The Couple on Cedar Close by Anna-Lou Weatherley EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author: Anna-Lou Weatherley
- Language: English
- Formats: PDF / EPUB
- Status: Available For Free Download
- Series: None
- Price: Free
- File Size: 2 MB
THREE MONTHS LATER
The scallops or the prawns? Laurie is undecided as she peruses the fish
counter, carefully studying the shellfish nestled on their beds of crushed ice,
mentally weighing up which ones are likely to please him most. Please him.
Even now, after everything, she is still conditioned to put his feelings first. A
familiar ache rises up inside her chest cavity and pulls at her, triggering a
rush of oxytocin. She feels the flutter of adrenaline as the chemicals rush
through her body and she puts her hand up to her chest in a bid to regulate her
heart’s increasing thud.
It’s an addiction, Laurie. She hears the clipped, matter-of-fact voice of
her therapist. Trauma has bonded you to him by a chemical addiction. You’re
an addict…
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Now she thinks of it, hadn’t they served scallops as a starter for their
wedding breakfast? That’s right – scallops in a lemon-and-herb butter sauce.
She thinks she might even still have the shells somewhere that she kept as
mementos. Perhaps scallops would remind him, jerk his memory back to that
day when they had been so happy and hopeful, so in love.
The scallops it is then. She orders half a dozen from the red-faced,
awkward-looking teenager behind the counter and hopes that Robert will
appreciate them; she’s always been a great cook, when she used to cook that
is, before the accident. She wonders if Claire is as adept in the kitchen as she
is. Claire looks like the type of woman oven chips were designed for. She
was probably too busy with the baby now to prepare extravagant meals – no
doubt she orders in most nights. Laurie visualises Claire pushing a pram
around Iceland, hot and harassed, haplessly throwing ready meals into a
basket and gives a ghost of a smile.
She makes her way towards the checkout – only she has to go past the
booze section on the way, past the rows of shiny green and brown bottles of
wine and spirits. She tries not to look at them but it’s too tempting. One bottle
wouldn’t hurt, would it? After all, this was going to be their last supper
together. But oh look – the vodka is on special! Without thinking she is
already holding it in her shaking hand, placing it in the basket along with an
expensive bottle of Château Margaux. Robert likes red with a meal.
Hang on
though: she’s serving a fish starter, so perhaps some Prosecco as well
then… The bottles make a familiar clank together in the basket, a sound that
fills Laurie with a mix of anticipation and shame. She hears her therapist’s
words again. Many addicts swap one addiction for another, Laurie. And some
people develop another addiction while trying to anesthetise themselves from
the first.
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