Now You See Me

Forty-Four: Packed In

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, and kisses my neck. "I should've waited."

I turn, and come face to face with his kicked-puppy look.

"It's fine," I reply, and our noses touch. He's won already. "We can sort this out. Let's just get the worst of it over with before Tori turns up and starts getting comfy."

"You're not angry with me?"

"No."

"Good." He's relieved, and it's visible.

"Now go put the kettle on or something while I make some sense of all this carnage," I tell him. He smiles and leaves to do so, leaving me in the middle of the explosion, feeling exasperated. I begin to move around the room, picking up clothes as I go and chucking mine into my own suitcase,Chris's into the other. I go round and pick up all the plastic carriers next, pausing to make sure Chris is still occupied with the kettle and then dumping them all in a pile between the cases.

"Do you want sugar?"

"Eck, no!" I call back. "That's just you, you weirdo."

He laughs. I begin to collect up the shoes that have been left stacked by the door, and something catches my eye underneath an old pair of Mum's flip-flops. I reach down and pull it out. It's a tiny navy blue box, covered in velvet, small enough to fit in my palm. It looks like a jewellery case.

"Where'd you get that?" Chris asks as he comes in, a mug of tea in each hand. I look up in surprise at his tone; he clears his throat and puts a mug down on the nightstand. "Here." He hands me my tea.

"Is it yours, then?" I ask. I'm still a little offended by how defensive he'd been; like he'd been expecting me to throw it or break whatever is inside.

"Yeah." He clears his throat again. "Sorry for snapping at you. I thought I'd put that somewhere else."

"Well, if it's valuable, maybe you shouldn't bury it in the shoes."

"It was in my pocket, it must have fallen out." He takes the box from me and leaves the room. When he comes back, he doesn't have it anymore. "Sorry."

"Mm." I continue tidying the shoes, and then take a suitcase off the bed so I can sort through what I have and haven't packed.

"Now you're angry, aren't you?" he says, after hovering at my shoulder for a moment.

"No."

"Yes you are."

"I'm not angry, Chris. I just need to get on with this."

"Do you need any help?"

"Start checking your suitcase."

He gets down on the floor and starts rummaging through the pile, folding – badly – as he goes.

"You're not going to tell me what it was, are you?" I can't resist asking, even though I'd been determined not to. His reaction made me too curious.

He barely glances up, but the tips of his ears are red as he tucks his hair out of the way behind them.

"It's a surprise," he says.

And at that point, the memory ended.

I woke up with a gasp, sweating and sore. My arms were bright red, my skin flaking off as I flipped my legs over the side of the bed and stumbled to the bathroom. I just thanked whoever might have been listening that I hadn't pulled the plug when I'd last had one as I fumbled to pull all my clothes off. I practically collapsed over the edge of the tub, gasping again at the cold.