Broken Truth (5 page)

Pouring herself a large glass of white wine, she waited for both Amelia and Lucy to grab their glasses before raising a toast. “To the best friends I could ever ask for and to our awesome Thursday night sleepovers. I love you girls! Cheers,” she smiled, toasting each girl’s glass.

“Phew, I am so glad its Friday tomorrow,” Lucy exhaled, flopping back onto the white leather sectional sofa. “I am so knackered it is unbelievable.”

“Count yourselves lucky,” Amelia moaned, taking a large gulp of wine. “I have to work tomorrow
and
Saturday, all because some stupid cow went into labour early before they hired anyone to cover her shift.”

Charlie smiled. “That sucks. I guess I am quite lucky that I was only hired for midweek appointments. Could you imagine my life with Callum if I had to work all weekend? I’d never see the poor guy.”

Pulling her feet up so that she could tuck her legs under her bum, Lucy angled herself towards Charlie. “Speaking of the God that is Callum Ellis, have you heard from him much this week?”

Charlie shook her head as she brought her wine glass up to her lips. “He has only called twice and both times from the office,” she said with a little disappointment. “He works really late most nights, so he says that by the time he gets home I’ll probably be asleep.”

Immediately Lucy’s eyes softened with sympathy. “That’s the trouble when your boyfriend owns a multi-million pound company, babe. You both knew what you were signing up for when you started seeing each other.”

Charlie took a long sip of wine and let out a frustrated groan. She knew that Lucy was completely right. They had both talked about his crazy work schedule before they were properly involved.

Callum had laid everything out for her so that she was aware of everything before making her choice. Having explained where his work was based and that he was mostly not contactable during and after work because of long hours, Charlie had still succumbed to his charm and agreed to give their relationship a go even if it meant only seeing him two nights a week.

Now a year down the line, she was very much in love and wanting to spend as much time with her boyfriend as possible. Their heartbreaking goodbyes on a Sunday night were starting to get harder and harder for them both.

During the working week, Charlie found herself just existing without a real purpose. She wasn’t complete and didn’t feel herself until the magical moment on a Friday evening when Callum walked through the front door and came back into her life.

After several hours and three full bottles of wine, it was safe to say that the girls were feeling more than a little tipsy. With the sound of Rihanna’s
- Only Girl (in the World)
blasting through the apartments built in speaker system, the three of them continued to dance crazily on a pretend stage they had erected by pushing the large white gloss coffee table up to the corner of the sofa.

“I’ll make you!” – Amelia pointed directly at Charlie – “Feel like you’re the only girl in the world!” she screeched in time with the music.

Laughing, Charlie pranced around on top of the coffee table. “There is only one man that can make me feel like the only girl in his world!”

“Damn! I totallyyyy get that,” Lucy squealed as she jumped off of the sofa and ran into the kitchen. Reappearing a few minutes later with Charlie’s mobile phone in her hand, she leisurely started to flick through the photos stored. “Boo, your phone is so lame. I thought you’d at least have a picture of his dick for me to look at,” she pouted with a hand on her hip.

“I have an idea,” Amelia piped up. “Charlie, send him a boob shot and see what you get back.”

Charlie’s eyes widened before she too caught on to Amelia’s infectious smirk. “He will totally freak out,” she laughed

Taking the phone out of Lucy’s hand, Charlie lifted her pyjama vest over her head. She wasn’t comfortable with sending a fully nude picture of her breasts to his phone, but instead settled with an over exaggerated cleavage shot in her bra.

“Sassy,” Lucy grinned, “He is going to love it.”

Attaching the image to a multimedia message, Charlie typed out a brief accompanying text. Pausing with her finger just over the send button, she bit her lip. “Are you sure he is going to see the funny side? I don’t usually text him during the week because of work. I always wait for him to contact me.”

Thrusting another glass of wine at her, Amelia laughed. “Grow some balls and hit send for God’s sake!”

Taking a large mouthful of wine, Charlie found a little dare devil courage and pressed her thumb firmly over the send button. “It’s gone,” she screeched, feeling extremely proud of what she had done.

She had to admit, she wasn’t even completely sure if he would see the text message. Looking at the clock on the wall behind her she saw that it was almost pushing eleven. From what she knew of his evening routine, he was most likely either driving home from the office after a late night or he was already asleep in front of the television. His life in London seemed to consist of the same routine day in and day out until the weekend when he came home.

“Has he texted you back yet?” Lucy yelled over the thumping bass in the living room.

