At First Sight by Hannah Sunderland (latest novels to read TXT) 📕

doing. These are high-risk, uncharted waters for you, for most people, but your job isn’t to fix him, it’s to let him know that it is possible to be happy again. As far as jealousy is concerned, you don’t need to be jealous because you’re not in competition with Abi. He’s not got a notebook with your names in columns, ticking off things that each of you are better at.’ He unfurled his hands and reached one over, resting it on my mine. ‘This was never going to be easy, Nell. But if anyone can handle it, it’s you.’

I stared at him for a moment, a nervous energy making me feel as if I might cry. I swallowed down the tears and squeezed his fingers.

‘Damn, you’re good. You know that?’ I said. He chuckled and retracted his hand.

‘You’re a badass, Nell. Don’t for a second think that you can’t do this.’

I picked my spoon back up and stirred my congealing chilli, the next sentence forming in my brain, but my mouth was reluctant to spill it.

‘What?’ Ned asked. ‘I know there’s more.’

I looked back up and met his eyes. ‘It’s nothing. I just had a call the other day and I wanted to ask you about it. It wasn’t something I’d heard of before.’

‘I don’t know how much help I’ll be but, sure, fire away.’ He sat back in his chair, crossing his arms and listening with interest.

‘So, it was this person who was feeling guilty about something and they started seeing … things.’

‘What kind of things?’ he asked.

The chair next to him was suddenly filled with the glaring form of Abigale Murphy, her hair coiffed to ludicrously glamorous standards, her lips glossed and pouting as she rested a nonchalant chin upon a crooked hand. Yeah, Nell. What kinda things? she sassed.

I took a deep breath and turned my attention back to Ned, who was eyeing the chair beside him with a worried frown.

‘People that weren’t, you know, there.’ I looked back down at my chilli and pushed around a particularly huge kidney bean with my spoon.

Ned sighed, racking his brain for a moment before answering, ‘Hmm, not sure. Could be that these delusions, for lack of another word, could be a manifestation of their guilt, a way of dealing with it all because they don’t otherwise know how to combat it? Things like this usually come down to delusional disorder or psychosis.’

Fantastic, I thought, glancing over at Abi, who was grinning at me manically. ‘Yeah, yeah. That’s what I thought.’ I said.

‘The human mind is a complicated place. It’ll never stop surprising you.’ He stood and went over to the sink where he doused his bowl with water.

I took a deep breath, squeezing my eyes shut and then looking back to the chair that I hoped would be empty, but there she still was, staring at me with malevolent glee. She cackled. Yer can’t get rid of me that easily.

At seven fifteen, the doorbell rang and I found myself uncommonly nervous. I pulled open the door and found Charlie’s deadpan stare, his eyelids half closed in a look of pure exasperation. In his hands he held Carrick’s hot pink suitcase, a black backpack of his own and a large carrier bag containing what looked like a plastic box.

‘Hey,’ I said, checking around us for unwanted apparitions of dead wives and thankfully finding none. ‘Where’s Carrick?’

‘He’ll be along. Eejit’s just getting the cat out from under the driver’s seat,’ he replied, stepping into the hallway and dropping his bags down onto the floor.

‘I’m sorry, did you just say, the cat?’

I looked down the drive at the taxi that idled against the kerb. The driver gesticulated angrily as Carrick flailed about in the back seat. A few seconds passed as I watched in awe, before Carrick emerged with a disgruntled Magnus in his outstretched hands. Carrick shouted one last insult at the driver who brushed the back of his hand under his chin in a physical insult before driving away.

‘Success!’ Carrick bellowed as he jogged up the drive, holding the cat at arm’s length like an unstable grenade. Ned sauntered into the hall just as Carrick made it to the door.

‘Ah!’ Carrick exclaimed as he stepped inside. ‘You must be Ned.’

‘I am,’ Ned said, warily. ‘And you must be Carrick.’ He looked down at the cat with worried brows.

‘Right yer are.’ Carrick thrust Magnus in his direction. ‘Take the beast, will yer? Before I lose a pinkie.’

Ned, ever obedient, did as he was told and held Magnus to his chest. The cat instantly looked more at ease and quickly found his way up to Ned’s shoulder, where he curled around the back of his neck and settled down with a quiet purr.

‘Would yer look at that, Boyo,’ Carrick said over his shoulder to an incensed-looking Charlie. ‘We’ve managed t’find the one man on the planet that the little fecker likes.’ Carrick took the plastic bag from Charlie and handed it to Ned. ‘Here’s some food and a litter tray, complete with brand-new, shite-free litter. Don’t say we don’t treat yer well.’ He winked at Ned and then walked over to his nephew, slapping him affectionately on the shoulder. ‘So, that’s the cat sorted. Where do you want us?’

Chapter Sixteen

The fear of embarrassing myself in front of Charlie was about the only thing keeping me from hyperventilating as I glanced out the window of the plane. A jolt of panic struck me square in the chest as I saw the cloud-speckled world so very far below me, but I just took a deep breath and reminded myself that it wasn’t long until we’d be back on the ground. Although, I tried not to think about the landing part. I hated the landing part. Once I was in the air, I was fine. It was just the going up and coming down that made me want to cry like Ned when presented with a Bridget Jones box set.

My knuckles were still