up in response to Sophie’s gut-wrenching sobs. Her heart hurt and she wanted nothing more than to wrap Sophie in her arms.

‘He tried to strangle me to death. The pain. I can barely move. It hurts to breathe.’ Sophie began to cry again in earnest this time. Flora didn’t know what to do. Her brain was addled from the wine, all she knew was that an unbridled anger burned within her stomach. She threw the wine bottle with all her strength and it smashed against the wall like an explosion of blood, stark against the white wall. Trails of dark red stained the wall as each drip obeyed gravity’s pull.

‘What was that?’ Sophie seemed very jumpy.

‘Nothing. Listen, where are you?’ Anger was bubbling dangerously inside her, fuelled by the alcohol. It was amazing that she used to be so angry at Sam for his inability to see his mother for who she was, when she had been unable to see what was going on under her very nose. She should have looked harder, listened to that unease she had felt in Greg’s presence. Flora had never liked Greg, but she had never thought