The Mouse

by Lauretta Hignett

  Sunny drove slower, looking for a space to fit the little Honda. “Some of them might be here to support his family,” she tried, hoping to diffuse Annabel a little bit before she snapped at anyone.

  “Whatever.” She tossed back her silky black hair and narrowed her eyes. “The only person that needed support was Simon. It’s so ironic that they wait until he’s dead before they give a crap.”

  In the end, Annabel made Sunny drive right up the ramp to the church door and park directly outside. Mourners, all swathed in black coats and hats and carrying black umbrellas, streamed into the church and tried not to look at Annabel, who glared at them as they passed. She stood tall, silent and unmoving during the service, head held high, but her rage and grief was palpable. Sunny stood beside her and felt like she should have died instead.

  She felt sick with guilt. Even though she had accepted that Simon’s death wasn’t wholly her fault, she would always bear the brunt of being the one that pushed him. As mad as he had become, as twisted and bizarre as he had acted, she would always be the one who took his life away from him.

  And no one would ever know it. As the priest droned on, Sunny thought about how events had unfolded after Simon had plunged from that cliff.

  Amazingly, the situation with Sunny and Jake was never mentioned in relation to Simon’s death. Most people had accepted that Simon had told a few tall tales, and then hid like a child, not wanting to be told off, and had gotten lost in the storm. The town gossiped about where he might have fallen into the water, what he might have been doing. But they didn’t question why he was out there in the first place.

  She thought of all this as she sat in a pew next to Annabel, when she suddenly noticed that her friend was trembling with rage. The minister droned on about what an amazing person Simon was, so outgoing, so handsome, so intelligent. She thought that Annabel was about to explode, so she gently put her hand on her shoulder, and caught her eye.

  “Dumb fuckers,” she whispered to her.

  Annabel’s mouth twisted, and she composed herself. A single tear escaped and ran down her cheek, but she didn’t allow any more to fall.

  The service dragged on and on, and Sunny suddenly felt eyes on her back.

  It was a peculiar feeling, being watched. It was obvious quite a lot of people had been looking at her today; after all she was one of Simon’s best friends. Everyone would be checking her out, to see how she would behave. But she could feel that someone was watching her, not a furtive glance or sideways peek, but with a purposeful steady gaze. Sunny ached to turn and look, but was reluctant to have to sweep the many faces behind her for the watcher. She knew that as soon as she turned, everyone in the church would spot the movement and fix their eyes on her. It would be too embarrassing.

  But she had to know. A fluttery feeling was starting low in her stomach, and the urge to turn around was becoming unbearable.

  The hymn ended, and the congregation shuffled to their seats. Sunny took advantage of the group movement to turn her head quickly and try and spot who was staring at her.

  Her eyes met his instantly. He was standing at the back, where the overflow of mourners lined the walls and spilled out the huge glass double doors. He blended in easily with the group around him, even though he was the most strikingly handsome man there. His black suit was tailored to perfection, elongating his body and emphasizing his muscular chest and arms. The dark blue shirt he wore was unbuttoned at the collar, and it hugged his body, showing a hint of his washboard stomach. He stood still, his expression unfathomable; his dark eyes were fixed on her.

  Sunny forgot that there would be so many people staring at her in this moment. All she could see was Hunter.

  The moment stretched on forever, then Annabel turned slightly to see what had caught her attention. Sunny wrenched her eyes away from Hunter and tried to focus on what was happening up front.

  The service was drawing to a close. Simon’s cousins and remaining uncles came forward to heave the coffin onto their shoulders, and made the slow procession down the aisle to the hearse outside. They shuffled out of the pew after Simon’s immediate family, and Annabel stalked down the aisle, refusing to acknowledge anyone else.

  While Simon’s family gently placed his huge coffin in the back of the hearse, Annabel shoved Sunny into the Honda and got into the driver’s seat. She gunned the little engine loudly and took off, headed into town.

  “Uh, the cemetery is that way,” Sunny said, pointing back behind them.

  “I know.” Annabel said shortly.

  They drove on for another minute.

