Coming Home

By Han

Glancing down at the set of keys in her hand Holly had no idea which fitted the door. That showed how long she'd been away. Nearly a year had passed since she'd stood here last. Yet it could have been yesterday because she'd already forgotten all that had happened while she was away, all she remembered was the tearful goodbyes she wrote because she didn’t have the guts to say it in person, the heart breaking pain that had never left her from that moment on and the silence that haunted her to this day.

The door creaked open on its hinges and dust flew from the flat into her face making her cough and stammer. It smelt musty, almost dead. She picked up the mail that lay by the door. Bills, bills, bills, letter from mum, junk mail and a bank statement. She cursed loudly the fact there was nothing from Patrick and flung it all back on the floor.

She stepped over the letters and saw that her flat was pretty much the same as she'd left it but with an extra layer of dust, not that it had been very clean when she'd been there. It seemed even less homely than the apartment in America had and she felt somehow out of place, like she was looking in on someone else's life. Like she didn't belong here. But she didn't really belong anywhere. She walked slowly round the flat. Looking at everything, like she was taking it all in for the first time. She stared at the objects that had once been so familiar, getting used to being 'home' before going to check her answer machine.

"Hi Holly it's Patrick, pick up if you're there," pause "Guess your not then. Just checking up on how you are. You didn't come into work today and you know how I worry! Well… call me when you get this. Bye!" Holly felt a sudden pang of guilt for leaving him like that, how she must have hurt him.

"Hi Holly it's Patrick, again, I just got your letter and I cant believe you'd just up and leave without even… god why am I doing this when you're not even going to get this message… Bye. Again." Now Holly really did feel guilty. She couldn’t believe she could be so heartless and cruel. "Well no point crying over spilled milk, what's done is done." That’s what she told herself. She just wished she could believe it.

The next message was much more recent and in the back ground people were talking and laughing, "Probably a pub" she thought, "knowing Patrick!"

"Holly you know I've been thinking about this for a long time, too long. And I've decided that: sod you! I don’t need you; I can cope just fine by myself. I've got a new job coming up so I'm moving to London! And I obviously wasn't as madly in love with you as I thought because you were very easy to replace. Her name is Lara. She's allot like you actually. An SHO, funny, cheeky, sweet, good fun and gorgeous. But do you know what makes you two different? She's here and you're god knows where… Come back soon. Love Patrick."

"End of messages."

First Holly laughed, it was obvious Patrick was completely drunk and didn’t know what he was saying. Then Holly cried, even if he was drunk it didn’t change the fact he'd met some one else while she'd spent the last year dreaming of him and only him. He was still moving away and he didn’t need her. Holly picked up the answer machine and pulled the cord out of the wall. She looked at the mess and damage she'd just caused but it didn't seem like anything compared to the mess and damage she'd done to her life. She still held the broken answer machine in her hands so she threw it across the room as hard as she could, watching it smash against the wall. It crumpled on the floor: broken and completely useless. Holly felt a lot like that answer machine but she'd broken her life just life she'd broken the answer machine. Holly opened her bag and took out a picture of her and Patrick and ripped it into half, quarters, eights, and sixteenths and so on until the bits were so small you couldn’t make out what the picture was of.

Holly, at that particular moment, would have given anything not to be Holly.