“N… No.” Holly stuttered.
“Tell me the truth!” She demanded, pushing her arm harder against Holly’s fragile neck. She coughed, spluttered and gasped for breath but Nicola didn’t give up, she just pushed ever harder on her windpipe causing Holly to hit out in pain and anger. She knocked the girl to the ground with all the strength she could find, which wasn’t much. The girl fell over, stunned that this quiet woman had fought back for once in her life.
“You’re gonna regret that.” She said shakily as she got up of the floor. “Remember how you got that cut on your face? Well there’s plenty more where that came from.” Holly put her hand to her face, the deep cut was still there, throbbing and hurting like always. “In the mean time, pass me that box Shell.” Nicola called up to her friend on the bed and obediently she threw the shoebox down to her. Nicola flicked lazily through it, pausing every now and again to give Holly a menacing glance while Holly’s heart beat grew faster and faster. Eventually she stopped, pulled out one picture of Patrick and showed it to Holly. “I’ll keep this,” She whispered. “I’ll put him by my bed next to Brad Pitt and I’ll kiss him goodnight before I go to bed.” Holly felt physically sick but resisted the need to jump forward and grab her photos back, knowing that it would only get her in even deeper trouble. “And as for the rest…” She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a lighter. She gave a small smile at the look of horror on Holly’s face.
“Please,” Holly begged. “Please don’t. That’s all I’ve got to get me through the next nine years, please don’t. I’ll give you anything- phone cards, food, anything. Just don’t.” But Nicola didn’t care, that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to hurt Holly, she wanted to see her beg. She smiled as she dropped the box to the floor and the quickly lit it with her lighter. Holly screamed out in pain as the flames leaped higher.
“NO!” She cried, as if someone had physically hurt her, she dropped to her knees and watched her history go up in smoke. Quickly her tormenters turned and walked from the room, worried that her screams would have alerted a member of staff. Quickly Holly ran to her bed and lifter her pillow. She lifted out her one remaining, crumpled photo of Patrick and tucked it into her pocket so they would never find it. Then she ran out to the phone.
It was ten minutes before lock up so luckily for Holly there was no people waiting for the phone. She took a deep breath and dialled the number again for what felt like the millionth time today. It rang and rang and rang until finally:
“Hi, this is Lara Stone. I’m not in but if you leave a message I’ll call you back.” Holly took in a sharp breath, what more could she expect.
“Lara? It’s Holly. Pick up the phone… Will you pick up the god damn phone?” Holly shouted louder than she intended. “Please Lara, you’re all I’ve got left. I don’t know what I’ve done to upset you but I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I can’t cope without you. It’s gone. Patrick, my memories, everything. It’s all gone up in smoke- literally. All I’ve got is one picture left. One lousy picture to last the rest of my time in here. Nine years with only one photo, and even Patrick wont pick up the phone. What have I done to you all? Am I a really crap friend? What have I done to deserve this? What-“ The phone went dead and Holly realised that her time had just run out. Tears that she had tried so hard to keep in fell down her face as she fell to the ground in a sobbing heap, clutching her picture of Patrick in one had and the dead phone in the other she leant on the wall for support. All the people all around her just walked by, not one of them cared enough to stop.