  “So… where are we going?”

  In answer, Annabel zipped the car into a parking spot outside The Ocean, a bar in town that looked over the water. “We’re going for a quick drink.”

  The two girls exited the car and mounted the steps. The pub was deserted, having just opened for lunch, and the lone manager stood behind the bar making notes on his laptop. He looked up when the girls entered.

  “Hi, Annabel. I thought you’d be -”

  “We are.” Annabel cut him off and slid onto a bar stool in front of him. “Two glasses of Pinot Grigio, Darren.”

  The manager eyed her for a minute, then shrugged. He turned and grabbed a bottle from the fridge behind him, and pulled two huge wine glasses from the racks above. He poured generously, and without a word he slid the glasses over in front of the girls.

  Annabel slapped a twenty on the bar, and Darren slid it back. “On me,” he offered. He moved back to sit at the end of the bar with his laptop, muttering under his breath. “At least I can say that I didn’t actually sell alcohol to minors…”

  She lifted her glass and turned to Sunny. “Cheers,” she toasted, and threw back half her glass.

  Sunny took a token sip, and put her glass back down. “Do you know Darren?”

  Annabel snorted. “My dad does. He’s done a fair bit of work for him over the years. He’s a real hard-ass. I didn’t actually think he was going to serve us, but I was in the mood for a fight and I thought he might give me one.” She took another huge slug of her wine. “I guess alcohol is a consolation prize.”

  Sunny gave her a sad smile. “I’m proud of you for not attacking anyone at the funeral,” she offered.

  “I was tempted. Hypocritical fuckers. Not one of them actually knew Simon. Not one. Not even his family knew him very well.”

  Sunny was silent, unspoken thoughts zipping through her mind. Then, almost as if she could read her mind, Annabel sighed. “I’m not sure even I knew him very well,” she said sadly.

  The silence that followed was loaded, but Sunny kept quiet until Annabel was ready to carry on. “He’d been doing things lately that have worried me. He seemed to get a bit possessive about me all of a sudden. I never wanted to tell you, but he said a few really nasty things about you, whenever I said I was going to be seeing you, or that I’d been talking to you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I was getting a bit worried about his temper, too. A couple of months ago, he threw the family cat out of the upstairs window because it was clawing his beanbag. The cat was fine, but it was a long way to fall. It scared me, a little.” Annabel glared into her wine glass for a few moments, before she spoke again. “And last time I was at his house, he’d smashed his Xbox. When I asked him, he said that he’d gotten frustrated. But it was destroyed, smashed into a million pieces. It just seemed… a bit extreme.” Annabel’s voice fell to a whisper. “His mother told me that she’d gotten a guinea pig for his little sister for Christmas last year. It disappeared, and she was quite upset. Her mother found ground-up rodent in the waste-disposal. She confided to me that she was worried that Simon had done it, to spite her.”

  “That’s a bit… wrong.”

  Annabel gave a mirthless laugh. “That’s an understatement.” She glanced up, and met Sunny’s eye. “I actually suspected that there was something a little wrong with him, but with me he was so kind, so gentle. So stupid sometimes, but
he’d never do anything to hurt me.”

  The words were out of Sunny’s mouth before she could stop them. “Me, on the other hand…”

  Annabel raised her eyebrows. She grasped her glass again and drained it. Sunny wordlessly slid over her full glass towards her.

  “I was most worried about that.” Annabel said finally. “The thing with Jake. I actually think he might have meant to hurt you.”

  Sunny remained silent. There was no point saying anything. Annabel could never hear the truth about what happened, but a part of Sunny was comforted to know that Annabel suspected that there was a very dark side to Simon. The heavy weight of guilt lightened a fraction. It was probably the closest thing to forgiveness that she was going to ever going to get. It was clear that Annabel had only broached the subject to get it off her chest, so she could go back to mourning her best friend in an uncomplicated, more pure way.

  And now she slugged back the rest of Sunny’s glass of wine and got to her feet. “Alright, let’s wrap this up.”

