The Dark Part of Me by Belinda Burns Read Free Book Online

Bailey paid off each month, no questions asked.
    I snuck round to his side of the waterbed and knelt down to look at him. From a scrawny teenager, he’d become a fully-grown man, although still gaunt and skinny. He’d be twenty-two,
the same age as Scott. His face was pale and angular, framed by a shock of matted hair so black it was almost blue. There was something girlish about his long, thick eyelashes and his lips, which
were too red for a man. He was like Hollie with short hair. But he was not so much feminine as androgynous, sexless. He had on a crisp white shirt, open at the neck, and black tailored trousers.
His feet were bare and bony, his toenails painted with emerald-green varnish. Although he was fast asleep, his hands, large white hands, fluttered by his sides as if he was having a bad dream.
Fuck, those hands. I got a bit freaked thinking about what they’d done.
    Outside, it was getting darker. The sky was turning a deep, backlit indigo that made me uneasy. Dusk was seeping into the room and the air felt suddenly old and stale like the inside of a
church. I looked back at Hollie and Danny sleeping in each other’s arms, like Romeo and Juliet. Like twins. They both looked so peaceful. They had a certain aura of innocence, the faintest
white glow about their skin.
    ‘Oh, Danny. Danny.’
    I started but it was just Hollie sleep-talking. Her eyes were closed. Danny didn’t stir. If it had just been Hollie there, I would’ve woken her, but I didn’t want to disturb
Danny. He gave me the creeps. Instead, I sat down at the mahogany desk under the window and wrote Hollie a note with her tortoise-shell fountain pen:
    Hey Hols,
    Didn’t want to wake you. You must be so happy Danny’s home. He looks just the same but a bit more manly, don’t you think? Guess what? Scott’s back, too! He called
     me at work and invited me to a party so I won’t be able to come to your dinner tonight. Sorry. Promise I’ll make it up to you with some Shakespeare on the weekend.
    Love lots
    Rx
    I folded the note in half and laid it next to Hollie’s head. Pillow marks creased her cheek and I was struck by how little she had changed since I’d first known her. Not thinking, I
leant over and kissed her softly on the lips. She opened her eyes.
    ‘Rosie,’ she murmured sleepily, looking up at me with clear blue eyes.
    ‘Go back to sleep,’ I whispered, creeping backwards towards the door. ‘I left you a note.’ I knew she’d be upset about me not coming to dinner and I didn’t
want to get into an argument with her. She pushed herself upright and I thought how beautiful she was with her angel face so pale she couldn’t sit in the sun, and her lips like the pink
inside of seashells.
    ‘Look.’ She beamed across at Danny, who was still fast asleep, tranquil as a carved knight atop a sarcophagus.
    ‘Don’t wake him,’ I said.
    Absently, Hollie picked up my note from her pillow. I paused, my hand resting on the doorknob, waiting for the inevitable storm. She read it quickly, her smile fading to a look of hurt and
confusion and then anger. Crumpling the note in her hands, she crossed the carpet and pushed me outside into the hall, closing the door gently behind us.
    ‘Hollie, please, try to understand,’ I entreated, but she pulled me down the stairs into the parlour where we stood face to face, about a metre apart.
    ‘I can’t believe it. After the way he’s treated you. You’re going to go crawling back to him just like that. I won’t let you do it. I won’t let you make such
a fool of yourself.’
    ‘But he rang me,’ I protested, lamely.
    Hollie scoffed, theatrically. She looked just like her mother. ‘He never loved you, Rosie. He just used you for sex.’
    ‘Like I didn’t want him too! For fuck’s sake, Hollie, I’ve been celibate for two whole years.’ I sighed, realizing it was a pointless argument. ‘Not that
you’d have any idea what I’m talking about. You haven’t even pashed a