Читать книгу The Missing Wife - Sam Carrington - Страница 16

It took a few moments for Louisa to remember where she was. It was daytime – the light easily penetrating the pale cream curtains. She didn’t move; she couldn’t. Any movement might make her sick. Had she already thrown up? The taste in her mouth suggested she had. Slowly, she slid her mobile from the bedside table and tried to focus on the display.

10.23 a.m.

She stared in disbelief at the time. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d slept in that late, and she had no memory of waking during the night. That had obviously been Tiff’s plan all along – get her blotto knowing she’d pass out and be guaranteed to get solid sleep.

She didn’t feel all that rested though, just hungover. And that was a feeling she hadn’t had for a very long time. Her head screamed for water so, reluctantly, she eased herself out from under the covers.

Louisa winced as her feet made contact with the floor. Shit. They felt sore. Bruised. God, please say she hadn’t been dancing barefoot, making a fool of herself in front of her family. Her fake friends.

Oliver.

She shivered. It was as if her alcohol-soaked brain had only just remembered he’d been there – and it was reliving the shock of seeing him all over again. Louisa tried to recall if she’d spoken to him again after their first brief conversation. She screwed up her eyes. No. No memory of talking to him. But there was something – some elusive image teasing her, coming to the edges of her memory but no further. She couldn’t capture it. Tiff would more than likely fill her in on the night’s events, though she was probably feeling as rough as Louisa was.

Like an old woman – hunched and slow – Louisa walked to the table-top fridge in the corner of the room and retrieved a small bottle of sparkling water. The liquid she expected to be flavourless was sour in her dry, foul-tasting mouth, but it refreshed her. As she was about to place it back inside the fridge, a sharp pain, almost like an electric shock, pulsed through her head. She dropped the bottle. Water spread and puddled on the grey carpet.

Blood.

Louisa stumbled backwards.

With her next blink, the vision of the dark red pool had shot away and she was left staring at the water-soaked carpet.

There was a sharp knock on her door. Louisa took a hand towel from the bathroom, placing it over the spilled water, before opening the door.

‘Thank God for that.’ Tiff, her face serious and completely free of make-up, stepped inside the room and closed the door behind her.

‘What are we thanking God for?’

‘For you being in here.’

‘Where else would I be?’ A knot of worry began to tighten in her already painful tummy.

‘I lost track of you last night—’

‘What do you mean, you lost track of me? Didn’t we just get back here together?’

‘You don’t remember?’

Louisa’s initial worry-knot grew in size and intensity, the sensation increasing the sick feeling. No, she didn’t remember.

‘I’d had a lot to drink … I think I have you to thank for that.’

‘Sorry, you know what I get like after I’ve had one too many – I’m pushy.’ Tiff smiled apologetically and sat down on the bed beside Louisa.

For most people, having a lapse in memory after a heavy drinking session was funny – an expected side effect that gave rise to mickey-taking from others who had witnessed the drunken antics. But for Louisa, any gaps in memory only added to the dread that it was happening again. A period of her life during her last year of college was a complete blur to her – not just a day or two, but a huge chunk. For a long time afterwards, Louisa had experienced regular panic attacks, often for no apparent reason. The distress of why she couldn’t remember often overwhelmed her.

Her mum had pushed for her to see a doctor, saying it wasn’t right for a healthy teenager to have such debilitating attacks of anxiety. Louisa had only agreed on the premise that she could go on her own – not wanting her mother to know what might be causing them. Deep down she’d known that something bad had happened to cause them; there’d been a trigger – but she’d pushed it to the back of her mind until her mum had forced the situation.

The doctor had said stress was a factor for the panic attacks, but in relation to the missing chunks of memory, he’d mentioned something called dissociative amnesia. This in itself had caused more stress than if she’d not gone to the doctor at all. He’d talked about how someone could block out certain information because they’d suffered a traumatic event. Louisa had obsessed about this, gaining as much information about it as she could through library books and journals at the time, then looking up everything about it online years later. The memory loss associated with the disorder included gaps in memory for long periods of time, or of any memories that involved the traumatic event.

What that event might have been had plagued her. But the more she’d tried to remember, the worse it got. She’d continued to see a specialist for six months after she left college and, in addition to being prescribed medication, she’d learned techniques on how to manage her episodes of anxiety. The sessions had also aimed to help her recall what had triggered her attacks, but when none of the missing memories resurfaced despite the therapy, she stopped going. Once she’d met Brian she’d pushed her fears, along with the desire to find out and to recapture those memories, to the back of her mind. It was only recently, after Noah, that the old issues had come creeping back.

Louisa took a steadying breath and tried to consider it rationally. Last night she’d been really drunk – that mixed with no sleep and anxiety pills had more than likely caused her lack of recall.

But the vision of blood had come from somewhere, and the question of whether it was from the supposed traumatic experience in her past or from something that had happened last night filled Louisa with a sense of foreboding.

‘Earth to Louisa!’

Louisa started. She’d been so caught up in her thoughts she’d forgotten Tiff was even there. ‘Sorry.’ Louisa grabbed her bag from beside her on the bed and jumped up. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ She ushered Tiff out the door first, then turned and closed it behind her. The resounding click was satisfying. Louisa hoped the events of the night, whatever they were, remained locked inside that room. She just wanted to go home and forget all about it.