As more time and missed calls passed, Sunil grew more and more concerned for Danni, Sienna and Nico's safety. They could be anywhere and it wasn't even likely that Sienna had found them. Guilt ate away at Sunil's thoughts as the days dragged. Perhaps he should have gone with her and kept her safe. He could have explained everything to Ste and promised that he'd be back soon. Did it make him a terrible friend? Either way, not knowing whether Danni was safe or not absolutely tore his insides apart and that was enough proof for himself to know he was at least a caring friend. Ste continued to notice worrying signs with Sunil. Loud, drawn-out growls from his stomach broke every silence between them. It was Ste's idea to sit and watch a movie together to take his mind of Danni but the grumbles only attracted unwanted attention. It was becoming more unavoidable that Ste knew something was definitely wrong.
On a short trip to the shops the following morning, Rebel was grabbed from behind without warning. She quickly realised it was Cody and she threw her gripping hands off of her arms, asking what her problem was. "You'll never guess what!" Cody whispered loudly, her eyes burning with excitement. Before even letting Rebel respond, she answered a question she wasn't asked. "I kissed Trevor yesterday! Like, proper kissed him!" she grinned gleefully. "Why are you telling me this? I don't care what you do in your free time, even if you go around kissing a pregnant woman's man." she replied with a tinge of sarcasm. Cody was hoping for a little more enthusiasm from her friend and made an ugly face at her. "I don't care what you think! So what if he's a few years older than me?" Cody flicked her hair freely, the smell of shampoo catching the breeze. "More like twenty years older..." Rebel sniggered, beginning to walk away. "What do you even see in him? I don't get the sudden obsession." Cody looked slightly offended and trotted after her. "Firstly, he's gorgeous. Secondly, a man like that can pay for the rest of my education. He's a successful businessman, I won't even need to get a job!" she beamed. Rolling her eyes, Rebel carried on bustling away. "Well, if you're in it for the money, you belong together. Just don't be surprised if you find yourself in the middle of a lot of drama!"
"Babe, can you make me some more toast?" Grace moaned from the other couch. Trevor was standing in the kitchen, finishing housework Grace had left due to her low fatigue. "More toast? This is your fourth plate! Are you sure you're not having quadruplets or something?" he laughed, dropping some more bread into the toaster. "You never know! Four kids at once, how would we manage that? Can you put marmalade on my toast this time? I'm suddenly craving orange." she babbled, rubbing her hands over her bump. Moments later, Trevor carried her plate to her and took a seat beside her. "I have something really important to tell you, actually." he announced in a troubling serious tone just as Grace was about to take a bite of toast. She put the plate down, anticipating some pretty shocking news judging by Trevor's face. "I want you to understand something before I tell you this..." he started, looking directly in her eyes. "You haven't killed someone again, have you?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "No, no. This is potentially worse, depending on how you look at it." He tried to make that sound funny and followed it up with a laugh but Grace folded her arms and took a deep breath. "You know that girl that visited the club yesterday, the young one?" Grace chose not to respond but allowed him to continue. "Well, after you left, she... uh..." he mumbled. It seemed like he suddenly regretted bringing it up but he shook his head and continued. "She... she kissed me." he blurted out, sighing in relief once he finished. For a moment, Trevor thought that Grace had somehow magically become a statue at some point in the conversation because she still hadn't moved or blinked. He waited for any sort of response and finally got one. "What do you mean she kissed you?" she said plainly. "Exactly that! She's been flirting with me ever since I met her and she decided to kiss me." Grace cleared her throat and readjusted her seating position. "So, I'm guessing you've banned her from the club then? You're going to stay away from her, yes?"
