Someone Who Isn't Me by Danuta Kot (romance novel chinese novels .TXT) 📕

Everything was back to normal. She could see the familiar faces from other evenings: Johnny Dip and his biker mates, the blonde woman, Sal Capone, with her hat tipped to cast a shadow over her face.

Poser.

They were there, but Andy wasn’t. As the evening wore on, she realised nothing was normal and it wasn’t going to be ever again, not for her.

It was all changed.

It was like looking at one of those pictures that you couldn’t make sense of, where suddenly it was one thing, then if you kept on looking at it, it became something else. She’d thought she’d known Andy. But she hadn’t known him at all.

She could still see him standing there against the bar, laughing over some daft joke, easy going, friendly.

‘Why don’t skeletons go trick or treating?’

‘I dunno. Why don’t skeletons go trick or treating?’

‘It’s because they have no body to go with.’

‘Oh, shut up.’

But it had been more than that. He looked out for her when he came through the door, gave her a quick smile that was for her, not for the people he hung out with – Johnny Dip and his mates, mostly. He’d told her to be careful – not the usual, Take care, that people said when what they meant was I don’t care, but like it really mattered.

He’d seen that things had been hard for her sometimes, and she’d thought, at the time, it made him sad. I don’t want to make more bad things happen in your life, he’d said, like he meant it.

More than anything, she wanted to ask him, Then why did you do it?

But she couldn’t. And now she’d never know.

‘Six fifty,’ she said to the punter she was serving. He passed her a tenner and she gave him his change. ‘Who’s next?’

‘Three Newcastle Browns.’ It was Johnny Dip himself, who’d been leaning on the bar as he waited, scanning a copy of the local free newspaper someone had left.

She popped the caps on the bottles. ‘Three Browns,’ she said, pushing them across the bar. ‘OK, that’s—’

‘I gave you a twenty.’ It was the person she’d just served, standing there brandishing the handful of change she’d just given him. Shit. It was a popular scam, to say you paid with a twenty when you’d only used a fiver or a tenner, and get the extra change. He’d only given her a ten, she was certain.

‘Just a minute.’ She was waiting for Johnny Dip to count his money out.

‘I haven’t got a minute. I want my money. Now.’

Becca could feel herself bristling. ‘I said. I’ll check. In a minute.’

Johnny Dip seemed in no rush to pay for the beer. He was watching the exchange with mild interest, absently rolling up the newspaper he’d been reading. ‘You see to this guy,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait.’

She glared at him, not wanting to look as though she was giving in. ‘OK.’ She banged open the till drawer and checked it. There was a tenner at the top of the pile of notes, the last thing she’d put in there. There was only one twenty, and it was right down at the bottom – no way had he paid with that.

He was trying it on. She looked round the pub for Carl, but there was no sign of him.

‘It was a ten,’ she said. And you’re a lying shit.

‘I gave you twenty.’

‘There’s no twenty here.’

He shoved his face forward. ‘You calling me a liar?’

Becca shrugged. Then she was pulled smartly against the bar, her stomach hitting the drip tray and making her gasp. The man had reached across and grabbed the front of her shirt. She could feel his fingers against her skin.

Touching her.

No one did that. No one.

Her hand groped under the bar and closed on the sharp knife Carl kept there for cutting fruit. ‘Get your hands off me.’ She was going to stick it into his arm and she was—

The man released her suddenly, making her stagger back. He was doubled over, clutching his stomach. His face, what she could see of it, was grey. His lips moved, but all that came out were croaking noises.

The knife dropped from her fingers and clattered onto the floor.

‘You know what, mate? You should just piss off.’ It was Johnny Dip, who was still leaning against the bar. The man looked at him, looked at Becca, opened his mouth to say something, changed his mind and staggered away still clutching his stomach.

No one else seemed to have noticed anything apart from Toby, who was coming across, looking alarmed. ‘Is everything OK?’ He spoke to Johnny Dip. ‘Was there a—’

‘Guy forgot his manners. It’s cool.’ Johnny Dip closed the thing down and Becca was glad. She didn’t want to explain anything, didn’t want everyone looking at her. The guy had grabbed her and she hadn’t been able to do anything. Johnny Dip had done something to stop him before she could use the knife. She’d wanted, really wanted to stick it right into his arm, rip it open so that…

And then the police would come.

Would they even listen?

Not to her.

She was shaking.

‘Hey, look, knives get you into trouble. Next time, just hit him with a newspaper. No law against carrying a newspaper.’ Johnny Dip was still leaning against the bar, smiling a bit as though he thought it was the best joke, the beer he’d bought still in front of him.

Becca glared at him. She knew she ought to say thanks or something, but… he was laughing at her.

‘It’s the truth. Don’t believe me?’ He grinned. ‘OK, I’ll show you.’

He held out the scrunched-up copy of the paper that he had been reading. When she looked at it, she could see it had been rolled up tightly and doubled over, just like it was going to be chucked away or something. But when she touched it, it felt solid, like a piece of wood. Hit someone in the gut with this – well, she’d seen what it could do.

He took it