  Sunny pre-empted Annabel’s attempt to drive, and slid into the drivers’ seat before she could get there. They reached the cemetery in minutes, and Sunny groaned inwardly as she spotted all the cars that lined the road outside, parked nose-to-tail on the grassy verge. She stopped, and was about to reverse and park right at the very end of the queue, miles from the cemetery entrance. Instead, Annabel made her drive straight through the entrance and through the double gates that had been opened to let the hearse through. Hot with embarrassment, but feeling like she couldn’t deny Annabel anything, she let her bully her into driving up the paths of the cemetery and straight over to where the hearse was parked, and directed her to pull in directly behind it, blocking it in.

  The whole town was there already, and not one person dared to meet Annabel’s eye as she exited the car gracefully. She glared at the assembled mourners.

  The graveside service was mercifully short. A few words were spoken, and the coffin lowered into the earth. Annabel stalked forward, ignoring the proffered bucket of dirt that the undertaker held. The gathered crowd held their breath and watched, as a tear rolled down her impassive face. She murmured something under her breath, bowed her head for a moment, then moved away. She was caught by Simon’s grandmother, who sensed her weakness and moved in for a hug. Annabel submitted to it awkwardly, and once people saw that she was allowing people to talk to her she was soon surrounded.

  The crowd broke up. Annabel was lost in the sea of Simon’s chattering relatives, so Sunny hung back waiting to see if she needed help. People started drifting away, moving between the gravestones, making the most of the occasion by going to pick out the names of loved ones that had gone before them.

  Sunny leaned against a tomb and rested her head for a moment. When this is over, she thought, I’m going to sleep for a million years.

  A slight buzzing in her coat got her attention. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at the screen, and answered without thinking.

  “Hi,” she murmured.

  “Are you ok?” Hunter asked softly.

  She thought about it. “Yeah, I think I will be,” she said finally.

  “You look nice.”

  She already knew he was looking at her, she could still feel his eyes. He had been at the bar too, she knew that, but she couldn’t see him, in the same way that she couldn’t spot him in the crowd now. “Thanks,” she said nonchalantly, and leaned her head back against the tombstone.

  “Can we talk?”

  “We’re talking now,” she replied, a little sassy.

  “I know.” His deep smooth voice washed over her. “But I’d like to talk face to face. Alone, if that’s possible. If you don’t hate me too much.”

  “Why would I hate you?” She was confused. The very opposite was true.

  “I can think of a few reasons.”

  She thought for a moment. It sounded like he was blaming himself for what happened to Simon. And to Richard, she added silently. He was talking about ‘taking care of him’, in any case. She should have been more shocked about that, it didn’t fit with Hunter’s persona that he would willingly kill someone in cold blood.

  She found that she didn’t care.

  “No, I don’t hate you. Not for any reason.”

  The crowd in front of her dispersed a bit more, breaking up into groups of twos and threes and moving away. Through a gap in the pressing bodies, she saw him. He was at the very edge of the crowd, under one of the huge sycamore trees that edged the cemetery grounds. Their eyes met, and Sunny was caught in his piercing gaze.

  “Will you come to see me tonight?”

  “Yeah,” she breathed, mentally bidding farewell to what was left of her broken heart.

  She saw him nod once. Then he turned and merged with the crowd, walking towards the cemetery gates. He was soon lost from sight.

  He’ll have to teach me how he does that, Sunny thought. He disappeared better that she could.

  Her frame of vision was suddenly filled with a frantic Annabel. She’d escaped the clutches of Simon’s well-meaning family and looked like she was again right at breaking point.

  “Let’s get out of here!”

  As Sunny was hustled towards the car, she was grateful to the two glasses of wine that got Annabel through the graveside service without punching anyone.

  She spent most of the night with Annabel, watching her finally fall apart. It was awful to watch her cry. After the funeral, they’d come straight to Annabel’s, and they’d hidden in her darkened bedroom until the light outside had faded.

  Annabel cried and cried. She didn’t talk much, except to order Sunny to get her some Gatorade when she was worried she’d get dehydrated from all the crying she was doing. Sunny obliged, thankful that she was still displaying some of her abrasive personality.

