Chapter Fourteen:
Danny refused to meet with Tink after 'the incident' He told her over and over again that it would only make things more complicated. Reluctantly she agreed, but the guilt was overwhelming her, even at that stage. She hated the fact that she had cheated on Tom but that wasn't the hardest part; that was having to lie directly to him whenever he asked where she had been that night, what friends she had been out with, what she had done. The questions were tearing her apart and she knew it was only a matter of time before she let her conscience get the better of her. Relationships were supposed to be based upon trust and Tink couldn't handle the fact that she had been deceiving him when as far as she was aware he had been the perfect husband. Danny, however found it much easier to lie to his 'girlfriend' but then again he just classed her as a whore, somebody to sleep with. He hadn't truly cared for anyone since he had killed Ellan and he expected things would stay like that forever; she was the one person he could see himself spending the rest of his life with and with her gone his future looked bland.
He scraped through the days, not really taking an interest in anything in particular, instead spending the majority of his evenings in the pub downing pints. His lack of awareness to everything around him worried Sammie in particular; she had never seen him so depressed, not even after the whole police speculation and investigation. It seemed that he could take the drama and the intensive situations but whenever things quietened down he struggled because it gave him time to think about himself, his mistakes and his failings.
Tink was acting weirdly and Tom was gradually picking up on her mysterious behaviour, he had tried to talk to her about it on more than one occasion, but every time she put it down to simply being tired from her new position at work. Tom accepted what she told him, not believing she had it in herself to lie to him. But a niggling thought in the back of his mind told him that she was hiding something from him and as far as he was concerned he would find out exactly what it was given time.
Sammie was continually becoming more and more anxious about Danny, she hated seeing her brother look so lost and it was putting extra pressure on her, pressure that she could do without. Her and Dougie were trying for a baby, the wedding only a few weeks away and worrying about Danny was only adding further stress. Dougie was slowly becoming annoyed, he knew that she cared for her brother but he wanted them to be able to concentrate on themselves for once, he never seemed to be able to get Sammie on her own anymore, she was always wanting to visit Danny; bringing up the subject of Ellan's death whenever he tried to protest. How could he argue with that? Even more than that, how could he compete with it?
Danny knew people were becoming increasingly worried about him, but he couldn't understand why people cared so much about him when he couldn't care less about himself. It made no sense inside his head, he was arguably sick and on more than one instance Dougie and Harry had approached him to tell him to go to rehab; they were his band mates; what right did they have to tell him where to go? As far as he was concerned there was no band anymore; and even if there was he didn't want to be a part of it anymore. Everything he had ever cared about suddenly seamed so pointless after Ellan left, and that included the band; despite the future they may have had, despite the fact it wasn't only his own dreams which he was destroying.
Harry didn't know how he felt about the whole situation, one part of him wanted to be mad at Danny for what appeared to be a severe case of attention seeking and yet another part of him wanted to help his distressed friend. He hadn't known Danny as long as Tom had but the last couple of weeks he had seen a lack of communication between the pair of them, they hadn't spoken properly in months, but now it was worse. Now he was sure something had gone of, he just wasn't sure what. He tried his best to concentrate on his own relationship with Michelle but it was difficult with everything going on and there was an increasingly large barrier forming between them. He hated not being able to tell her everything but at the same time he wanted to keep his opinions to himself, knowing the hurt they could cause if they were ever to be revealed. No, they were better off trapped inside his head, at least for now.
Tink was continually on edge, a complete disparity to her usual relaxed persona. She had stopped communicating with her best friend Hannah, their usual shopping trips became none existent and after persistent calling on Hannah's behalf she finally became bored of trying. Friendship was a two way thing and slowly but surely Tink was managing to wreck that at the same time as she was ruining her marriage. Once again Danny had managed to hurt another important person in his life, a person he cared about deeply and now she was gone. Not physically, but she was no longer there to comfort him, support him; he was even more alone than when Ellan died and that was when things became worse as they always did when he was on his own. Yet here he was still pushing people away, still not letting anybody in, always refusing help; because help meant accepting defeat and that was something he had never been very good at.
Suddenly a group of people that had spent the best part of five years together and had so many memories together were falling to pieces. Friendships were faltering and relationships were breaking; the strain all becoming too much for everybody to take. Suddenly everything that had always seemed so easy was becoming difficult, requiring a lot more effort. Suddenly nothing was certain anymore, the small group of people were slowly drifting apart and they had only one person to blame for it all.