Second Chances Box Set

by Jason Ayres

  I was all alone but I didn’t care. This was pure self-indulgence and I was going to squeeze as much out of the experience as I could. I was getting such a buzz out of it that my hangover soon disappeared and even my cold seemed to abate. It was amazing what a little pampering could do for the body and soul.

  As the day wound down, and I glugged down £150 bottles of wine, in my little silk negligee in my penthouse suite, I formulated the next stage of my plan for the next day. By the time I had finished I was quite drunk again – both on the wine and on the power – but at least there would be no hangover to worry about this time.

  If everything went to plan, Rob was in for another bad day.

  Chapter Nine

  2019

  I was woken by the pulsing of the alarm from the speaker next to my bed.

  “Alexa, stop,” I said, keen to shut her up before she woke Rob. She obeyed and the sound ceased, leaving him thankfully still snoring in bed beside me. He was in exactly the same position as he had been before and the room smelled, suggesting he had been letting off in his sleep again.

  I felt a sense of déjà vu – something I guess I was going to be experiencing a lot.

  Being woken up by Alexa while it was still dark at this time of year meant I must be on a day shift at work. I had forgotten to check my diary to find out, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going in anyway.

  Taking care not to wake him, I took my bag into the bathroom, turned on the light and checked my diary. I was indeed due in for 8am. I also noted that it was a Tuesday, which meant there was a good chance he would be working, too. I was counting on him being out of the house today as an essential part of my latest dastardly scheme, which I now went over once again as I performed my morning ablutions.

  My initial desire for revenge had been temporarily sated by my bit of fun with the video, but now I thirsted for more. I wanted him to feel the pain and the humiliation of discovering your partner in bed with someone else.

  Was I being overly vindictive? Maybe, but he had really hurt me at the time and it seemed only fair he should get a taste of his own medicine.

  I had another eight years to play with and had wondered whether doing what I planned to do in this particular year was the best timing. It was only a year before we had broken up and I had later found out he had been sleeping with Emma for at least three years before that. So that meant the affair was going on now.

  If I did the dirty on him this year, would he even be that bothered? My plan could actually backfire. What if he cared for me so little by this time that my betrayal might actually be an opportunity for him? It could be the green light he had been waiting for to get rid of me and legitimise his relationship with Emma.

  If I waited a few more years until before Emma had come along, would that be more effective. And would it be fair? I genuinely believe we were happy back then, so I could hurt him a lot more, but was it morally right to do that? Would I be punishing an innocent man for crimes he had yet to commit?

  I decided I didn’t want to wait. I had my mind set on a particular course of action and I didn’t want to waste any time. There were other reasons, too. Gary, my intended conquest, was single right now and would probably be highly receptive to my advances if I approached him in the right way.

  Further back in time he would be in a relationship, and I didn’t want to mess that up for him unnecessarily before it came to its natural end. Plus, there’s no guarantee that he would even consider sleeping with me when he had a girlfriend. From what I had seen he didn’t mess around when he was in a relationship, unlike some I could mention.

  I wasn’t even sure if I was going to be able to persuade him that sleeping with his best mate’s girl was a good idea. I was going to have to come up with something pretty convincing, I knew that. His reaction to Rob’s cheating in the video was the key to all this. I just needed to provoke that reaction and the rest should fall into place.

  By the time I was showered, dressed and ready to go, Rob was stirring. I went downstairs, made him a cup of coffee, wishing I could lace it with something. Unfortunately we were right out of polonium-210 so I settled for two sugars, took it up and plonked it down on the bedside table.

  “You are working today, aren’t you?” I enquired. I got a perverse satisfaction out of asking this question because it was exactly what he had asked me when planning his New Year love-fest with Emma.

  “Yes, babe,” he said.

  Don’t babe me, you tosser.

  That was what every fibre of my being wanted to scream out in response but I managed to restrain myself.

