“Urgh.” Edie rubbed her face with her hands and pushed herself up from the soft cream carpet.
The confusion bubbling in her belly felt like the sickness during Edie’s first weeks of pregnancy; uncontainable liquid sloshing backwards and forwards. She placed a hand on the foot of the bed to steady the waves and regain some balance. A tickle of soft fur ran past her bare ankles and Edie looked down.
“Hey, Alma,” she said, bending down and tickling the fluffy orange tabby cat purring beside her feet.
Alma wound her way around Edie’s legs, the noise of her purr was enough to reduce Edie’s frantic heart rate. Alma was the one joint purchase that Edie had not been willing to relinquish. She had offered Robert the flat, the furniture, she’d even left her favourite antique dresser that she’d picked up at an auction in Camden. Her first ever pay packet treat to herself was now sitting unused in a bedroom. Bile rose in Edie’s throat as she wondered if it was actually now being used by her best friend. Herex-best friend. She scooped up the cat and snuggled her close to her neck.
“It’s not like it would match the decor here anyway, is it puss?” she asked, burying her face and letting Alma’s thick fur soak up her tears.
Alma purred contentedly. As a cat she didn’t care that her new home was a square new-build property with magnolia walls and cream carpets, no character and a total mismatch for the favoured antique furniture of her owner. But after a few moments the ginger tabby did care that Edie was making her all wet. She jumped out of Edie’s arms and onto the bed, meowing indignantly. Edie wiped at her face with the heels of her hands, her tears still flowing silently down her cheeks.
She walked around her bed, ignoring Alma as she padded across the top of the duvet to follow her, and slid the bottom drawer in her chest of drawers open. Even the furniture was shiny and new, her old wonky drawers had taken a special knack to open and often didn’t until she’d kicked them hard enough to shift the swollen wood. She pulled out a pair of running shorts and vest and stripped out of her shift dress and down to her underwear. Over the last few days Edie had noticed her bra straps digging in, the underwire leaving an angry red mark by nightfall. Shopping wasn’t top of her list of things to do, but Edie knew it was becoming more imminent. And this, on top of everything else she was having to deal with, was weighing her down. She changed into a running bra and considered the irony at squashing down her new D cups when, ever since she was a little girl, it was all she wished for. She gathered her hair up in a messy bun and walked out into the warm summer afternoon.
The house may have felt to Edie like a soulless box set in the middle of a bunch of other soulless boxes, but it had one huge positive that almost outweighed its utilitarianism; just a five minute walk away were the cliff tops and the beach below. The marketing suite had sold the new build estate to Edie asbeing on the edge of the market town of Little Water. Actually, Little Water seemed to have created a belt between themselves and the new estate, and it took a ten minute car journey to get to the actual market. Still, it was a beautiful town, and the beach had been the real draw of the home Edie had bought. That, and the fact it had been reduced in price five times because the properties just weren’t selling.
Edie fixed her headphones in her ears and hit play to her running soundtrack. Almost immediatelyDaft Punkdrew her away from all of the worries flying around in her head and set her feet in motion. Edie ran along the tarmac outside her home, her feet sticking with each step until she reached the old winding roads that led down to the beach. When she was running, nothing else mattered. It had been the same when her feet had pounded the streets near her old flat just north of Hampstead Heath, or the Heath itself. Edie found it therapeutic to switch off, her attention focussed solely on the rhythm of her body and the rolling motion of her breathing.
She ran down the walkway to the sand, and headed east, away from Little Water and the crowds it drew. She ran on, down the soft, yellow sand towards the water until it lapped at her trainers and she changed course to run parallel to the sea. The sand here firmer, easer to run along. The tide was on its way in and every so often a large wave would break, crashing over the sand and spraying Edie with a fine mist of salt water. Sea groins protruded at regular intervals, causing Edie to hop over them as though she was still competing her school cross country course. She relished the change in pattern, pushing herself as far as she dared to with the new life growing inside her.
So caught up in her pace, the energetic tones ofJourney nowpulsing through her ears, that Edie didn’t notice the border collie until it was under her feet. She flew into the air and landed on her back with a thump.
“Ooof,” she uttered, the wind knocked out of her lungs.
A shadow appeared over her head and a large wet tongue started licking away at her face. Edie’s hands flew up to her head, covering her face and neck. The tongue found any gaps she’d left with practised ease, the dog itself flying backwards and forwards as though Edie was playing a fun game offind the bare patch of skin.
“Archie, stop. Get back here, now!” A panting male voice shouted from a distance.
Edie kept her hands over her face and tucked her body into a commando roll designed for parachute landings and airplane crashes.
“I’m so sorry, he normally hates the general public and runs a mile from other human beings.” The voice was nearer now, Edie could hear it muffled through her arms.
Suddenly the soggy onslaught was interrupted with a whine and an excited bark. Edie could still hear panting, but she wasn’t sure if it was coming from the dog or its owner. She peeked under her arm to make sure the coast was clear, and with nothing other than a pair of very worn walking trainers, she uncurled her body.
“I really am so sorry,” said the voice. “Oh, dear, you’re all sandy. Archie, SIT, what on earth has gotten into you?”
Edie stifled back a chuckle—the exasperated commands from the owner to his dog were tickling Edie—and brushed sand from her bare legs as best she could. It was damp and sticky and acting like a spa-strength exfoliator. She looked up from her reddening legs to a bouncy border collie with the most beautifully soft fur in patches of pure white and black. His tongue lollupped around as he jumped from side to side, his rear end waggling with the weight of his excited tail. His poor owner tried to attach the lead back to the emerald green collar with little luck.
“He normally hates people. I let him off the lead because he stays as far away from human kind as possible,” he said, still with his back to Edie, leaning over the dog.
Edie watched his back muscles ripple through his black t-shirt and silently chastised herself for drooling over two men in one day. The man didn’t notice, he continued wrangling the dog and trying to talk.
“Are you hurt? Are your clothes okay, here let me take a look?” The man said turning to Edie, the dog finally leashed. “Oh, it’s you!”
Edie gasped and the smile slid rapidly from her face.
3
“I… I…” He stumbled over his words; all logical formation had flown out of his mind when he’d caught sight of who Archie had bowled over.
She looked like a vision. The dark sweep of hair which earlier had been so neatly tied back was now gathered in a messy bun at the nape of her neck. Tendrils escaped and tickled her cheeks. Her eyes sparkle like polished amethysts. Her pink cheeks like the strawberries to her cream iridescent skin, glowing with health. The creamy skin peeked out from under her shorts and vest top too, but Finn drew his eyes away before he caused himself anymore awkwardness.
He swallowed and tried to regain some composure. He’d come to the beach with Archie to try and clear his head, bumping into Edie was the last thing he expected to do. In fact, this far down the coast line, bumping in to anyone was the last thing he expected.
“It’s okay, Doctor Cooper. I’ll be fine.” Edie shot out the words and turned quickly to leave.
Finn saw how the damp sand was clinging to her shorts and legs as she started running in the opposite direction. Her gait hampered by what he could only imagine was a sharp, disagreeable scrunching on her skin. Watching her leave, Finn could see nothing but sand and sea as far as his eyes could reach. He knew they were at least a couple of miles away from Little Water and felt a leaden weight at the thought of how much pain Edie would be in by the time she got back to civilisation.
“Wait,” he shouted after her.
