Chapter Twenty-Five

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When I awoke, there was a soft hum in the air and I could feel a considerably large weight pressing down upon myself. Opening my eyes, they fell upon a humongous ball of black fur.
"Felix, you're far too big now to come and sit on me in the morning!" I wheezed, gently guiding the cat off of my lap. He had been on a diet for years and years and years, but the black and white rescue cat stubbornly refused to loose any weight and it wasn't difficult to tell as his belly drooped almost to the floor.
Checking the watch I had discarded on my bedside table, I saw that I had around an hour to get washed and make myself presentable before Isla's babysitter would be dropping her off, as I had arranged for her to pick Isla up around eight o'clock from the wedding last night. I couldn't remember what time I got home, but vague memories of being convinced to get a taxi to the pub when the wedding started to dwindle down filled my mind as I stepped in the shower.
Breakfast came in the form of a smoothie, and I sipped daintily from it as I climbed the black, wrought iron spiral staircase that led directly to my room. My room was hidden in the largest turret of the castle, although it was not too large - enough to fit a double bed, a wardrobe, a desk, a small loveseat and a set of drawers. There were two curved windows opposing each other, one above the desk which looked over the back of the house to the forests and mountains of the Scottish highlands, and another window with the loveseat below it overlooking the front drive. I sat there now, curled up, my elbow resting on the ledge.
Quite a few minutes passed of me daydreaming lazily, the sun shining for once and lighting up my face with a golden glow. Then I turned, searching for where I had placed my smoothie to finish off my breakfast before Isla arrived. That was when I saw it. It sat innocently on the oak wooden floor, staring back at me.
A hair tie. That was all it was. A simple hair tie. But it was a brown hair tie. Isla and I had never owned a brown hair tie in our lives.
And so now, a feeling of immense dread settled over me. It was quite an all consuming feeling and now the smoothie which had been in my hand all along was forgotten because I stood up and the very air was vibrating around me and I couldn't quite breathe and I saw that there were two pillows side by side on my bed and I never did that never ever I always threw that spare pillow off the bed I always slept with one pillow and then-
Then the memories came flooding back. Emma. Emma with her wispy long dark hair, Emma with her secret keeping eyes and Emma with her blood-red lips...
Then Isla was home and running into my arms and the babysitter was looking concerned, asking me why I was so pale, but I paid the nosy girl and took Isla through to the living room, where I listened to her give me a detailed run through of her entire night, despite the fact that I was there for most of it. I didn't have the heart to tell her I wasn't in the mood to listen. That I wanted to curl into a ball and shut out the entire world forever.
Isla clambered onto my lap then, almost as if she could sense my despair although I knew she could not. Years of hiding my feelings left it easy to disguise things despite her being my child, but she nestled into my neck anyway and for a few moments, everything felt right with the world.
A few hours passed and I was standing in the hallway, Isla beaming up at me as I zipped up her raincoat for her. There was a floor to ceiling mirror in the hallway, and I caught my reflection. Dressed in hiking boots - albeit, cream £300 hiking boots - and black jeans with a white raincoat I was a far cry from my younger self, when I walked the halls of Hallway House with my Louboutin's clicking obnoxiously on the stone floor as I glowered at every student. My hair, just past my shoulders, was much softer and more golden now, compared to when I used to take the family jet to Paris to get my hair dyed platinum blonde every month.
The black Bentley glinted tauntingly on the driveway as Isla clambered onto the booster seat in the back, a reminder that I was not quite as separated from my old self as I would like to be. The car engine purred to life, a frown appearing on my face as I remembered the surprised and rather dirty looks I had garnered from the other mothers at Isla's school the first day I had dropped her off due to my choice of vehicle.
The Tesco Supermarket just behind the high street seemed to be, unsurprisingly, empty.

