The Consequence

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

   Throwing the remote across the room, I kicked the table in fury. My anger was starting to get the best of me. All I saw in Luke's flat were things that had suddenly started to remind me of who I used to be.

   The car outside, in which Luke had just driven away in was paid for by his past life. The flat screen television, the glass coffee table. They were all bought with dirty money. How could he walk around this flat and not care about what was in it?

   The only thing that I had that tied me to my past life was a photograph of my family in my wallet. It was torn and old but it just warranted a smile every time I opened it.

   The remote had landed behind the television. And as much as I wanted to smash his whole flat up, I knew I couldn't. Luke was my best friend and he had been loyal to me for as long as I could remember. He has always been someone you could rely on and as he has grown up his emphasis on family and friends and keeping them close has only grown. 

   It was probably why he kept in touch with Chantelle. 

      I grabbed the remote but as I leant back up my eye caught something on the top shelf of his DVD's. Placing my hand on the top I brought the dark red book down. Was this a photo album? I smirked, I wonder if there are any nude photos of Luke when he was a kid?

   I placed the remote - the back had now come off - down on the table absentmindedly and sat back down on the sofa, pulling the newspaper out from under me. Putting the album on my lap I opened the first page.

   I couldn't stop the smile from lighting up my face. It was a photograph of Luke and I out in the fields on the last day of school. We were so young! It felt like it was a whole lifetime ago. It was Jay who took it, he was having a fag at the time and refused to be photographed with it because his girlfriend at the time hated it and refused to kiss him if he smoked. 

   Damn, that was a tricky time, us lot all trying to stop him from getting dumped. The girl did eventually find out and goodness, she was not happy! It was good while it lasted though. I had to carry mints around with me everywhere.

   The photograph underneath it was of Luke and a girl from school. What was her name again? Hmm.. Hayley? Hannah? She was one of Megan's friends but she moved house after high school and we didn't see her much afterwards.

   She was Luke's first proper girlfriend I think. Megan and Chantelle tried to keep in touch with her for a while after she moved but they just drifted. She probably turned up to the funeral... I'll have to ask Chantelle on Friday to see if she did. Maybe we could invite her out or something? I shrugged, that is if she has stayed near. For all I know, she could be living in Cornwall.

   I turned the page over and as soon as I saw all four photos my eyes begun to glisten over. I tried to muster a smile but it was hard. I had been avoiding photographs of her. My throat had gone dry, my hand covering my mouth as I took in the photos through my slow, cascading tears. 

   Plop, plop. The tears fell softly onto the laminate paper and slid off the edge slowly. She had always been beautiful. The top left photo was one of her and me. We must have been about eighteen here. The bruise covering my eye made me wince. The memories were flooding back faster and faster and I just wanted them to stop.

   I desperately wanted to shut the book and put it back - seeing so many images of her smiling (one with a bottle of Lambrini in her hand) and being happy when she was now just some ashes in a jar was devastating. I put her there. How could I have ever let this happen?