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

She smiled at me with her crimson, Cupid’s bow lips and soft brown eyes. ‘This is Charlie Stone we’re talkin’ about. Nothin’ with him is ever easy. Now come along, these tiny sausages aren’t goin’ to arrange themselves around some ketchup.’

Chapter Twenty-Four

I sat on a short set of stone steps and stared out into Siobhan’s large garden and imagined the young versions of Abi and Charlie settling down on the grass after their first attempt at taming the wild beast that had once been this now expertly pruned garden. How could they know back then that they would make such an impact on each other’s lives? I guess there’s no confetti cannons or marching bands when the most important people unwittingly stroll into your life. I placed my half-empty glass of Prosecco down on the low stone wall beside me, and wondered how much longer Charlie and Carrick were going to be. I was starting to get anxious, but I kept telling myself that he needed to take his time with this.

Yer were in town and yer never even popped in to say hello.

I sighed into my palm and saw her, lounging nonchalantly on the steps beside me. Abi was shaking her head in forced disappointment.

‘Are you actually here?’ I asked, turning to look at her face on and seeing her as clearly as I saw the steps beneath her. ‘Or am I having some sort of psychotic break?’

I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.

‘Yes, you do. You’re inside my brain, as you like to remind me so often. So, tell me, am I really talking to you or am I going insane?’

She exhaled loudly through her nose and looked down the length of the garden. Who knows? The only thing I’m sure of is that either way, people look at yer funny whenever yer talk to me.

I heard a clattering of plates and turned towards the kitchen window where Siobhan and Kenna stood at the sink. Siobhan was crying, her face pressed into her daughter’s shoulder, her body juddering as sobs racked her.

‘Poor woman,’ I whispered.

Always the mourner, never the corpse, Abi said sadly. God knows she wishes we could swap places.

‘If she’s back then that must mean that Charlie is too,’ I said, my heart leaping a little as I stood. I took my Prosecco flute in hand and began scanning the crowd inside.

Tell my husband that I appreciate the effort, she called, making me stop and look back her way. She was staring down the garden now, her eyes half hooded with what looked like sadness. He’ll be able to let go of it someday and when he does, I’d like it to be with me. I frowned her way and wondered what the hell she meant. She was inside my head, a manifestation of my prickling conscience; she wasn’t meant to say things that I didn’t understand.

I walked back into the house and nodded politely to the faces that sent me smiles and greetings, but none of those faces were Charlie’s.

I walked into the kitchen where Siobhan and Kenna stood at the counter, having some alone time under the guise of making tea for the guests. ‘Hi,’ I said nervously. Siobhan turned to me with a sad smile and red-ringed eyes, her lower lashes still clumped together with tears. I opened my mouth to ask the questions that people ask at times like this like, ‘are you okay?’ and ‘how did it go?’ but those questions seemed silly right now. So instead I asked, ‘Are Carrick and Charlie back too?’

‘No, love. They decided to walk home. Takes the best part of an hour, so give ’em some time,’ she said, her voice soft and wavering with bridled emotion. ‘Tea?’

‘No, thank you,’ I said, holding up the glass of Prosecco.

‘Let me get that for yer,’ Kenna said, topping up the glass.

Almost an hour and a half passed by and I felt every single second of it like a knife twisting in my gut. I spent the time hovering by the window, drinking glass after nervously drunk glass of Prosecco and nibbling on cooled samosas and triangular ham sandwiches when I began to feel a little light-headed.

Hovering by the buffet table in the front window was a good place to keep watch for Charlie and Carrick’s return, but the downside was that I kept being pulled into small talk with grey-haired, round-bellied men who returned to the table every twenty minutes or so to replenish their paper plates with more smoked salmon and miniature quiches. Why is it that all buffet tables smell the same? The miasma of slowly staling bread, margarine and cake frosting that come together to create the same scent, no matter if you’re at a funeral or a fifth birthday party.

The fear that something had happened to Charlie, or rather that Charlie had happened to Charlie, had begun around an hour ago, but I took solace in the knowledge that Carrick was with him.

I pulled my phone out of my bra and checked the screen again: no texts, no responses to the message I’d sent him. I cleared my throat in frustration and emptied what little was left in my glass. I wandered towards the kitchen, the front of my shoes pinching my toes more and more as time wore on. I was almost at the kitchen when I heard a familiar and overtly loud voice. I turned towards it and saw that Carrick was stood in the centre of the room with a slightly drunk look in his eyes and a group of people around him who all seemed to be laughing at something he’d said. I spotted Ava and Eoin over in the corner, looking embarrassed about the attention he was demanding from the whole room.

‘You two took your time. Where’s Charlie?’

‘Dunno, I just got here,’ he said.

‘You haven’t been with him?’ I asked, my