Our eyes met at the same instant, me glancing up from examining a jar of honey and Emma just turning her head so she looked directly at me. She was tall and fair, her long figure graceful in the loose fur coat that she held open with a hand on her waist. Her eyes were green, pale, yet dominant as light or fire, and I found myself caught by them, unable to look away. She appeared not to move a single inch, rather like a porcelain statue, and her hand was still as it held a bouquet of daffodils to her smooth face, having been stopped by me in the process of smelling it.
Emma was looking at me, too, with a preoccupied expression, as if half her mind were on whatever it was she was meant to buy here. And then the moment was lost, as another shopper passed between us, blissfully unaware of what it had interrupted. But then said shopper turned and placed a gentle kiss upon her lips, mumbling something about how he 'couldn't quite locate the carbonara sauce'. A cold chill settled over me. I had not been aware that Emma was in the company of a man. The fur coat she wore was beautiful, and I knew personally that it was faux fur but was soft as the real thing.

I knew that because it was my coat. And it had been hanging on my coat rack before I had left for the wedding yesterday - the final confirmation of what had occurred last night. I watched the scrawny man place a hand on her waist as he took the daffodils from her hand, frowning at them, placing them back and instead picking up a selection of roses. My heart appeared to be thumping out of my chest.

An odd feeling had settled in my stomach, and it did not appear to want to go. Wordlessly, I placed the honey back on the shelf and turned away.


--


Above me, the sky was grey, and my surroundings panted a dark, primal landscape. Soaring mountains shrouded in cloud poured down their slopes to spread tendrils of mist across the moor. Beyond the small bungalows and shops of Braemore high street, a small, cobblestoned road, was a hostile and inhospitable bogland, shredded by scraps of loch and ragged inlets.
The first few drops of rain began to fall, gently caressing my nose, and I ducked into the nearest shop, finding myself in a small bakery. The walls were white and tiled and it was not particularly clean, but the smell of pastry and the warm glow from the ovens in the back filled the shop with a homely feel.
It surprised me when I saw that I was served by the man from the Supermarket. He had no beard, just a bushy brown moustache. It looked scratchy and wiry, and I wondered briefly how it felt for Emma to kiss him. Then a sick feeling settled in my stomach and I took a deep breath before ordering a coffee with extra sugar.
Then he brought my coffee to the table and my hands were shaky when I took it as a small ring flickered in the light, resting comfortably on his skinny ring finger. I shook my head. They were not engaged - surely not.
The hot coffee did nothing to soothe my cold, broken heart and I wondered how I had become so weak as I was unable to stop a tear from rolling down my cheek. How had my life changed so quickly? How had the one person I had spent my whole life running from wriggled back into my heart as if it was nothing?
A bell rang out above the shop door. It was her, of course it was. It was almost like I couldn't escape. Emma knew I was here - I knew she knew. But she barely even looked my way. Ordered a coffee - black, I was sure - and didn't pay because of course, that was her... fiancée. They conversed for a few minutes, until I had finished my own coffee, but as I slipped my coat on and prepared to stand up, she did they very opposite of what I was expecting.

Emma turned, walked forward, and slipped into the seat opposite me. She eyed the fur coat I wore. It smelt like her. She raised an eyebrow. Said nothing.
"How are you?" It came out strangled, but again, Emma said nothing. She pushed a cup of tea towards me, which she had ordered without me realising.
"Seeing as you have already had a coffee..." she nodded at the tea and I took a sip. It was exactly how I liked it. A dash of milk and a lot of sugar.
"I missed you." I blurted out, my hand slapping unceremoniously onto my mouth as if I could take back the words I had said, my eyes wide and almost frightened. It was a far cry from the stone cold bitch I used to be. Long ago no matter what I was feeling I could hide it with a tight-lipped smile and an airy wave. Now it seemed I crumbled at the mere thought of the woman before me.
Once again, Emma said nothing. Merely watched. Observed. Golden spirals of colour danced in her haunted eyes as she pursed her lips and took a sip from her mug. Everything about the woman was poised, from her rigid posture to her ever so slightly cocked eyebrows. It felt, very oddly, like I was looking at myself the day that I had met her. Running from the past and bored of the future.

Tired. Oh, so tired.