Trevor made an awkward face, signalling this was the part that Grace was going to struggle with. "Well, now that I know she really likes me, I thought we could use this to our advantage." Trevor continued, watching Grace's face turn from suspicious to downright confused. "Let me explain, we still have a lot of money owed to certain people and a lot of stock to sell so I figured I could charm her into doing some dirty deeds for us, you know? Make her work for me and I just have to pretend to flirt back with her." He lowered his head as if he was about to be slapped as Grace stood up quickly. When he felt no blows to the head, he looked up to find Grace looking shockingly impressed and intrigued. "That's not a bad idea... Now that we're starting our family, we can't afford to be putting ourselves in danger any more. That little rat Ste clearly won't be doing anything for us and that Cal bloke is useless..." she thought out loud. Trevor now stood up also, unable to believe what he was hearing. "Grace, I just want you to understand that this is all just for getting the jobs done. I'm not actually interested in her, you know that, don't you?" he asked her. She turned around slowly with a malicious smile on her face. "Oh, I know you're not serious with her. I'm just glad you weren't asking me to have a threesome with her. Realistically, no woman would ever let their man do this but I'm not every other woman. I'm a business woman and a very good business woman. We need these debts paid off and we need those drugs sold on. One thing my father always taught me was to do what you needed to do to keep yourself safe under any means necessary. He obviously took his own advice even when it came to keeping me safe but oh well, I'm still alive." she smirked. Trevor put his hands on the bump containing his child an kissed Grace lovingly. "You're amazing."
Maxine was still receiving several gasps of surprise from people whenever she showed her face in the village. Everyone was so happy to see her and kindly welcomed her back. After picking up some groceries, she made her way back to the flat. Before opening the building's main door, she took one more glance around the village, taking in what she missed most about it. Everything looked exactly the same but she felt so different about it.
Without warning, she spotted something that made her freeze in terror, a cold shiver ran up her spine. Further down the street, plain as could be, she saw Patrick standing there. She couldn't move and had lost the ability to breathe again. His vile smirk and piercing eyes made her stomach turn. Shortly after, he vanished into thin air as someone walked past the spot he was standing in as if he wasn't even there. She looked around to see if anyone else had seen him but everyone was just going about their business as usual. A woman who also lived in the building appeared and obviously wanted to get inside so Maxine forced herself to pick up her bags and unlock the door to let them both in. "Thank you!" the woman said, walking inside with her. "Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost." Maxine shook her head rigidly and began to walk up the stairs, relieved someone was with her so she wouldn't have to be on her own. After a meaningless chat about the weather, they quickly said goodbye as Maxine let herself into the flat. Dodger was finishing some last repairs and smiled as she shut the door behind her. "Did you get some eggs, I'm in the mood for an omelette!" he said, packing away some tools. "Dodger! I think I'm going crazy." she stated bluntly, dropping the grocery bags on the kitchen counter and holding her head in place. "What are you on about?" he chuckled, peeking into the bags to see what else she had bought. "You won't believe me if I tell you, nevermind." she muttered, brushing past him and stumbling to the bedroom. "Wait, tell me what's the matter!" He followed after her into the bedroom. She absent-mindedly folded some clothes that were laying about and looked around anxiously. "I'm actually going crazy." she repeated under her breath. Dodger grabbed her arms to stop her from fidgeting. "What's wrong?" he asked again, staring deep into her eyes. "I think I saw... I'm sure I saw... no, it couldn't have been..." she gasped, looking all around the room as if she needed to find a way out. "Max! What the hell is wrong? What did you see?" he shouted, shaking her slightly. She froze in place and looked as if she was re-watching the memory in her head. "I saw Patrick... just now... in the village!" she said slowly and quietly, looking at him and expecting him to not understand which he didn't. "I saw him standing at the end of the street and he was... he was watching me! No one else could see him but he was there! I saw him!" Dodger looked rightfully concerned and loosened his grip a little bit. "You saw Patrick? Babe, that scumbag is dead. He burned to death. You know that. You're just imagining things." he said calmly. "I know he's dead and I know I'm imagining it! That's the problem! I'm going insane, amn't I?! I think I saw him in here yesterday too! I felt something standing over my shoulder the way he used to yesterday morning and then I saw him when I was making you coffee! That's why I dropped the kettle and burned myself!" Maxine said in a panicked tone. She was struggling to breathe again.