  “See you tonight, then,” I replied instead with exaggerated cheerfulness, as I flounced out of the room, not wanting to prolong the conversation any longer than was necessary.

  I knew all I needed to know. He was working so would be home no later than 6pm, possibly earlier if his office clocked off a bit early for New Year.

  I hadn’t bothered to check what we were supposed to be doing tonight and couldn’t remember. I was five years in my past now and my memories of the time had faded.

  Not that it really mattered as any plans for tonight would be blown out of the water by what I had lined up. Still, I ought to have been more prepared so I made a mental note to try and find out these things in advance from now on. I needed to be better prepared.

  Right now, I just needed to concentrate on today’s act of revenge. I felt a real buzz of excitement at the thought of what I was about to do. Not only was I going to take him down all over again, but as a bonus I was going to get a bloody good shag out of it, too.

  There’s part of me that can hardly believe I’m even thinking or planning these things. I’ve always been one of the good girls – never getting detentions at school or anything like that. My current behaviour is quite out of character for me.

  Is it because I’ve been let off the leash and there are no longer any consequences? What would happen if we found out the world would end in a month? Would everyone cast off their inhibitions and throw caution to the wind the way I currently was?

  I couldn’t deny it was extremely exhilarating. My impending demise had made me feel more alive and full of purpose than I ever had. I had heard the acronym YOLO (you only live once) being used a lot by younger people in recent years to justify risky behaviour.

  In my case it was more like you only live twice which could have been a great title if my story ever got made into a film. Unfortunately, James Bond got there first.

  In my current frame of mind I was hell-bent on squeezing out every last drop of whatever time I had left on this planet. Whether that was revenge, sexual fantasies or any other hedonistic pleasures, I wasn’t going to waste a single opportunity.

  I left the house, pretending to go to work, but, as was becoming the norm, I had absolutely no intention of going. It was great, this – I could skive off work as often as I wanted and I never got into trouble for it. I didn’t even need to bother phoning in sick if I didn’t want to, but I thought it best to, anyway. Even if there were no long-term consequences, I didn’t want the hospital pestering me all day trying to find out where I was.

  It was absolutely freezing outside. There had been a hard frost overnight and the grass verge alongside the pavement had a thick, white crust on it where the sun hadn’t got to it yet.

  Why had my time loop had to happen in the middle of winter? Would I ever feel the warmth of the sun on my skin again? Then I remembered the Christmas and New Year I had spent in Australia. At least I still had that to look forward to.

  I rang the hospital as I walked down the street, hanging up just as I turned right into St Clement’s. I stopped off at the nearest café to grab some breakfast while I waited for Rob to bugger off to work. I made sure I sat well away from the window to avoid being spotted by him as he drove past.

  Once I was sure the coast was clear, I headed back home. The houses in Jeune Street were terraced, with large bay windows. They were arranged so that each pair of houses had
their front doors side by side, each house being a mirror of the one next to it.

  This meant there was no hiding place when, just as I opened the gate to walk down the front path, the adjacent house’s front door opened. Before I even clocked her, I knew who I was destined to see, the dreaded Emma.

  “Morning, Amy,” she said, all bright and breezy. “How are you, today?”

  You’re shagging my boyfriend, you two-faced bitch. How dare you be all sweetness and light with me!

  Of course, she didn’t know I knew that and I wasn’t about to let on. All that business of catching her in bed with him was a year in the future. As far as she was concerned, I was just the none-the-wiser fool she was crapping all over. Well, if it was false friendliness that was the order of the day, then two could play at that game.

  “Yeah, I’m all good,” I said cheerily. “Got anything good planned for New Year?”

  “Oh, just a quiet night in and a day at home tomorrow,” she said, smiling.

  Oh yes, a day at home tomorrow. While Rob’s at home for the bank holiday and I’m working. Bitch.

  “Sounds good,” I replied. “Nothing too strenuous for me, either. I’m working tomorrow.”

  “I thought you were working today, too,” she said.