"Indeed." she whispered, and I was not quite sure as what to reply.
"How are your friends?" I asked gently, the first time either of us addressed our past. My mind wandered back to the people she spent her time with, and although I couldn't quite picture their names I remembered strongly how they made Emma smile and how that smile filled my very core with happiness.
"My friends?" Emma murmured, and it was almost like a dark cloud had passed over her head. She looked away for the first time, glancing around the empty bakery. Those eyes danced with the ghosts of her past and I yearned to take a porcelain hand in mine and reassure her that everything was going to be ok. But I didn't, because I had lost that privilege many years ago. Emma then turned to me, clenching her jaw as she looked me dead in the eye and sighed, "They're all dead."
"I'm sorry, I do believe I misheard you. They're what?"
"Dead." Emma shrugged nonchalantly and if I had not known, at least, her past self so well I might have genuinely thought she didn't care. But her chin was wobbling ever so slightly and her coffee spilt over the edge of the mug as her hands shook.
"Do you mind me asking what happened?" I questioned, momentarily forgetting my propriety as I thought of the pain she must have been through in her lifetime so far. Emma sat back in the cheap metal chair, sighing. Then for the second time since she had arrived, she shocked me.
"Would you like to come back to mine?"
"I - right, yes - Of course, I mean, as long as you don't mind -" I spluttered.
"I invited you," she shrugged, standing up, dressed in black jeans, a pair of rather nice Timberlands and a green raincoat, "But we should stay off of the Prosecco this time."
That was it - her first acknowledgement of the night after the wedding. A shiver ran up my spine, a lump in my throat as Emma merely turned and strode out of the shop, leaving me gasping for air in my seat as I waited to gain my power of speech back.

Then, I did easily the most stupid thing I had done since arriving in this godforsaken country.

I followed her.

