Imogene rolled her eyes and smiled at her friend before pointing at another spot. One, conveniently, which was over near where Sean was leaning casually on the marble bar, looking more gorgeous than she remembered his sandy hair tousled. Sophia rolled her eyes back at her, but followed her over, muttering just loud enough for Imogene to hear “Ever heard of subtlety?”
“No - I haven’t” answered Imogene with a mischievous smile, before going and sitting on a barstool situated right next to him. As she sat down, she allowed one of her bare legs to rub past his. He looked up at her and when their eyes met, her heart performed somersaults inside her chest. He was eating some peanuts, and he even somehow managed to make that look attractive. Pouting slightly, she casually ran one arm up her leg, stopping it at the point where she met her grey skirt, on the higher area of her thigh.
She watched his eyes follow her hand and tossed her straight chestnut hair in what she hoped was a seductive manner. She smirked as the sides of his mouth turned upwards and he smiled his slow, slanted grin at her.
“Imogene Taylor, are you trying to flirt with me?”
She opened her mouth and tried to answer, but she couldn’t get any sound out, just a cacophony of inaudible noises. Fortunately, she didn’t have to as he began to lean forward. She closed her eyes, but she could tell he was getting closer because she could smell the nuts on his breath. ‘This is what I’ve been waiting for all my life’ she thought, preparing herself to feel him on her when she heard a loud, obviously fake cough beside her. Both she and Sean looked up simultaneously. She was ready to tell whoever it was to get lost until she saw it was Liam. ‘Why does this always happen to me?’ she thought irritably, as he started to speak.
“Erm - sorry to interrupt you Imogene, but I just wondered if I could have, um, a word… In private’. She cursed him silently in her head, but she knew she couldn’t say no. She forced a tight smile at Sean, mumbling a few apologies and telling him she’d be back in a minute, before following Liam outside.
“There are people here” he murmured, more to himself than to Imogene once they were outside. She looked around her, and scowled again. There were a few people: a mixture of friends talking and couples kissing, something which she should be doing now. She just hoped he was going to hurry up with whatever he had to say, but he was already walking down the path, his feet crunching on the gravel. She sighed impatiently and jogged after him as he walked now off the path and into the field behind the club. It was a place where people who were completely intoxicated with alcohol would go to make out and do anything else that they felt like. Well, if that’s what Liam thought was going to happen with them, he had another think coming. She should be dancing with Sean now, not gallivanting about in a field with a bunch of sheep lurking about in the adjoining field.
She crossed her arms and looked at him, her lips pursed, waiting for him to give her a good explanation of what he was doing. As she surveyed him now, she could see why she was attracted to him. He was the cliché tall, dark, handsome guy. He saw her looking at him and their eyes locked for a few seconds, and she remembered just why she didn’t like it with him. It wasn’t what she could see in them, no, it was worse than that: it was what she couldn’t. They reminded her of a tunnel, just without the light at the end.
Sean, however, put a stop to her thinking by starting to speak.
“Look, what I wanted to say to you is that… well, I still love you” Imogene looked at him incredulously. He’d obviously had too much to drink. That must have been it, even though she couldn’t actually smell any alcohol on him. While she waited for him to say something which made more sense, she looked around her. She’d never actually been to this part because she’d never got so drunk that she’d be happy doing anything remotely romantic in somewhere so desolate. The grass beneath her feet was damp with rain, and slippery, and the hills rose up on her right, sheer as walls. Opaque fog hung in the air. The trees were bare due to it being the start of winter. They blocked out most of the light that would have been coming from the moon and the stars which hung in the dark navy sky, though most of the light from them had already been filtered through the thin layer of cloud which lay serenely under them.
“Do not ignore me!” His tone shocked her and she jumped back, startled. In the time they had spent together, he had never raised her voice at her, apart from the day she finished with him, and that had been understandable. She stared straight at him.
“I was not ignoring you Liam, but I will in a minute if you keep acting like this. We’re not together anymore, and we won’t be again. And if that’s all you wanted to say to me, then I’m going”
She turned around and started to walk away, but felt a hand grab her wrist. Liam spun her back round and held onto her tightly by her shoulders. He put his face close to hers and ironically, it reminded him of how they used to kiss. He so badly just wanted to lean forward, for them to join lips and be together again, but it had gone too far for that now. He had to do whatever he could.
“No you’re not!” he almost screamed it, and she could see he was seething. Even his mouth was twitching. “You are not going back to be a disgusting little… whore with that guy. I know you chucked me for him, I’m not an idiot Imogene, and then you have the audacity to go and flaunt your relationship with him in my face. What has he got that I haven’t?”
