When Bernie padded through to the kitchen, fully dressed, the next morning, the only sign of Flo being there at all was the note she stuck on the fridge that read: Berns, I love you. I'm sorry. Dinner together this evening? I'll cook. - Flo xxxxxx
Of course, Bernie could barely stay disgruntled at her sister let alone livid. Flo never left notes, nor did she cook, so this was a large leap for her communication and culinary skills. Deciding against taking down the note, Bernie left it on the fridge and went to spend her day doing nothing. She had a free day today as the only part of her course left was the physical exam, which meant she could cut back some hours. A thirty hour timetable had been shortened down to eighteen, so she had free time! But with free time came time at home. And with time at home came Holden.
Inevitably, during the later hours of the morning, he rapped on Bernie's door and, once again, tried to let himself in. However, this time, she managed to block the door with her arm and leg, making it perfectly clear that he wasn't welcome inside. "Guess I'll have to speak to you out here, Princess," he took hold of her upper arm and yanked her into the desolate corridor, barely making an imprint on her shaped bicep. This Holden clearly noticed as his eyes widened and hand lingered on her arm for longer than necessary. She was a force to be reckoned with, and they both knew it.
"Make it quick, my feet are cold." Bernie said with a bored expression, foot tapping on the floor. She was only wearing her socks.
"All right. I don't believe you and that blonde fella with the nice hair are really going out," Holden tried his luck and took a step closer, jabbing his finger in her direction. "I'm not dense, Princess and I know fraudulent love when I see it. So I'm going to do you a favour, purely out of my own devotion to you. I'm going to be your boyfriend again," a step closer, a tone quieter, "I'm going to care for you again. I'm going to make love to you again." With each word came a different action. A step closer, a raise of the eyebrow, a lick of the top teeth, a snap of the fingers. Until his hand had threaded through her hair, breath sickly close to her panicked cheeks.
Bernie knew that it wouldn't be wise to attack him, but it was so tempting. Her entire body physically cringed at the meagre thought of what Holden wished to do with her... or to her, rather.
"Already squirming for me..." his grip tightened on the roots of her luscious long hair and that was the final straw. It was like somebody had flicked an on switch in her brain to 'defence'. But this was a different kind of defence than what she had been taught for the past eleven months. This was an urgent, swift attack that left her only seconds to get away. Even though his hand was in her hair, she took a hold of the back of his neck with one hand and punched him, square in the nose, with the other hand. The hand that inhabited most of her jewelled rings.
Instantly, Holden's grip on Bernie's head tightened and she dug her rounded fingernails into the back of his hand, causing him to drop it from her head. Using this gap in time, she darted back into he flat and put on the safety catch, just in time. What sounded like a foot bombarded into her door from the other side and the metal doorknob twisted violently, but the door could not be opened more than a couple of inches. "You bitch!" Holden screamed through the minuscule gap that the catch allowed.
Knowing there was nothing more he could do, Bernie simply walked away and sat down to sew more embroidery patches to iron onto her favourite denim jacket, using Holden's helpless profane and vicious screams as music. Finally, his voice turned hoarse and mind tired of howling into her empty doorway. It must have been a solid hour until he finally gave up and the sound of silence, bar the hum of the traffic below, made Bernie firmly believe that she had gone deaf momentarily. But she knew the danger wasn't over. That safety catch would remain on 24/7 from now on, only being clicked out of place for admittance.
Flo wouldn't be home until the mid afternoon and Queen still had a week left at Ridge farm, making the next six days pitifully long. Hopefully, Holden would have become much too bored to remain sentry outside Bernie's flat, meaning that Flo could safely enter. Not that he was after Flo, but Bernie had every confidence that he would take no guilt in using her sister in order to reach her. The question was: why? Why her? They'd broken up a year ago now and Bernie was sure he could have his choice of women with the income he raked in. So why was it Bernadette Maxwell that was stuck under his lethal gaze?
"Flo, I hate to admit it, but this is actually decent," Bernie smiled at the dinner table that evening, pushing peas, chicken goujons and cauliflower cheese around her plate, impressed. On the extremely rare occasion that Flo was caught cooking, it was always shortly followed by a foul burning smell that polluted the entire flat for the rest of the evening.
"Thank you! It's my finest work yet, if I do say so myself." Flo examined her meal with a self-sufficient look of pride lighting her eyes, creases of happiness crinkling the skin in the corners.
"So, how was work?"
"Boring. June wasn't working today."
"You two are really getting along, huh?"
"Yes. I'm sure we'd be on our way to marriage by now if it were legal. So I suppose we'll have to settle for engagement and stop at that." She sighed and punctured a few peas with her fork, but not eating them.
"It'll be okay. You can always exchange rings and have a small engagement party, it will be like a wedding but without a legal documents!" Bernie suggested, ideas of pastel floaty dresses and elegant bouquets filling her mind.
"I like that idea."
Bernie ensured that the rest of the mealtime was spent talking about everything and anything about her sister's day; the last thing she wanted to do was raise alarm. Plus, something in her brain told her that talking about Holden would only make it more real and the further away she could keep him from reality, the better. That's what she told herself, anyway...
10/1/23