We drove to her home in separate cars, my Bentley slightly less suitable for the road than the large, old, Land Rover that sped along in front of me, the dark green vehicle gliding over potholes with a practised ease. We arrived before what I had to admit was a rather beautiful cottage. It had brown stone walls, a grey slated roof and a small chimney, all complimented by beautiful green ivy and colourful flower bushes creeping through a well-tendered front garden to climb up the walls themselves. The front door was the shape of a chapel door and the mahogany oak creaked as Emma pushed it open, guiding me into a dark hallway.
Slipping my shoes off, Emma ignored the light switch and I followed her into a living room where the flicker of a lamp let out a golden glow. A soft smile escaped my lips as I looked around the homely room. The plush L-Shaped sofa I stood behind was covered with soft-looking blankets and feathery pillows, opposite a large fireplace and in the corner, a TV. Bookshelves lined the walls and the wooden floorboards were covered with a fluffy red carpet which I could feel between my cold toes.
Emma blinked, wordlessly toeing a pair of slippers flippantly in my direction, waiting for me to slip them on before following her into the kitchen. It was much like the living room in its cosy feel, with oak wooden cabinets and a creaky floor. We took a seat at the kitchen table facing each other.
"Picpoule De Pinet. It's French." Emma said, completely disregarding her earlier statement as she poured me a small glass of wine. I raised an eyebrow and said nothing, mostly just basking in the warmth that radiated from the golden woman despite her sharp tongue and narrowed eyes.
"So," I said after a moments silence, "Why am I here?"
"I suppose you want the full story," Emma leant back in her chair, sighing, "But it's a long one, so I'll... summarise."
"Only say what you feel comfortable sharing." I frowned, regretting my nosiness.
"Whatever," Emma glanced down, where a beaming, happy, tail-wagging sheepdog was looking up at her with bright brown eyes, "This is Ben, by the way."
"Hello, Ben." I smiled gently at the dog and he padded over to me, settling his head on my lap as I scratched behind his ear, an odd, melancholic smile on Emma's face as she watched us.
"So, after leaving school," I avoided her eyes as she spoke, "I went to Glasgow University to study Fine Art."
"Impressive." I smiled gently. I always knew she would do well, and one of the best Art school's in the country was what she had deserved.
"Between my second and third year, I took a trip to Amsterdam to... reflect."
"I see." I whispered, unable to hide the shining of tears in my eyes as I thought back to all of those wonderful moments spent with her.
"That was where I met Rita. There was this bike scheme going on where if you shouted 'Backie' to people on certain bicycles they would take you somewhere in the city."
"How strange." I frowned suddenly.
"Strange?" Emma questioned.
"Just strange, to imagine how different your life would have been had someone else been there at that time and given you a lift instead."
"Yes, I suppose so," And she looked at me then, really looked at me, her eyes bearing deep into my soul as if she could read my heart and mind, "I graduated Uni with Finn, I don't know if you remember Finn?"
"Was she the red-head?"
"Yes, that was her," Emma smiled softly, "That wasn't long after I had changed my name, for a fresh start. Do you remember Rachel?"
"Of course I do," I smiled fondly at the memories of the brunette, red-streaked troublemaker, "How could I forget."
"How could any of us," Emma said softly, perhaps the most vulnerable she had been since I first saw her standing on my doorstep, "Rachel proposed to Finn."
"Oh?" I said, quite surprised - Secondary-school romances rarely lasted.
"She worked in a bank in Glasgow for a while, and they bought a flat together."
"That sounds lovely." I smiled, trying to brighten the bleak atmosphere that had descended upon us through Emma's sorrowful tone and furrowed brows.
"It didn't last long," She sighed, "Rachel lost her job. Finn was finding it difficult to get one. She had a large family, younger brothers, the youngest of them Sixteen, and they needed help. At the time, it felt like we had no other option."
"What do you mean?" I questioned, a lump in my throat at the horrific, dark tone of voice she used.
"Rachel and I enlisted as Paratroopers."
"Oh my gosh," I whispered, my hand covering my mouth as I watched the pained young woman lean forward and gently stroke the head of her sheepdog, "Emma... Why did you do that?"
"Well, Rachel needed the money. I didn't want her to be alone. And... well, I had nothing else to live for." Emma said flippantly, raising her glass of wine to her lips. That was what tipped me over the edge, and from there the tears silently began to fall from my glistening eyes, "We served for four years before we both left. Rachel moved to Brighton and took a non-combat job, buying a house there with Finn."
"And you?" I asked softly.
"I travelled around a bit. Had a few nights on the streets. It's not like I didn't have money," she sighed, "I just didn't care. Rita was in New York City at the time, so one night I just called her up and that same day I was on a plane to the US. About a year later, I opened my own Art Gallery and-"
"You... what?" I had stilled, my wine glass empty as I stared directly at the woman before me, my eyes narrowed.
"Um, I opened my own Art Gallery?"
"Emma..." I whispered, and that was when it all clicked into place. How could I have missed it? How could I have been so stupid? Elizabeth Brown, of course it was her! Of fucking course!
"What?" she looked confused now, panicked even, but I was too shocked to notice.
"Elizabeth Brown," I whispered, standing up as I squeezed my eyes shut and let the world spin around me, "It was you. All this time, it was you."
Then a hand was guiding me and we were on her sofa, and I was tucked into her arms, trembling as she gently stroked my hair and pulled me as close as she could manage. "Elise, what's going on?"
Every time she said my real name it sent me into a frenzy and now was no different as I curled up into a small ball and revelled in the feeling of her arms around me, something I hadn't felt in years and something I had missed like I would miss the breath in my body and the blood in my veins.
"Does the name Sophia Hart ring a bell?" I whispered after a few minutes of soothing silence.
"Yes," she frowned, "That's what you changed your name to."
"Think harder." I growled, not meaning to sound so vicious but frustrated that I was the only one that could see what had happened.
"Oh my fucking god.." she mumbled, and there were tears in her own eyes now as she pulled my head onto her chest and rocked me slightly, perhaps more for her comfort than mine, "You were there. You were always there."
"Our lives were intertwined and we didn't even know it." I muttered sadly.
"We were supposed to meet once, weren't we?"
"Yes. You never turned up."
"God, I remember being so terrified," Emma gave a self deprecating laugh, "I was about to meet Sophia Hart, the chief curator of the Louvre. I thought it was going to change everything."
"It certainly would have," I sighed, "What happened?"
"Literally on the fucking doorstop of that building I got a call. They wanted me back to serve another tour in Iraq. I didn't have a choice."
"I remember the headlines. Every well-connected Artist in the world was talking about you. How you were this rising star that just... disappeared. All the Art Magazines had you on the front cover... but there were still no pictures of you and now you were gone. I suppose it just added to the intrigue."
"I can't believe it," Emma sighed, "Rita being your sister. Us almost meeting."
"Every small, insignificant moment in our lives has led up to right now."
"All I can think is what would have happened had I not made certain decisions. Had I not picked up that phone call. Had I not even

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