  At some point during the early evening her sobs quietened, and she drifted off to sleep. Sunny made sure she was comfortable and had a stock of fluids and tissues nearby, and snuck off to her mother’s bathroom to take stock of her appearance.

  She looked delicate. Tired, with dark rings under her eyes, her lids were heavy and for once she didn’t look like a deer caught in headlights. She hoped she could pass as sleepy-sexy, rather than just plain exhausted. Her skin was pale, as if she hadn’t seen the sun for a long time, and the sprinkling of freckles across her nose stood out against her milky complexion. This morning, in a desperate attempt to refine her appearance, she’d scraped her wild mane of hair back into a tight French roll with the help of a few million hairpins. One by one she slid them out, and let her hair spring free from the roll and cascade down her back. She rubbed her scalp with her fingernails. It felt good.

  She had ditched her coat and gotten changed out of her good black ‘funeral’ dress when she arrived at Annabel’s. All she had with her was what she was planning on wearing to bed – little jersey shorts and a white singlet top. For a moment, she considered scanning the racks in Minka’s room, but quickly decided against it. Minka was the right size, but had considerably more up front than Sunny did, and dressed to accentuate it.

  Sunny stared at her reflection in the mirror. Fuck it. She’d go in what she was wearing. At least she wouldn’t have to change when she inevitably came rushing back to Annabel’s to cry her eyes out.

  She was never going to be ready to face Hunter, to see what he had to say to her. It was probably the last goodbye. She sighed at her reflection, pulled herself into the Alternate and soared high into the sky.

  It was a beautiful clear night. The stars twinkled at her overhead, looking twice as big and three times as many as usual, huge diamonds sparkling in the sky. The storm had blown itself out and the night was still and calm. She flew quickly, and found herself outside Hunter’s door before she knew it.

  Heart in her mouth, she knocked on the door. Her legs started shaking. As soon as she became aware of it she looked down and silently scolded them like dogs.

  Reign it in, she told hersel
f. You’re being an idiot.

  The door scraped back and Hunter stood there, filling the whole hallway with his presence. Up close, he looked like he hadn’t shaved in days. Heavy stubble defined his square jaw and his normally closely-clipped scalp was looking a little less military than usual. She looked him steadily, refusing to let her eyes slip downwards to take in the rest of his perfect body.

  He opened the door wider to let her pass without a word. Sunny suddenly felt very small, and stumbled past him and into the kitchen. She didn’t want to sit, she felt too anxious. Hunter shut the door quietly and came and walked slowly toward her where she stood, trying to control her trembling.

  He must have realized how nervous she was. “Are you ok?”

  “Yeah,” she said through chattering teeth.

  He gave her a curious look, and she suddenly felt stupid.

  Relax, she told herself. It’s no big deal. Like Annabel had said, one day you will look back on this day and think it silly and insignificant.

  But as she spoke the words in her head, she knew that it wasn’t true. She’d never feel this way again, not ever.

  Hunter took as step closer to her.

  “I’m really sorry about your friend.” He stopped, and shrugged. “I mean, I’m sorry he turned into a lunatic and tried to kill you, but I’m also sorry he died.”

  The words made Sunny feel relieved. What Simon had done was awful and what had happened to him was tragic, but it was comforting to think that Hunter respected the loss of what she had thought was a good friendship.

  “That’s okay,” she replied. “I know what you mean.” Her tongue was starting to feel slightly less thick, her mouth less dry. “Hey,” she said suddenly. “Can we go somewhere? I know we can just talk here and it’s safer, but I feel like getting out and about.”

  The worried lines on Hunter’s face relaxed slightly, and he gave her a soft smile. “You’re right, it’s not safe.”

  “I know that. But this week I was almost tortured to death by a friend. It puts things into perspective for me...” She paused, trying to find the right words to describe how she felt. “Simon didn’t mean it. I honestly don’t think he meant to hurt me. He just wanted me out of the way. And I didn’t mean to hurt him, I just wanted him to get away from you.”