Page 54 of Tears of Gold

“It doesn’t have to be like this?”

“No?” He sighs and it’s like he’s punched me in the chest. “What I wish is that I’d never fallen in love with you. Sometimes I wish we’d never met.”

He hangs up as abruptly as he answered, and I stare at the ceiling while tears slip down my face. Shit.

Somehow, I manage to drag myself out of bed and into the bathroom where I stare at myself in the mirror. I look like shit. My skin is awful, my hair revolting. And I’m fucking hungry but there isn’t a single thing I want to eat.

“Yo, Faith.” I turn at the sound of Dylan calling my name. I can tell it’s him before I even see him. It’s that zesty enthusiasm he’s got going for him. It’s damn annoying.

“Dylan?”

“How you doing?”

“Fine. You?” I head into the coffee shop on campus, but then stop just inside the door. It smells awful, of sweaty people and burnt coffee. I rock back on the balls of my feet.

“Are you going in?” Dylan looks at me expectantly, but I shake my head. I might chuck on his shoes. Where the hell has this come from? Although I haven’t eaten all day. Maybe it’s that? Or maybe it’s the mutant inside me; the lentil mutant.

“No, I’ve just remembered I’ve got a meeting.”

He nods at me knowingly. “About the TV show? I tell you, Faith, my mates can’t believe it when I say you’re going to be on the box.”

“Well it’s a long way off yet.” And it might not happen because I have a bun in the oven, so let’s not get overexcited.

Luckily my phone begins to ring, so I don’t have to make any more conversation about an uncertain future. Then I look at the screen and my heart sinks. Brighton.

“Sorry, Dylan, I’ve got to get this.” I wave my phone at him.

“Sure thing, TV star.”

I shoot him an evil side-eye of doom and swipe at the screen of my phone as I weave myself away towards some privacy as quickly as I can. “Hello?”

“Hi, is this Faith Hitchin?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Shirley, your liaison officer with Brighton and Hove Police. I wanted to check in.”

My stomach plummets and I plonk myself down on the nearest bench uncaring of the passers-by whose path I block with my stumbling walk.

It’s the call I’ve been dreading.

“Hi.”

“You okay, Faith?”

No. I can one-hundred-percent claim I am not fine at all.

I scrunch the number of the counsellor Shirley gave me into a ball and shove it deep into my underwear drawer. I don’t even know why I wrote it down. I could have just pretended and made it sound like I was taking it down digit by digit.

My phone vibrates with a message and I pull it from my back pocket. Eli.

I can get a scan at a private hospital? If you wanted to know if the lentil was happening?

Is he sitting there looking at hospitals while he should be at court?

My fingers fly over the keys. Let’s talk later.

His answer is instant. Okay.