  And how would you know that? Does Rob give you a copy of my shift pattern so you can come round and help yourself to his body as soon as my back’s turned?

  “I am,” I replied. “I just had to nip back home for something.”

  “Well, have a great New Year, Amy,” she said, and walked on down the path in her ridiculously impractical heels, taking care to avoid the icy patches on the crooked paving stones on her front path.

  Yeah, I hope you slip and break your neck, you slapper.

  I couldn’t recall a time when the words coming out of my mouth had been so far removed from what I was actually thinking.

  “You, too, Emma – have a good one,” was what I actually said. And that was that. She had lived next door for four years and the brief exchange we had just had was probably about the longest conversation we had had in all that time.

  Back inside, I went straight for the coffee while I put the finishing touches to my plan. There was no point calling Gary up yet because he would be at work. He was a postman – a job that kept him very fit along with his rugby playing, I knew he normally knocked off by mid-afternoon and that would suit me perfectly.

  Until then, I had a bit of time on my hands. Mindful of the mental note I had made earlier to be better prepared for my journey back through time, this seemed like an ideal time to carry out some research.

  I logged on to my laptop and started to go back through my social media timeline, looking for clues, writing down every scrap of information that might be of use to me. The actual notes would be of no use to me after this trip. I couldn’t take them back through time with me, but I could read them over and over to memorise them before I went.

  Finding information on the laptop was quick and easy – far easier than using a mobile phone. I couldn’t understand for the life of me why laptops had fallen out of favour. By 2025, hardly anyone used them, even in the workplace. I understood the argument that phones and tablets were convenient for people on the move but even so – give me a laptop with a full-size screen and a proper keyboard any day. I could just get so much more done.

  I had fond memories of this trusty old ASUS laptop. It had served me well for many years. I had bought it back in around 2012 and here it was, in 2019, still going strong.

  I went back through Facebook as far as I could. The trail stopped at New Year’s Eve 2007, which was the year I had joined. What I did find gave me a pretty good snapshot of the years 2007-2018, enough to ascertain roughly where I had been each year.

  None of it was particularly exciting and made me think perhaps I had wasted the best years of my life. I could and should have been doing so much more. I would have to see what I could do to change that second time around.

  What about prior to 2007? I had been 21 then. How was I going to find out more about my teenage years? Email was no good – that didn’t go back past 2012 on this computer. I had used email long before that, but it seems that when I got this laptop, I didn’t bring any archive material with me, or if I did, I had no idea where I had stored it.

  Where else could I look for clues? There might be something upstairs that could help. I went up, rummaged around in the bottom of my wardrobe and pulled out an old, tartan, shortbread tin. It was the box I’d kept my teenage memories in and I hadn’t opened it for years.

  I prised open the lid, revealing a stash of keepsakes. My eyes were instantly drawn to the letters from my first love, Max. Oh, how I had loved him when we were sixteen. He was so sweet on me, and so old-fashioned, sending me handwritten declarations of love on what was now faded yellow paper. He also had beautiful italic handwriting, written with a proper fountain pen, something you hardly ever see these days.

  You hardly even saw it then. Love letters on real paper had been a dying art form even in 2002. By then, SMS texting had become ubiquitous for my generation.

  I picked up a few of the letters and read through them, feeling full of nostalgia for those innocent times. Maybe I should have made more effort to hold onto Max. It had seemed at sixteen that we would be inseparable forever but we grew up and he had gone away to university in Manchester.

  He wasn’t far away from my own roots in Liverpool, but I was well and truly established in Oxford by then. With my dad dying when I was only fifteen, and his parents gone, I no longer had any family links back home on Merseyside.

  I delved deeper into the box. There were a few old concert tickets, one of which caught my eye right away. It was for Kylie Minogue’s Showgirl tour which I had gone to see at Wembley Arena. The date on the ticket read 31st December 2006. It seemed I was destined to see Kylie again.

