Tomorrow's Blues

7. The Song

"Alice!" I called when I got back to her house. "I'm back!"

There was the sound of footsteps down the stairs, and Alice appeared in the kitchen. "Hey, you're back earlier than I thought you would be. Where's Joseph?"

"Oh, he had to stay in town. I just got the bus back." I shrugged. "Feeling better?"

"A bit, I guess. I managed to eat some bread, so that's a good thing." She groaned. "God, I can barely even remember why I even got so drunk."

"Yeah, why did you?" I questioned curiously. "Something about Dylan?"

Alice shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah. He... uh, he tried to kiss me."

"He what?" I blurted, my eyebrows raised.

Alice winced. "Yeah. I obviously said no, and then he got all annoyed and kindly reminded me of how he never loved me, and was just using me."

"I'm going to murder him," I muttered. "I can't believe he said that. You okay?"

"Oh yeah, I'm fine." She waved a hand dismissively. "I only took that to heart because I was already drunk, and I'm an emotional drunk. Now, I don't really care."

"Well, good." I couldn't believe Dylan. What kind of person would do that?

"Ana," Alice stated, looking at me furtively, "You're not going to go and talk to Dylan about this, are you?"

My anger deflated when I saw the worry in her eyes. "Not if you don't want me to."

"I don't. I really appreciate your... murder tendencies towards Dylan, but I think it's better to just leave it." Alice smiled at me. "Anyway. How did Melissa's go? You talk to them about a job?"

"Oh. Yeah, I talked to the manager, and he offered me one, and I took it. I'm going to work, like, four days a week for the rest of the holidays, and when we go back to school, I'll work at the weekends."

"That sounds great!" she said, a wide grin on her face. "That means you can give me stuff for free, right?"

I smiled slightly. "Probably. It'll be fun. And sociable. You have to come visit me."

"Trust me, I will be there the whole time."

I hadn't actually told Alice the real reason I was getting this job – to help me get a flat when I was eighteen. To be true to myself, I didn't even need the job. My parents had left me enough money to afford a decent one bedroom apartment, but I needed something to do, and it was good to earn money of my own.

Alice spent most of the rest of the day in bed, while I lounged around downstairs, chatting to Ellie on the phone or blitzing through a TV series. Catherine had gone to visit a friend in town, and Joseph never reappeared.

Throughout the day, a memory was niggling at my mind, and it took me a while to recall what that memory was. I was only reminded of it when I glanced at the vase of flowers on the kitchen table. Lily. Joseph had called me Lily when we'd been out for breakfast. I swear to God, Lily, I will kill you here and now. Those were his precise words. Not the nicest of words, but for some reason, the fact that he had called me Lily was clinging on to my mind. No one had called me Lily for a while.

Catherine and Mark returned in the evening, and we – including Alice – all ate supper together, though about halfway through her meal, Alice was starting to look a little ill. She held it together, but after the meal, she excused herself to go to bed.

Catherine and Mark merely laughed at her lack of subtlety. They stayed up with me for a bit, finishing their wine and chatting. It seemed strange to me that they didn't seem to worry about where Joseph was, but when I voiced this, they looked completely unconcerned.