“Next message.” The voice informed her. “Lara? It’s Holly. Pick up the phone…” Lara breathed in sharply, today was just not her day for avoiding her problems. For a few seconds she thought about hanging up and deleting the message, it was so much easier to ignore someone when you didn’t have to listen to them pleading with you down the phone, but there was so much desperation in Holly’s voice that Lara listened for just a moment too long and missed her opportunity to delete Holly. “Will you pick up the god damn phone?” The voice shouted, making Lara jump miles into the air. She never new Holly could be so angry, she always seemed so calm before. “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-“ Lara looked down at the phone in her now shaking hands. She looked at the photo in the bin and then at the albums full that she had after that. She’d thought it was the end of the world when she lost one but then she thought of Holly and felt so selfish for thinking her world was over after that one tiny set back. All she wanted to do was reach out and hold Holly, to tell her everything would be okay the way no one had ever done for her. She couldn’t hate this woman for loving Patrick and all she could do now was hope that Holly was misreading the signals from Patrick. She felt guilty as soon as she thought it but the idea of Patrick and anyone else made her sick. To know that she’d lost him was bad enough but to know that she never had him….
Dear Holly,
Please call. We need to talk. I’m sorry I didn’t pick up before but I had somethinking to do. I just couldn’t cope with you right then. I couldn’t cope with anything right then. I’m in a mess and I know you’re going to hate me forever for this but you have a right to know. Call me, yeah?
Lara
***
“Oy Miles! Post.” Shouted one of the many nameless screws as they flung Holly a letter. Holly blinked, she could hardly believe what she was seeing, hoping that it wasn’t some delusion caused by her extreme lack of sleep Holly took the envelope in her hands, it felt real enough. She recognised Lara’s handwriting on the front and was momentarily thrilled at the prospect of any contact with her friend but then a wave of tiredness swept over her again and she realised that she was too tired to feel anything anymore. Since being in Prison she hadn’t really felt anything, not anything real at any rate. She had learnt to deal with the constant level of fear and boredom that had now become so much a part of her daily life that she had almost blotted out all feeling of them. Any feelings of immense pain she had she tried to block out and any occasional happiness that fell into her path she grabbed onto and re-lived so many times that it lost all meaning. All she felt was tired, she couldn’t sleep and when she did sleep her dreams were haunted by visions of things she didn’t want to think about, ever. So she didn’t sleep, she hadn’t for the past few days, it could even be weeks, time was a difficult thing to measure in here, about once in every three nights she would pass out through sheer exhaustion and not wake up for an hour or two but that wasn’t sleep.
“You going to open that?” Her cellmate called, making Holly jump out of her skin. She was constantly on edge these days and frights like that really didn’t help matters.
“In a minute.” Holly said, she wouldn’t really be opening it anyway, just taking it out of the envelope; one of the officers had already ‘checked’ her letter through and no doubt knew what was going on in her life before she did. Gently she lifted the letter out of the envelope, making sure that she held it at such an angle that there was no way anyone else in the room could read it. She really wanted to take it somewhere else to read it in private but no one seemed to have any concept of privacy in this place. Holly opened the letter out on her lap and before any of the words had time to have any effect on her she noticed how short it was, she suddenly had the horrid image that this would be Lara telling her to leave her alone and to stop calling. But it didn’t say that, what it did say maybe was worse… ‘I just couldn’t cope with you right then. I’m in a mess and I know you’re going to hate me forever for this but you have a right to know.’ Holly started to panic, she could feel her breathing speed up and she knew that at any moment she was likely to either scream or collapse. What did she need to know? Why would she hate Lara? Lara was her only friend. Holly looked around her and saw that people were giving her strange looks, like she’d just fallen out of the sky. Holly shook her head at them all and rummaged under her pillow to see if she had a phone card left. There was only a half used one left which was supposed to be lasting her until pay day next week but she didn’t think that anything more urgent than this would come up as she only ever called Lara and Patrick and there was only so many times that she could need to hear his answer phone message in a week.
She dialled the number of Lara’s mobile quickly and clumsily, having to stop and re-start quite a few times but eventually she got the right numbers in the right order and the phone started ringing. She chewed nervously on the side of her cheek while she waits for someone on the other side to pick up. She sighed as she heard the usual answer message, she sighed and was just about to hang up when she heard the click of the phone being picked up.
“Holly?” Lara panted, out of breath.
“Yeh,” Holly replied nervously as she waited for Lara to reply, hopefully to make things a little clearer for poor, confused Holly but all she heard for a few seconds was Lara’s breathing. “Are you all right Lara?”
“Yeh I’m fine, I just had to run all over the house trying to find my phone and answer it, I never knew I was so unfit!” Holly laughed, she felt the whole mood was lightened and suddenly she felt more like she was talking to Lara and less like she was talking to some stranger.
“So, what did you want to talk to me about?” Holly asked, aware of the minutes ticking away. Lara took in a deep breath; Holly could practically hear her trying to find the courage from deep inside her. As the silence drew on Holly found herself becoming more and more anxious to know what Lara was thinking.
“It was just really to tell you that I’ve moved again.” Lara lied “So I’ll have to send you my new address for and V.O.s to get to me.”
“Oh right,” Said Holly, trying herd to hide her disappointment at being left in the dark once again. “How come you moved?”
“I’m living with my consultant.” Lara said simply.
“Oh.” Holly stammered, shocked. “But isn’t it a bit soon after your boyfriend dying and he is your boss so-“ Lara laughed.
“It’s nothing like that! I was just a bit upset and he offered me somewhere to stay, with his wife and kids!” Holly laughed, relieved.
“Trust me to get the wrong end of the stick!” They both laughed together, neither one wanting to break this comfortable silence and talk about the pressing issue that lurked at the back of both of their minds. “Why do you think I will hate you?” Holly suddenly blurted out. “I could never hate you.”
“You will,” Lara assured her. “As soon as you hear what I have to say.” Lara’s voice fell at the end, Holly could tell how much pain she was going through and it hurt her to hear her friend like that.
“What is it Lara? Why can’t you tell me?” Holly pleaded.
“I can’t, not over the phone. There’s something I need to show you.” Lara looked down at the photo of her and Patrick kissing that she was going to take into show this girl, could she really do it, could she really be so cruel? Yes. She had to.
“Okay, but can you at least tell me what it’s about?”
“It’s… It’s…. It’s about Patrick.” Lara whispered. Holly gasped and stared down at the creased photo in her hand as the phone went dead and the person next to her in the queue pushed her roughly out of the way. She refused to cry, she’d done enough of that recently but as she walked off towards her cell a fresh wave of dread washed over her. Not Patrick, please nothing bad about Patrick. He was all that she had left.