  Fond memories were replaced by sad ones as I pulled out a postcard from Thailand, sent by my sister, Rachel, on the 15th December 2004. It hadn’t arrived until mid-January the following year and was the last time I or anyone else had ever heard from her. She had been missing, presumed dead, for several weeks by then.

  I shed more than a few tears as I read the card. At the turn of the millennium, I had a father, sister and mother. Barely a decade into the new century, they were all dead and I was an orphan at twenty-five.

  I had never given up hope that one day Rachel might return, but I knew that it was highly unlikely. She had almost certainly perished, swept into the sea like so many thousands of others, on that devastating morning of Boxing Day, 2004.

  It was time to put my memories away for now. The rumbling in my stomach told me it was well past lunchtime. Placing the lid back on the tin, I headed downstairs to make myself something to eat.

  As I munched on a cheese and pickle sandwich, I read the notes I had made over and over again. It wasn’t a complete snapshot of my life by any means, but enough to give me a broad outline of what to expect in the weeks ahead.

  With lunch out of the way, it was time to call Gary. He would be finishing work soon, if he hadn’t already. I didn’t imagine there would be that much post to deliver at this time of year. The big rush would have been all before Christmas.

  Preparing myself for the dramatic piece of acting I was about to try and pull off, I picked up my mobile, which had now reverted to an S9, browsed through my contacts until I found Gary’s number, and pressed.

  He answered really quickly, within one ring. He was certainly on the ball today.

  “Hey, gorgeous – how’s it going?” he asked. That was a promising start.

  I’d had good practice at putting on my sickly voice for phoning into work the past few days. Now it was time to play the damsel in distress. Putting on the most miserable-sounding voice I could muster without actually sobbing, I got straight to the point.

  “Oh, Gary, it’s not going well at all,” I replied. “It’s Rob. You know that girl Emma that lives next door
? Well, I’ve just found out he’s been cheating on me with her.”

  “The bastard!” exclaimed Gary. “I knew he was up to something. That’s why he hasn’t come down the pub for months.”

  “Well, that’s news to me,” I replied, adding, “He goes out every Sunday, supposedly to do the quiz with you in Port Mahon.”

  “First I’ve heard of it. What an arsehole. I’m so sorry, Amy. Is there anything I can do?”

  “Could you come round?” I said, actually managing to produce quite a convincing sob. “I’m feeling really upset.”

  “I’m on my way,” he said. “I’ll be there in five. I’m only just up the road.”

  After he rang off, I started to have doubts about what I was planning to do. I had no qualms about making Rob’s life a misery, but Gary was a decent chap and I wasn’t sure dragging him into all of this was entirely fair.

  Still, he fancied the arse off me and would be up me like a rat up a drainpipe under the right circumstances. And that was today. Yes, maybe I was just using him to get back at Rob but it’s not like he wasn’t going to get some benefit from it.

  Rob, of course, had no idea that I knew about him and Emma. He was really going to be in for a shock.

  Casting aside my doubts, I needed to put the finishing touches to my upset persona. I only had a couple of minutes, so I grabbed an onion from the fridge, and took it over to the kitchen surface next to the sink. I grabbed a chopping board and knife from the drainer and got to work. Quickly I chopped the onion up, and then stuck my face right down by the chopping board to breathe in the fumes.

  It stung like hell, but had the desired effect – my eyes were running like waterfalls. Right on cue, the doorbell rang. Grabbing the board, I swept the chopped onions out of sight into the kitchen bin, placed it back on the side and made my way to the hall.

  Before answering the door I made a brief diversion into the cloakroom to rinse my hands and check my look in the mirror. Big, puffy red eyes looked back at me. Perfect.

  Opening the door, I was pleased to see Gary looking as buff as ever, in his postman’s uniform. Despite the freezing weather he was still wearing shorts – what was it about postmen and shorts in all weathers? I really ought to ask him, but I had other things on my mind right now.