Chapter 4
Kensington Apartments,
Knightsbridge, London, UK
Amy eased out of slumber and rolled onto her side, tucking her hand underneath the pillow and nuzzling her head into its cool, soft luxury. Her internal clock nudged her, reminding her it wasn’t the weekend. With an irritated moan, she snuggled deeper under the duvet. How she hated weekday mornings.
Feeling hot, she thrust her leg into the open from beneath the duvet, letting her foot dangle off the mattress, enjoying the rush of cool morning air. It took a few seconds to realise her toes had brushed against something. Something warm and hairy…a leg. What the hell was that? Shit.
Her eyes flashed open and she stared into the dark room. When her eyes adjusted, she caught a glimpse of crisp blue and white striped bed linen. But she didn’t have blue and white bed linen. She always dressed her bed in white—a thing she had. This meant she had been sleeping in someone else’s bed. Oh, no, I didn’t!
She held her breath, keeping very still as panic set in, her gaze searching unfamiliar surroundings. In the quiet room, she glanced at closed curtains and an ivory-upholstered chaise stretching across the opposite corner, a handbag perched on it. She peered into the dark, blinking rapidly to erase whatever dream fooled her. Was that her handbag? Her eyes scanned the floor. Were those her clothes strewn across the carpet? Oh, fuck…I did.
A black-faced digital alarm clock sat on the bedside table flashing large yellow numbers at her. Scrunching her nose and squinting her eyes, she pulled the shapes into focus: 08.19 hours. She was late for work. Shit, shit, shit!
She lay back, stared at the ceiling and concentrated on sounds surrounding her. She heard impatient traffic outside the window, possibly from morning rush hour. Which was a good thing; it meant she’d stayed in the city, and wasn’t in the countryside somewhere, in the middle of nowhere.
Beyond the traffic, she detected the soft rise and fall of breathing, presuming it belonged to the leg. This was not a good thing. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Who the hell? Think…think!
She couldn’t concentrate. Her heart pounded so loudly she feared the leg would hear it. Panic built in her chest. Now was not the time to have an anxiety attack. Oh, no you don’t, not now. Breathe…breathe.
From experience, she knew if she didn’t take control quickly, the attack would overwhelm her. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, and then another, closing her mind to everything else, concentrating on the air filling her lungs and slowly releasing. She followed the techniques and mantras of self-help books and cognitive therapists who’d taught her over the years. It took all her might to silence and calm her body.
She hated the exhausting attacks descending upon her without warning but had learned to live with them. She’d become a master magician, hiding them from the rest of the world to keep up her Academy Award performance and to pretend everything was okay whilst she suffered in silence and clawed her way back from hell as life carried on around her. At least now she could control the dreaded curse and not freeze with fear as she once did. At least now she no longer begged for the only thing she believed would stop it…death
Many know-it-alls who professed to be experts on the subject were ignorant. Their naïve, insensitive commands of ‘pull your socks up’ or ‘just get on with it’ made her cringe. They didn’t have a clue what a panic attack entailed. She’d read somewhere that geniuses were prone to depression, so fuck them.
Anxiety was a lonely place. She blamed him for her illness, the bastard who took her at the age of four. She believed that one day karma would make him pay…if she didn’t get there first. Meanwhile, humour and planning her revenge, helped get her through.
The attack subsided bit by bit as her breathing slowed to normal. Thankfully, the leg’s owner hadn’t noticed and still snored away. Time to get out of here, the boss is going to kill me.
She lifted her head off the pillow; a blistering headache hit home and pierced the back of her eyes. She dropped her head back down. She shouldn’t drink on antidepressants. Urrgh! How much did I drink?
The office parties were renowned for their mayhem. She didn’t remember hooking up with anyone. So, where the hell am I, and who the hell is the leg? Gawd, I’m too old for this.
Peering over the duvet to the end of the bed, she saw daylight seeping through a door frame, outlining her exit point. Her head continued to thump with pain, forcing her to lean back into the pillow.
She lay very still, trying not to wake whoever was attached to the leg, and sorted through the jumbled images of the previous night’s proceedings.
The party had started with shots. Always dangerous.
Blotchy flashes of memory teased her brain. She’d been drinking, pub crawling, table-dancing, singing. Urrgh! ‘Mama Mia’ again.
A flash of being manhandled in the back of a black taxi flitted through her mind, a nice manhandle, not frightening manhandle. But who?
At least it was a man, the leg was hairy…unless it was Velma from Reception, who didn’t shave. Oh gawd, please don’t let it be Velma and her obsessive crush issues.
Velma, was their overenthusiastic office receptionist. Amy once ran across the reception area, rushing from one meeting to another. Velma caught her eye as she sat hawk-like behind her imposing desk. Being polite, Amy casually asked her how she was.
“Hello there. How are you?”
A quick, courteous, throwaway line. The kind of line everyone used but rarely meant.
Before she knew it, Velma had shared her life story, and because Amy had practiced good manners and listened, it somehow meant Velma had permission to report her every move to Amy, that they had formed a bond, a one-sided bond. Velma rarely asked how Amy was.
Ever since that fateful ‘How are you?’ Velma had latched on to Amy. Taking every opportunity to phone, text, email and search Amy out, to detail the smallest day-to-day detritus of her existence. Regularly, she followed Amy to the loo, and would be waiting outside as Amy took her lunch hour or left to go home at the end of the day.