Chapter 34

As we reached the block of flats, Abbey walked up and pressed the buzzer for number 23. It rang for about 3 minutes until there was a reply

“Yeah”

The word on its own sounded slurred and forced as if the person on the other end had forced themselves to answer.

“ hi dad it's me “

The door clicked and abbey pushed it open she looked back at me over her shoulder

“Today was nice maybe we can do it again soon”

I smiled

“Yeah i will text you and let you know when i'm free”

Abbey paused in the door and I closed the gap between myself and her as I hugged her and gave her a small peck on the lips to say goodbye. As I walked home I thought to myself what I was going to do tomorrow and how I was going to be able to go for a smoke before I went to bed this evening. I resigned myself to the fact I would not be able to do so and that I was in for another rough night. I got home and found the house in darkness. There was a note left by my mum on the fridge I noticed as I was getting myself a drink of orange juice.

“Please try to be quiet. I have a long day tomorrow. There are leftovers in the fridge for tea tomorrow as I won't be home in time to make it. It was lovely meeting abbey”

I made my way upstairs to my room with my glass of orange juice. As I sat on my bed I decided I would play some games on my console. I turned the tv on and lowered the volume all the way down as my game loaded. It was a simple puzzle game but it was enough to take my mind off the dread of going to sleep. I played for several hours not even realising until I checked my clock on the bedside table and saw it was almost midnight. As I turned my console off and stripped down for bed I felt a strange buzz in my mind. I couldn't place my finger on what it was but I had definitely not felt this before and had no clue what it was. I brushed this off and slowly sunk into a deep sleep, I again had the dream however this time it had a very different ending to what had previously happened. At the very end I found myself in the cave again, however this time I could see a glimpse of light and a feeling of hope rather than dejection. I woke up all though I felt rested. Something felt off. The pain in my back was not present; however , my wrist felt like it was on fire. As I looked down I could see almost like a burning red scar with the same strange mark on my wrist. It looked almost like a pair of wings this time all though they looked more demonic than angelic and the centre appeared to be a heart. I picked up my phone and took a picture so I could try and find similar pictures online. The longer I looked at the mark the more I got a sense of deja vu . Something in my mind was telling me I had in fact seen this before but for the life of me I couldn't remember where. I turned my phone on and saw I had a few messages I must have received during the night. One was from Josh and the other was from Abbey. I decided i would read abbeys first

“ hey i know its late but after the amazing day we had i just wanted to let you know that all though it's still early on i have really strong feelings for you and think i might be ready to say the L word i hope this doesn't scare you off i just feel i needed to say this xxxx.”

I stopped for a moment and swear my heart did the same i couldn't think how to reply to this and spent about 4 minutes trying to type a reply but everything i typed just didn't seem right so i kept deleting it and rewriting until i eventually just typed and pressed send before i even had the chance to delete the message and as soon as i did i instantly regretted it

“Me too i think i'm also ready so i will say i love you xxxx”

I waited for the reply and while i did i read josh's message to me

“ Yo, it was great having you at the campout. I'm heading out of town for a few days so you might get a text from Jordan as I told him you would pick up the slack. Hope you don't mind but might make you some extra cash to treat emily i know she really likes you”