Imogene closed her eyes. How did he expect her to be able to answer that one? How could she explain the way everything about Sean just slotted together, like a jigsaw in a picture perfect puzzle? Everything just fitted together with him.
She must have given away at least something of what she was thinking in her expression, because she suddenly felt something strike the side of her face, knocking her to the ground. She looked up, shocked, unable to believe what he had just done. She tried to tell herself that it was the bitterly cold wind which was causing her to shiver, but she knew really that it wasn’t. Her cheek stung, but that wasn’t what was causing the tears which were brimming in her eyes: it was fear.
She tried to quickly scramble up so she could run back to the safety of the club and, more importantly, Sean’s arms, but her stiletto heel kept sliding on the mud underfoot. She just wanted to get away from him, but he bent down over her.
“Get away from me!” she yelled, raising an arm and attempting to punch him. However, she only managed to catch the corner of his shoulder which didn’t even make him flinch or retract even slightly. Instead, he bent down right beside her and grabbed the top of her arms so tightly she could feel his nails cutting into her skin. She tried to struggle, but his grip was too strong and was pushing her body into the soft ground.
“Now you are going to shut up and listen, okay? I love you Imogene, I always have and I always will, but you’ve been… corrupted by that Sean. You turned from yourself into a disgusting little prostitute, selling yourself just to get his attention. Covering yourself in make up, dressing like a common tart-”
Imogene had heard enough, and although she was terrified, she was also enraged. She didn’t know what had come over him, but she wasn’t going to stand for it. She could feel adrenaline surging through her body, and she could feel fury overtaking her and clouding her vision.
“Oh, do shut up Liam! What the hell do you know? I didn’t dump you because of Sean; I dumped you because I did not like you. And can you blame you? Just look at you now! You’re off your bloody head! And let me just say this for the record: I do not love you, and do you know what? I never did! Oh, and you’re rubbish in the bedroom!”
She knew she shouldn’t have said what she did, but she was too angry to care. She kicked one of her legs to the side and knew she had aimed better this time as she heard a groan. His hands loosened for a second and she took the opportunity to pull herself away from him. This time she managed to pull herself up, but her heels sunk into the ground as she tried to run, hindering her. She could hear Liam coming up behind her and screamed as loud as she could before feeling an arm come around her neck and pull her head backwards.
A knife.
She noticed it immediately in his hands. The steel blade caught the moonlight and then she felt the pressure of it on her bare neck; the sharp blade cold against her skin.
“Please, Liam, what are you doing?” she whispered, her voice cracking.
“Sshh, don’t worry. I’m doing this for us. You’ve changed but you’re still you, really. And now I’m going to save you from yourself, and we can be together. Forever.”
Oh Hell. She realized what he was going to do as he pushed her to the floor and sat on top of her, immobilizing her.
“Please, please, please, don’t do this Sean. You don’t need to. I.. I love you too. You don’t need to do this for us to be together” she begged, looking up into his eyes, tears dipping down her cheek. It had no effect on him though. He didn’t believe a word she said anymore, so he had to save them both. They could go out together, as one, and spend eternity with each other with no one else to get in the way.
He lifted the knife above her chest and held it there. Screaming, she tried to push him off of her, to knock the knife away, anything, but it didn’t work. He ran his fingers through her hair for what would be the last time, told her he loved her for the last time and started to bring the knife down. She closed her eyes, resigned to her fate but unable to watch.
“Ahhhhhhhh!”
She felt something hit her chest, but it felt blunt and heavy, like something landing on her. Was this how it felt to be stabbed? Or was she dead already? Her eyes shot open, and she looked up to see Liam’s body on her and Sean standing above, a rock in his hand. She was saved, he had saved her, and she allowed herself to slip into unconsciousness as she felt him pick her up.
Waking up in Sean’s arms had been come sort of fantasy before, but now things were different. Everything had now been put into a different perspective, and as she saw police cars mulling about and an ambulance speeding away she realized she still liked him, fancied him even, but wasn’t infatuated by the thought of him anymore. Now she could like him for who he was, and not the perfect image of him she had had in her head before. Even the best people have faults, and she was happy to see his.
As Sean saw her eyes open, he smiled at her and gently lowered her to the ground. Once she was standing, she leant into him, placing her lips on his, but he pulled back and looked at her, his green eyes looking intently into hers.
“Are you okay?” he asked, touching her cheek tenderly, his hand gently sweeping over her tear stained face.
“Oh Sean!”
She leant forwards again and as he embraced her, she was sure that he was feeling the electric through him which she was feeling.