Lighting up the screen in her hand, Charlie shook her head. “Nope, I bet he’s already gone to sleep.”

“Typical. I only wanted to tease Mr Tall, Dark and Fuckable for some entertainment,” Lucy complained, swaying a little from side to side. Charlie could clearly see that the alcohol was beginning to overwhelm her body.

“I think it may be the right time for bed,” she suggested, pulling the sound system remote out of the pocket on her pyjama bottoms. She pointed it straight at the control panel on the wall and the music came to an abrupt stop.

Amelia, completely oblivious that the music wasn’t playing any longer, continued to dance happily by herself in the corner of the room. Lucy on the other hand was now sitting on the sofa looking an unsightly shade of yellowish green.

“Come on,” Charlie said offering her hand. “Let’s get you upstairs before you throw up all over the place.”

Trying to get a drunken best friend up the stairs when she was already a little drunk herself wasn’t the greatest idea that Charlie had ever come up with. After finally leaving a fully clothed Lucy collapsed on one of the guest beds, Charlie figured that Amelia would eventually make her own way upstairs.

Weaving her way along the corridor, Charlie managed to successfully locate the master suite. Casually throwing her mobile phone somewhere near the bed, she staggered her way into the adjoining en-suite, mustering just enough energy to remove her contact lenses and brush her teeth.

Walking back into the darkened bedroom, Charlie’s eyes zoomed instantly towards the aggressive flashing of her mobile phone on the bed. Knowing it was most likely Callum calling, she moved quickly in an attempt to reach the device before he hung up.

In her haste to answer the call, Charlie managed to kick the corner of the large white leather bed frame with force. “Fuck!” She cursed loudly as a shooting pain slowly erupted in the lower half of her foot. Gripping hold of her toes to try and stop the relentless throbbing, Charlie collapsed backwards onto the bed. With her free hand she reached across to pick up her mobile phone which had annoyingly stopped ringing. 

Lighting up her home screen, she unsuccessfully tried to squint at the missed call and number displayed. Normally without wearing glasses or contact lenses her vision was partially sighted, however when she threw alcohol into the mix Charlie became practically blind.

“Please call back,” she begged towards her phone, hoping that somehow the caller would be able to hear her.

Knowing that she was not in a fit state to be able to get up and look for her glasses, she held on to the hope that the mysterious caller would ring back.

As if hearing her plea, the phone in Charlie’s hand started flashing again. Sliding her tongue across her parted lips to wet them, she raised the phone up to her ear. “Hello?” She tried to answer with as much seductive edginess to her voice as she could muster.

“Why are you sending pictures of your tits to my phone?”

Wincing, Charlie pulled the phone away from her ear as the piercing shriek of her sister’s voice shot through her head like the sound of a glass panel shattering into a millions of little pieces.

“Don’t shout at me,” she moaned, clasping her hand to her head.

“Have you been drinking?” Emma demanded with a hint of disgust.

Rolling her eyes, Charlie stuck two fingers up to the sky in a silent ‘fuck you’ to her sister. She was twenty seven years old and didn’t need to be told what she could and couldn’t do.

“Charlie,” Emma continued to prompt.

“God, you are so like Mum. You don’t drop anything do you,” Charlie fired back.

“Answer the question!”

“Yes! I had a fucking drink, Emma. Is that alright?” She noted the sudden volume increase in her voice as she spoke. “I’m not a child. If I want to have a drink then I will damn well have one.”

Silence came through the other end of the phone.

Charlie knew straight away that her sister was counting to ten silently in her head. Having used the same technique since she was a teenager, it was Emma’s way of regaining control of the situation.

 “You know how I feel about alcohol,” she eventually sighed. “I just don’t like the stuff and what it does to people. The last thing I want is for you to go through what he did.”

Charlie sucked in a violent breath at the card Emma played. It was a touchy subject not just for them, but for the entire family as a whole.

Having witnessed their father slowly drinking away his problems each night and narrowly missing death, it was safe to say that alcohol was a bad omen for the family whilst both Emma and Charlie were growing up. 

“Leave it now,” Charlie spat, her blood beginning to boil. “Why do you always bring this shit up? You should be proud of Dad for what he’s done. He fought through his problems and he is a changed man now. Alcohol doesn’t affect everyone the same you know, there is this little thing called M.O.D.E.R.A.S.H.U.N,” she pronounced.

“Right...” Emma replied sarcastically. “Is that why you’re sending me pictures of your tits and you can’t spell correctly?”