The Night Watch ✓

23 / letting go

Monday. Back to the daily grind. For almost eight hours straight, Bree had sat at her desk and gone through the roleplay that her job had become, answering the phone and responding to emails, and ensuring that her brother's move would be as pain-free as possible. Her head was still wound up after yesterday, after so many hours of holding back her tears before she had got back home and cried on Gaia's shoulder, and every now and then she found herself drifting from her duties. She couldn't even bring herself to get irritated by Petra, her brain wrapped up in what she needed to do.

Talk to Kit. As much as she ached to see him, to run her hands through his hair and lace her fingers with his, the thought of the subject of their next meeting still terrified her. No matter what anybody said, she couldn't shove her way past the block that told her he would walk away when he knew the truth. It wasn't a simple confession, and it wasn't as though the past had happened without consequence. It had affected every part of her, rewiring her brain, and it would take more than the year it had been to uncross those wires.

"Bree?"

She looked up at the sound of her own name to see Petra standing in front of her desk, looking down at her with those dull, piggish eyes. Her thin hair hung limply from her scalp like overcooked spaghetti, doing nothing to complement her ruddy cheeks, and Bree withered beneath her stare.

"What?" she asked, her voice tired. She didn't have the energy to deal with the woman today, too many distractions going on in her head for her to face another pathetic argument.

"Do you know what time it is?" Petra asked, thin eyebrows pulling together and forcing a crease above her nose. Bree dropped her gaze to the bottom right corner of her computer and her eyes widened a fraction when she saw the digital clock: 17:32. Ordinarily she would have been out of the door like a shot thirty minutes ago, but she was paralysed behind her computer.

"Oh," she said. Closing her browser pages, she logged off and stood, hoisting her bag onto her shoulder and taking her phone from the desk.

"Are you ok?" Petra asked. The question didn't come from a place of concern, but rather from a thirst for gossip, always after something else to hold against her colleague.

"Yup," Bree said. "Thanks."

Once her computer had shut down, the screen going black, she clocked out and walked stiffly to her car without another word. After sitting for so long, her legs weren't accustomed to moving, and pins and needles began to set in as they came back to life. Bree leant against her door, holding her breath as that familiar pain filled her limbs, and she waited for it to pass before getting behind the wheel.

All she wanted to do right now was to head back to the flat and have a drink, to enjoy a couple of glasses of wine, or maybe a couple more, just to give her mind a break. She had never had a problem with alcohol, but it helped clear her head when she couldn't trudge through the treacle of her thoughts. But there was no wine in the flat. They had polished off the last of it on Saturday night with toast after toast, filling glass after glass. Persuading her body to cooperate, Bree got out of the car and set off for the off license, a few minutes down the road from work. She often popped in there at the end of the day to pick up something to sip with supper, sharing a bottle with Gaia as evening fell, and she hoped that her flatmate would come home as soon as she was done with work. An evening in with her friend sounded perfect right now.

There was an offer on white wine. Her favourite. The man behind the counter tapped the promotional information when Bree stepped inside, the bell above the door tinkling to alert him to her arrival.

"Five for twenty," he said, the words clipped by his thick accent. "This section, any of these." He pointed at a row of the fridge, and Bree followed his finger. She wasn't one to say no to a deal, and four pounds per bottle was pretty good when they were usually six. She took a cardboard carrier from the till, opening it up and slipping five of her favourite labels into the slots.