Someone's Someone

Someone's Someone - Chapter Forty

Henna....

After quickly getting dressed, I had hurried out of the house. There was someone I needed to see. A someone who needed to explain himself. A someone who needed to look me right in the eye and tell me why he had called Danny's brother. I was so infused with anger, I really don't remember much of the drive to KB's.

Once there,, I rushed into the bar and started scanning the room for Keith. There was no sign of him, only his deputy bar manger, Sam. "Is Keith around?" I had casually enquired , trying to not sound as fuming as I had felt inside.

"Yeah, he's down in the cellar, Hen." Sam told me, as he ran his hand through his blonde floppy fringe. "He's doing the weekly stock take."

Forcing a strained smile, I replied whilst heading straight towards the cellar door. "Thanks, Sam!"

The steps down to the cellar were notoriously hazardous, so I tried to keep the temper from out of my feet as I carefully descended the concrete steps. As soon as I had reached the bottom, I saw Keith. He turned his head, realising that he was longer alone. "Henna?" He said, holding his clip board against his chest. "I wasn't expecting to see you."

Warily, my feet took me closer to him. "How could you, Keith?" Anger emotionally expelled itself from my throat. "Why go behind mine and Danny's back and contact his brother?"

Placing his clipboard down onto a large keg of lager, Keith didn't hesitate in answering. If anything, he was more than happy to explain. "Danny isn't right for you, Hen. As your friend, I'm trying to stop you making a really big and stupid mistake."

Snorting, I momentarily closed my eyes. When I had opened them again, I locked them fully onto Keith. "You're not being my friend, you're just being a jealous asshole!"

Keith was undeterred, unaffected by my angry onslaught. "I am jealous, yes! I want you to be with me. I think we would be if Danny Dropout wasn't around. But as jealous as I am, I'm still your friend and I'm still going to look out for you, Henna...I won't ever apologise for that."

Grunting with pure frustration, I had rolled my tense neck. "What exactly are you looking out for me for, Keith? You don't have to protect me. Certainly not from Danny."

Keith just sneered. "I certainly do."

My head tilted, confused. "Why? Why do you have to protect me from Danny?"

Keith came closer, confidently closer. "Because he is a man who will just keep on screwing up his life. He's done it once, and lost everything, he will do it again and again."

He then had the audacity to try and bring his arm around my waist, but I angrily stumbled back. "Stop it, Keith! It's time for you to move on from me, from us! I am not in love with you. I never have and I never will. I love Danny. He is it for me. He may not be perfect. He may have screwed many things up, but that doesn't stop me from loving him. It won't ever stop me from loving him." I was all breathless and achingly emotional as I shouted back at Keith.

Who just stilled himself right in front of me. I remember him being unnaturally still as he let my shouty rant slowly sink in, to painfully all sink in. "And will you still love him when he leaves, Henna?" His question had permeated the uncomfortable silence and the awkward stillness all around us. "Because he will leave. His brother and his father have been trying to find him for months. They want him home. They want him back in the family business. They want him away from here." There was a coating of glee to Keith's tone towards me. A clear coating of sarcasm to all that he was gloatingly telling me.

It was then that it hit me. This was Keith's plan all along. He was hoping that Danny's family would want him home, because then Danny wouldn't be here in Bristol with me.

That was his plan.

His calculating plan.

He knew that Danny would blame me for contacting his brother, which would hopefully then cause an unfixable big rift between us.

All my anger.

All my hurt.

It was all of Keith's doing.

After realising all of that, I looked at Keith harshly in the eye. "I expected more of you, Keith. I really did. I have always thought you were a kind and thoughtful man, but after all that you have done, all that you were hoping would happen, I honestly can't bear to be in the same room as you now." My emotions were inwardly being held together as I turned to calmly leave Keith and all of his spite behind me.

"He will let you down, Henna, he's only just got off the streets, for Christ sake! He will leave and let you down, and I won't be there to pick you back up again. You won't have him, and you won't have me."

Keith's words had hit my back with such accuracy like poisonous little darts, I couldn't say anything, I just kept on walking away.

Our friendship was over.

And quite possibly, so could Danny and I.

That is all I kept thinking about as I distractingly drove back to dad's.

I had a bad feeling. A dull and nauseous bad feeling. I knew that Danny was with his brother, probably talking about him returning back home. I just knew that was what they would be discussing.

It's what they were planning. And moment by moment, it numbed me more and more inside.

When I eventually did get back to dad's, that bad feeling only intensified. And it would seem that bad feeling had very good reason for being inside of me, because there in the living room, wasn't just Danny and his brother—his father was also there.

I was polite, even nice. Being polite and nice is actually a really bloody hard thing to do, when your heart is being broken from the inside out. But I did it, and I hopefully did it really well. But now Nathan and Danny's father are leaving, the bad feeling inside of me is nauseatingly multiplying.

This is where Danny ends what has only just began.

This is where he puts a heartbreaking end to us.