REM // Van McCann

63. Are You Alright?

He did, however, send me the address and the newspaper article. It took ages because his mother-in-law is a bit scatterbrained but he remembered. Getting that address helped me plan for my holiday because it narrowed down the location even more. I had a rough idea of the itinerary and planned to book hotels this week.

"Things are better than they were before but I can't get too comfortable," she answered. "I'm looking at two different places this week and one of them falls on Thursday after work but I can do Tuesday." I was surprised because I didn't think she'd be able to meet so soon. She's quite a busy person running all over the place, whether it's looking at an apartment or hanging out with friends.

"Yeah, Tuesday works."

"Great," she replied, putting her earbuds in and resuming her film.

-

Tuesday

She's usually gone by the time I wake up but there are signs that she was just here. The sink is wet and I can smell her perfume. Her makeup was in disarray. Most of the time, it's put back neatly but today, she left some stuff out as if she was in a hurry. She's not big on breakfast but she was getting better at it because of me. Sometimes she'll toast a piece of bread and have it on the go or have some Weetabix if she had more time. It's funny because she complained about the Weetabix at first but then it grew on her.

When I got to work, I put my stuff down on my desk and pulled up Florence's binder. Even though it's only been a week, I forgot what she last dreamt about. When I read the summary, I grinned and shook my head. How could I forget she dreamt about me? She was walking home late at night and got chased by a group of men. I couldn't help but wonder what she'd dream about today.

Bondy arrived, lugging his bag over his shoulders. He never liked taking his laptop home but he's been bringing it home every day for the past week to fine tune his code. We've been giving him a lot of work by telling him what worked and what didn't. There's been a huge improvement since the first time. We ran into the issue of the dream falling apart once the change was introduced. Now Bondy's got it so that it doesn't happen anymore.

"Good morning Van," he greeted me, walking to his desk and taking his laptop out. He put his laptop in the dock and turned it on.

"Mornin' Bondy," I said back to him.

"Have you done anymore planning for your trip?"

Bondy and Larry both know about my trip at the end of the month. When I first brought it up, they were surprised as it seemed to come out of nowhere. To be fair, it did. And they had a feeling it had something to do with Clara but they were kind enough to not ask.

I was caught off guard when they asked if I wanted help getting my mail and watering my plants. They know my neighbor and I don't get along and they've been to my flat before so they know their way around. Under any other circumstances, I'd say yes but since Florence is around, I said no which they found odd because I usually say yes. To ease their suspicion, I panicked and told them my plants died and my neighbor and I made up which only made them more suspicious. Fucking hell, I'm a terrible liar.

"I've got the itinerary mapped out and will book hotels this week," I told him.

"Where are you going in Portugal?"

"I'm gonna spend three days in Porto, four days in Lisbon, and five days in the Algarve region."

Whenever I fly to Europe from the States, I try to stay a minimum of two weeks to make the flight prices worth it. I initially thought about spending the entire time in the Algarve region but found it ridiculous to go solely for Clara. I've not been to Portugal before or been on a proper holiday in ages so I decided to treat myself to something nice.

"That sounds fun," Bondy commented, turning his attention back to his laptop.

When Larry came in, I decided to tell them both that Florence was coming in today. They were surprised that Florence took a break to focus on her housing situation. Without saying too much, I said that things were getting better for her and that she said she could make one session this week. You could tell they knew something was up but they didn't know what and that bothered them. But one thing was clear. Florence and I were hiding something.

At 3:30 PM, Florence stopped by like she said she would and greeted everyone. Bondy and Larry were quick to ask how she was doing and she was careful with her answers. To save her the trouble, I tried to get things moving along by having her help me set up so they couldn't ask her so many questions.

We're normally focused when setting up as it'd be bad to get our settings swapped but Florence's mind was elsewhere. After she was done uncoiling the probes and placing them on their respective seats, she'd watch me from afar. I could feel her gaze burning into the side of my head so when I turned to see what she wanted, she'd look away pretending to pick at something on her shirt. I opened my mouth to say something but then closed it. Perhaps I'll ask her about it tonight. It could be anything, really.

Once everything was set, I asked if she was ready and she nodded her head. I set the delay for five minutes and made my way over to my seat. While I was putting on my mask and probes, I noticed she was trembling slightly.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

"Yeah," she replied quickly. "Do I not look okay?" Her eyes were wide as she looked at me and I didn't want to say anything. At least not in front of Bondy and Larry.

"I just wanted to make sure as it's been a while," I told her. It's unlikely that she'd forget how things worked taking a week off. It was something else. My eyes went to the timer which had fifteen seconds left.