***
Lara flopped down onto the hard, lumpy bed and grumpily flicked on the TV. She didn’t actually want to watch anything but she thought it would take her mind off her day at work. It didn’t. She twiddled with her hair nervously while she tried to think of something to do. But all she could think of was how annoyed she was at the way she was treated at work. Many a time in the day had she wanted to lie down and scream, shout and kick her legs that this wasn’t fair. She wanted to remind them all that she’d been proven innocent, that she’d done nothing wrong. Of course she never did any of that but it was what she felt like doing. If they were going to treat her like a baby she didn’t see why she shouldn’t act like one. Sadly Lara sighed and looked around her. The grotty little room she was cooped up in offered nothing more exciting than a bed shoved into the middle of the room, a falling-apart wardrobe with a matching, and equally broken, table on which perched a flickering black and white TV. All framed neatly by faded, peeling floral wallpaper. She shook her head as she surveyed the mess she was living in. Once again she tried to engage herself in something slightly more interesting than these four walls so she turned back to the crackling TV set in front of her. She switched quickly from a gardening programme to adverts, to more adverts, to a history programme before stopping when she saw the credits for Holby city rolling up the screen. ‘This’ll be fun.’ She thought to herself as she shifted her weight uncomfortably from one side to another in order to try and get comfortable. She focused all of her attention on the TV screen but only a few seconds into the programme she saw a good looking nurse come and stick his tongue down an equally good looking doctor’s throat. She muted the programme in disgust ‘is that really what they think we do all day?’ She asked angrily as she flung herself backwards onto her pillow. As soon as she landed she heard a crunch and shattering noise coming from somewhere beneath her crumpled and ripped sheets. Gingerly, not knowing what she was going to find, Lara put one of her hands under the covers.
“S**t!” She called as she quickly drew her hand back out, a large piece of glass cut deep into her hand. Lara dug deep down into her pocket and found an old screwed up tissue and pressed it hard against the wound. After a moment she felt the blood flow ease but the pain still throbbed through her at every opportunity.
Gingerly she lifted the bed sheets to see what had caused her such pain. With her one remaining good hand she pulled back the sheets and gasped at the remains of her photo. The used-to be-gold frame was now a mass of metal and peeling off gold paint, the glass had smashed into tiny fragments and in places had gone straight through the glass, there was a long smear of her blood across Patrick’s beautiful face. What used to be her favourite photo was now in ruins and she felt tears like hot lava spring to her eyes when she thought how easily her memories could be destroyed- the only thing she had left to cling to. She forgot she had the ring, a symbol of never ending love, she forgot she had his grave to mourn by, she forgot that she had people to reminisce with and she forgot that she would always know that he loved her, that he wanted to be with her. Which is a lot more than some people had. Ever since she’d found out about Holly and Patrick she’d tried not to think about it, to block it out and hope that it would all disappear. Every time she thought about them together she felt sick to her stomach, a physical nausea came over her at the way Holly had described her feelings for this man and the way she had said the man felt for her…
Suddenly a thought hit Lara, one that terrified her and paralysed her momentarily to the spot. Quickly she dropped the fragments of the photo into the bin, dropping slithers of glass either side of it as she did, but at the moment she didn’t care. Shakily she rummaged around at the side of her bed until finally she found what she was looking for, a bunch of rolled up letters, all written on the same prison sheet paper. Heavily Lara sat back down on the bed and leafed through them, pausing momentarily to glance at each one. ‘No, no, no.’ She muttered to herself as she went through them, casting each one aside like a used tissue the moment she was done with them, until finally… ‘Ah ha!’ She said as she pulled out the letter she had been searching for. She quickly found the part she was looking and just reading it froze her insides colder than ice ‘My boyfriend used to visit me but recently I don’t know what’s happened to him.’ Holly had been inside nearly 6 months, she’d been with Patrick for nearly 3 and Patrick had been dead for one. Lara sat there trying to do the maths. Words chased each other round and round in her head, laughing and joking. Playing some game Lara didn’t know. After a moment or two things suddenly everything clicked into place: Patrick had been seeing Holly behind her back. Every other Saturday he must have got time off work and gone to see this poor lost soul, to tell her that he would be waiting for her when she got out and that he loved her more than anything. But he wouldn’t be waiting for her. Not in this world at any rate. And the love? Lara didn’t know. She hoped with all her heart that he didn’t love her- she couldn’t cope with that.
Lara sprang into action and started pacing her room. Desperate for distraction she turned her phone on. Maybe she would call Dillon, or Anna, or Harry, in fact anyone that that didn’t know what was going on inside her head and what a mess she had got herself stuck in the middle of. But before she could decide who to call or in fact what to do her phone gave out three loud bleeps to inform her that she had new voicemail messages. ‘Just what I need.’ Lara muttered as she pressed the right buttons to access her messages.
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