Rachel worked her jaw carefully for a moment before replying. The tension in her body was knotting her neck, clamping pain in a line that was spreading down her shoulder and radiating through her arm. ‘What happened?’
‘Well it was as soon as you and Mitch left. He just stood up and followed. I mean I was halfway through a sentence and just boom, he was on his way to the door. And he had this really intense look in his eyes you know.’ Sarah paused but Rachel didn’t trust herself not to scream at her. ‘But that’s not the really odd bit…’ Sarah paused again, ‘Are you alright? You sound like you’re hyperventilating or something.’
‘I’m fine. What happened?’ Rachel hissed it before she could stop herself. Sarah sounded far less certain of herself when her voice came back.
‘Well, as I was saying, I was fairly drunk at the time. And, well, all I can say is… well. I mean God it sounds ridiculous but he was pretty cute you know. I thought, after I saw you and Mitch getting along so well. I thought I’d… well it’d had been a while for me too you know. I thought I’d see if there was any interest.’
You fucking bitch of a lying slut. You were all over him the whole time, don’t try and justify it now.
‘You seemed pretty into him for most of the night from where I was sitting.’ It came out sounding really bitchy this time but Rachel was beyond caring. At this moment, she was so pissed off; she could happily see herself ruining their friendship forever. What did she fucking need her friends for anyway, they only fucking caused problems.
‘Did I?’ Sarah sounded offended now and the voice chirped up in Rachel’s head, laced with sarcasm. Wow, good job. Mission accomplished. ‘Are you pissed at me? I didn’t know you fancied him.’
‘I don’t. What happened?’ Rachel’s entire body was trembling now. She felt strangely light-headed despite her thumping headache. Was she going to pass out? Have an aneurysm?
‘Well…’ Rachel could just see Sarah toying with the idea of being a bitch and hanging up. She restrained from growling into the receiver: just fucking tell me. ‘Well, I was feeling good to go by the time you walked out, you know, and when he up and left, I was a bit offended too. I thought we were getting on pretty well and stuff. So I followed him. Pretty much threw myself at him outside the pub and that was when it got a little weirder.’
Rachel felt like shrieking laughter when it occurred to her what her friend’s problem was. He’d said no. Ha ha ha ha ha.
Come on be charitable, the voice spoke up again but Rachel was in no mood to listen to it. Sarah was a pretty vain woman. The sort that spent a lot on her body: gym memberships, facials, waxing, solariums. What a blow that would have been to her ego. Fucking bitch deserves it after how she was acting… Even as she thought it though, it segued into a more disturbing one. Why would he have said no? It wasn’t like the money hadn’t been spent well. In fact, thinking back, Rachel struggled to remember a time when anyone had said no to Sarah.
‘I got no reaction. Like none at all. I was pushing up against him and everything. It was like kissing a marble statue. I even accidentally grazed his penis. I admit I’m not the most subtle person when I’m drunk and there was zero reaction there. So I got a little shitty and I must admit, I started making a bit of a scene, but while I berated him, he just stood there and took it. He didn’t seem to be at all bothered. Sort of stone-faced and dreamy. Fortunately Ana heard me and came and got me before I did anything really dumb but just before she did, this smile spread across his face and it was so friggin’ freaky and when he talked it was just this stilted monotone. Shit, I couldn’t even attempt an impersonation. He just said: sorry you’re not my type, you don’t look like her”,’ Sarah stopped talking and barked a nervous laugh.
‘Shit, it doesn’t even sound that bad repeating it but I swear there was just something about the way he said it. Freaked the shit out of me.’
‘Okay.’ Rachel’s voice sounded dry and crackly to her ears. A new thought was growing and as she listened, she slowly, with a somnambulistic step, began to walk back to the bedroom.
‘… But I thought I should ring and tell you, you know, as he seemed rather caught up with you. I’m telling you he’s a freak.’
‘I know. It’s the main reason I didn’t want you to call him over last night if you recall.’ Rachel stopped dead as she reached the bed; its sheets still rumpled, and studied the glass.
‘Well I didn’t know, I was trying to do you a favour…’ Sarah’s voice was carrying an edge of righteous indignation that Rachel just couldn’t swallow at the moment. As her eyes locked on the faint smears at the bottom of the window, Rachel knew she had to get off the phone or she’d take it out on her friend.
‘I’ll have to call you back,’ she hissed and hung up without waiting for a reply.
For the longest second, she just stood there, her body quivering with rage, the shooting pains of cramp infusing her whole left side now.
Well mission accomplished, you’ve successfully pissed off your friend, the voice spoke up. What’s next on the agenda…
Rachel roared aloud in frustration, stopping the voice dead in its tracks as the irritations of the last week began to pour into her: her fucking broken car, the fucking tram trips, the fucking missing underwear, fucking Sarah, fucking Mitch not leaving a fucking note, the fucking pervert next door and his fucking staring, ruining her fucking night out, fucking Maree giving her shit at work, the fucking broken hot water service that she still hadn’t called the landlord about and now fucking this. He’d been again. She was certain of it, he’d been out there watching. He’d cleaned up or at least tried to but she could still see a few smears and it just made her so fucking angry. What fucking right did he have? He was just like all the other ones: the fucking inconsiderate pricks.
The fucking old bitch, ‘I don’t like to keep my babies locked up.’ Babies, they were fucking cats!
The fucking goth wanker: ‘I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you show me your tits and then I might turn down the music.’
All of them. Fucking one after another. All she fucking wanted was to be left alone. Just some fucking peace but no…
Rachel roared again, a tense choking sound that did not relieve the snowballing rage one iota. It just kept building and building and building.
The phone shattered very satisfyingly as she hurled it into the wall.
* * * * *
Ben sat, slowly smoking as he rolled the bottle of pills absently in front of him. He really wished he’d bought another bottle of bourbon. Something to distract himself with but he didn’t dare go out now to rectify the oversight. He didn’t want to miss an opportunity if she went out.
That was if she did go out today.
Did she have work? Ben had lost track of time. He had no idea how long had passed since the pub. He was a little hazy on the time before then as well but assumed it had been a Friday on the pub night. But how long had passed since then? Ben had been slipping in and out of the Red Room since his near-mishap outside Rachel’s window and it had been hard to keep track.
He pressed his eye to the crack between the blind again as he saw a shadow flit by. He didn’t recognise the chubby man in a matching green tracksuit set. He was probably from one of the flats up the other end of the block. Any of the tenants not immediately bordering him could have been in another world for all Ben saw of them.