Читать книгу The Promise: The twisty new thriller from the Sunday Times bestseller, guaranteed to keep you up all night - Katerina Diamond, Katerina Diamond - Страница 11

I’m writing this because I have to tell someone and because I don’t think I’m going to be alive for much longer. I can feel inside that my time is coming to an end. In a way, I think it will be a relief when it finally happens, but I’m scared about all the things that may happen before. So, I want to tell you a story, my story. For you to fully appreciate the situation, I’ll have to start on the day I met him, the day I met them both.

I had just started working at the service station; I would cycle out there at five in the morning and start my shift behind the counter. They would come in every morning and order the same thing and then go and sit at the same table. The taller one with the big smile would order a full English breakfast and a mug of tea, but the quiet one always just had a bacon sandwich, every day for months. It went on like this until one of them finally spoke to me – about something other than just their food order. It was the taller one, as I suspected it always would be.

Did you ever meet someone and just know that this meeting was the first of many? That from the moment your lives came together there was a story to be told, that you had some kind of cosmic business together, something that needed to play out. I knew from almost the first time I saw them both that my life had changed; I felt something shift inside me. I know that sounds like complete nonsense, but I do believe that I was meant to meet them. I even feel happy saying that. Given all that has happened, it seems strange for me to look upon that time as a good thing, but I swear to you, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

He asked me why I put colours in my hair, told me that the purple streak had been his favourite so far. He asked me my name, and then he just kept talking until the quiet one nudged him and he stopped talking long enough for me to walk back into the kitchen, my boss’s watchful eyes urging me to get back to work. For the rest of that day I had a smile on my face; I remembered his interest in me and I felt special. I had always been a bit on the awkward side, a bit of an outsider. I was never the girl that people paid attention to. I stayed in the background and let everyone else get on with their business. If I was ever noticed, it was always for the wrong reasons. I didn’t really mind my life being that way, at least I didn’t until I met them, but for that one moment I felt special, and suddenly I felt angry about all the people who hadn’t made me feel special in the past.

From then on, I looked forward to going to work. Every day felt like a new adventure. I didn’t know what he was going to ask me next, and that was exciting. I had had crushes before but only on celebrities, never on anyone I knew, and never on anyone who fed my crush, who nurtured and cultivated it until it was a burning fireball of desire. And for all this, I still didn’t know his name. He wore a denim jacket, the kind with white wool inside the collar. There was an embroidered patch on his breast pocket with a rocket on it. The first time I called him Rocket, that beautiful grin spread across his face and I guess the name just stuck. His friend silently at his side for each encounter, looking down whenever I glanced his way.

It only took a few months before I was in love with Rocket.

It was a long time before there was even the remotest possibility that anything might happen between us. I guessed that he was just very friendly; his quiet companion seemed to shrug off his behaviour as though it were completely standard, as though everywhere they went he had to listen to his spiel over and over again. His referred to his friend as JD. Rocket would make statements and then turn to his accomplice for confirmation, and JD would just nod and smile shyly. During those first few months, I’m not sure I even heard JD speak twenty words. Rocket did all the talking.

I remember our first kiss as though it were yesterday. It was romantic, even though from the outside it might not seem that way. To me, though, to me it felt as though my heart was going to explode.

The breakfast rush was over and I was taking the rubbish out to the communal bin area. It was hidden away from the public, but as I pushed the sacks into the giant blue wheelie bin, I heard his voice calling out to me from the staff car park. He must have jumped the barrier and come around there. To find me.

My hair flopped in front of one eye and I couldn’t sweep it away because my hands were covered in some mystery substance from the lid of the bin. I held my hands out by my sides, aware that they were trembling somewhat, and I just stared at him with my one exposed eye. I felt so stupid, but still special at the same time. He walked towards me and took the pink streak that hung across my face, tucking it behind my ear. Just like that, after all this time, he kissed me and I will never forget the look on his face when he pulled away from me. He looked dizzy; it was the first time I had seen his confidence shaken. I made him feel something, I knew I did.

People started to notice the chemistry between us and it wasn’t long before I could see the people I worked with getting excited at watching the romance unfold. There was something so completely inevitable about us. Me and Rocket. Together for ever.