Faye's Diary

Chapter 25: Charlotte Calls

I couldn’t count how many times I said thank you and sorry in the car, but it was a lot.

“It’s fine, stop apologising, it’s perfectly ok for you to react the way you did,” Lilly said. “There is something that we think you should have back.” She reached underneath her seat and pulled out my bag that I had left to them. There was a six hour journey in the car and I found it more uncomfortable than I’d previously imagined. We had to stop every hour or so for me to get out of the car and stretch. My stomach and legs stiffened and cramped agonizingly, but when I finally drifted off to sleep, instead of dreaming about Charlotte, which is what I expected, I dreamed about the note I had left on the hospital bed.

I have left the hospital because I don’t want to go home. I know you will have to call someone, but please call my Aunty Alice first, at the number below. I am safe and tell her that I’ll be coming home soon.

I dreamed that Lola found the note and tore it up so that the nurses didn’t know not to call Mum. They did call her and she was racing along the motorway behind us and she crashed into us. It was like the accident all over again. I felt the impact on my chest again and I fell down, down, down...

I awoke with a scream. I sat up sweating and shaking as Lilly turned around.

“Are you ok love?” She said, “Bad dream?”

I smiled weakly, “No-one’s asked me that since I was about eight. I dreamt about another crash, but it was only a dream.”

“Yeah, that’s right, it was only a dream. Nothing like that will ever happen again, ever. That was a bad thing, but we are on our way to a very good thing aren’t we? We’re on our way to Charlotte.”

A feeling of excitement rushed through me as I nodded. It hadn’t sunk in yet, that I’d found my sister and I was driving along the motorway at eighty miles an hour to go and get her. “Does she know we’re coming?” I asked.

“Well, she knows that we’re coming, we’re coming to pick her up from university and bring her home, but she doesn’t know that you are with us.”

“We’re bringing her home! Really?” My mind began to race and bound with new ideas.

“Yes, we’re going to go and get her and then bring her home straight away,” Dan said. Wow, I was going to go and get my sister and then bring her home! I could have cried. Just then, Dan’s mobile phone rang. He was driving so Lilly answered it.

“Hello? Oh, hello sweetie. Yeah, we’re on her way there now. We’ll be there in about an hour.”

She turned around to look at me and then put the phone on loud speaker, motioning to me to be quiet.

From the other end of the line I heard Charlotte giggle. My hand clapped to my mouth as I heard my sister’s voice for the first time in years.

“Ok then. There are still people here, Livy isn’t leaving until tomorrow, so she going to be on her own, poor thing.”

Lilly laughed, “Shame. You’re on loud speaker by the way Charlie.”

“Oh, am I? That’s good because I’ve got my eye on a new bag Daddy!”

Now it was Dan’s turn to laugh. “That hasn’t gotten you what you wanted since you were eight years old Charlotte, why don’t you give it up?”

I could almost hear the pout in her voice as she said, “But it’s on sale in the Vogue magazine Dad and it’s so pretty!”

“Save up and buy it then!” Lilly said. “Anyway, we’ll be there in a bit, see you soon love.”

The phone was hung up and Dan chuckled. “I know what her next point will be,” he said, and imitated Charlotte. “But Daddy, if I save up and buy it myself, then it’ll be out of fashion by the time I get it.”

“Yes, and you know that you’ll end up buying it for her, you big softie,” Lilly said.

I was still reeling from the whole conversation, when the car stopped outside a big building and Lilly said, “We’re here. Now would you rather wait in the car for her or come in with us?”

For a moment, I didn’t reply. I stood and looked up at the place where my sister was. I had done it, I had set out to find her and I had.

The building was tall; it had about six floors, and what seemed like hundreds of windows. Although it was rather dull, made of ordinary brick with boring paint, the flock of students outside it, chirping and chattering, made the old building seem more alive and vibrant.

I took a deep breath, undid my seat belt and said, “I’ll come with you.”