"Don't worry! It's just because you have a lot of bad memories here! It will all go away eventually, I promise. You just need to focus on other things and push it out otherwise it will get worse. I'm here to protect you and to help you. I'll keep you safe, I promise!" Dodger explained, kissing her lightly on the forehead and bringing her into his chest to calm her down.
Why have dinner when you could be thinner?
Sunil's eyes browsed through more disgusting messages that he continued to use to keep himself motivated to not eat. Every image of someone with hardly any meat on their bones burned into his mind, reminding him that he could be that some day. He did eat and only ate something when people were watching so he could keep the suspicious eyes off of him. However, he nearly always went straight to the bathroom whenever it was a good time to empty his stomach again. It was still extremely difficult to mask the sounds but he managed. Forcing himself to vomit also caused his face to turn a deep, red colour and it made his eye water intensely from gagging and there was only so many times he could use crying over Danni as an excuse. Danni was the one who got him out of his first battle with eating disorders and now she wasn't here to help him this time. Opening the bathroom door after another visit gave Sunil quite a fright as Ste was once again standing just outside. "We seriously need to move out, I'm sick of all of us having to use one bathroom." he ranted. "You're crying again. Right, I want you to tell me right now what you're doing in the bathroom every time you go in there." Ste demanded. "What are you talking about?" Sunil muttered blankly. "You must think I was born yesterday. There is something wrong and I want you to tell me right now what's going on. I'm not stupid! You're not eating, you spend all day in the bathroom and you're all weird with me recently. I want to know what's going on." Ste demanded again, trying to keep his voice down. "I am eating! You saw me eating like, an hour ago!" said Sunil, wiping more tears from his cheeks. Ste suddenly grabbed his hand and dragged him into their bedroom and shut the door behind them. "Every time you finish eating, you go straight to the bathroom. You turn the shower and the tap on together as if you're trying to cover something up and then you come out looking like you've just coughed up a basketball. You've lost a ridiculous amount of weight, I can see some of your bones that I could never see before. I want you to tell me right now, are you purging?" Ste maintained a lowered tone but had a frighteningly serious expression on his face that made it hard for Sunil to conceal the truth.
A long moment had passed before anything was said. Sunil searched deep in Ste's eyes for something but he wasn't sure what. He wanted to scream that he needed help but something was stopping him from doing so, fear and shame, perhaps. "I'm not purging, no." Sunil said finally, something about Ste's face knew he was lying. "Well, then what because I can't think of anything else that can explain everything?" Ste replied, his stare getting more fixed and harder to avoid. "I..." Sunil paused to think about what was the right thing to do. He could make a u-turn and tell the truth right now but hiding the shame was so important to him. Telling Ste the truth didn't feel like the right thing to do because Sunil genuinely didn't think he would be able to help him. He was in this battle alone and it had to stay that way. "I'm just really homesick." Sunil explained shortly. He felt a slight release of pressure in his chest because that sounded like a perfectly plausible explanation to him when he said it to himself again in his head. Ste's face and shoulders also seemed to relax after taking a deep breath. "You're homesick?" he repeated with pity. "I'm just missing my mom a lot, that's all. I haven't been back home in a while and I feel like I've grown really distant from her and it was making me really upset. And, with Danni gone, I feel like I've lost everything from home. It just feels like four walls are closing in on me or something, like I can't help it." Sunil told him confidently. Ste looked like he bought the lie. He placed his hands on his shoulders and then pulled him into an embrace, squeezing him extra tight. "You can go home for a while if you need to, you know that, don't you?" Ste said softly in his ear. "Or, you could even ask your mum to come here and stay with us for a while! I suppose it's about time I met your family." he laughed. "I don't think I can go back... It's been so long. I feel like I don't even really know my own mother any more... She just kind of exists as a memory to me now... I just remember her from when I was in school. I think I just want it to be like that again and that's why I was upset. I've just lost my appetite because food isn't a priority to me right now. I just want Danni to come back." Sunil sighed, starting to cry suddenly. Ste squeezed harder and kissed his neck, knowing this was a problem he couldn't really fix.