You Had It Coming by B.M. Carroll (snow like ashes series .txt) 📗

thoughts drift back in time. Italy was crazy roads, dry red wines, and men with sexy accents. She caught the train from Geneva to Milan, where she spent a week touring with a Swedish boy she met along the way. After gorging on cathedrals, museums and the Swedish boy, she crossed over to Venice, with its canals, history and romance. Next was Florence, then Rome, where she got a cleaning job in the hostel where she was staying. The hostel was next to the train station, a rough area, not safe to walk at night-time. She spent many of the nights entwined with Raimondo, the owner, twenty years older than her. After a month, she caught a bus to Naples, but no matter how far she travelled, or how many handsome European men she kissed, she couldn’t get away from it. It was there every time she closed her eyes. It was a weight in her stomach when she woke in the mornings. It was present in her parents’ voices when she phoned home.

While Megan was fleeing from country to country, Jess began her career as a fighter, notching up titles along the way. Fight or flight, they say. Eventually, Megan stopped her flight and came home. The question is if Jess ever stopped fighting. She hates being the loser. God knows, she can hold a grudge. According to her, she was at the gym on the night of the shooting, and has witnesses who can confirm it. What about Alex? Where was he? Does he have witnesses, too?

Alex’s parents have a cattle farm in the Hunter Valley. Jess used to talk about the farm; Megan can remember seeing some photos. The farm is large, several hundred acres, and, like many farms in New South Wales, besieged with kangaroos, rabbits and foxes. This translates to two things: dirt bikes to access far-off acres and livestock; and guns to control the pest animals.

I want to kill that cold-hearted bastard. He’s worse than any rapist.

Jess didn’t have to leave the gym. She could have asked Alex to take on this fight for her.

11

JESS

Jess wakes up with a cracking headache, one of the worst ever. It feels like someone is tightening a vice over the front of her skull. The prospect of moving one centimetre to the left or right seems catastrophic. She lies perfectly still, fantasising about an ice-cold glass of water and a tiny white pill, but unable to mobilise herself to rise from bed to fetch them. She can hear the shower running. Alex will be out in a few minutes. She’ll wait for him.

Her eyes close, shutting off the brightness slicing through a crack in the curtains. Nausea rises up her throat. The migraines come at random times. She can have a month without any, then suffer three in a row. The medication is effective if it’s taken at the onset. Waking up with one is the worst-case scenario, its stranglehold already established.

‘Hey, don’t you need to get going?’ Alex says when he emerges from the bathroom and notices that she’s still in bed.

‘Migraine,’ she mutters, keeping her eyes half closed. ‘Can you get me some water and my tablets? And when you’ve done that, can you call Vince for me?’

‘Sure, babe.’ He brushes his calloused hand against her forehead before heading to the kitchen. The sound of the fridge door opening and water being poured. Then the sound of cabinet doors opening and closing, thuds that resonate disproportionately in her head. He’s looking for her box of medication.

‘Second shelf above the toaster,’ she calls out.

He’s back. She forces her head off the pillow, pinching the tiny tablet before placing it on her tongue and glugging back most of the water. The liquid sloshes in her stomach. Another wave of nausea.

‘Vince,’ she reminds him as she flops back on the pillows. ‘Tell him I’ll be fine in a few hours.’

Vince understands better than anyone. Concussions cause hypersensitive areas of the brain, which cause migraines. Vince had his fair share of concussions, too.

Alex calls Vince while he’s making breakfast. Disjointed words float back to the bedroom; Jess’s brain hurts too much to segue them together. He sticks his head around the door when he’s done.

‘Vince says take the full day off. He doesn’t want to see you till tomorrow.’

‘All I need is a couple of hours.’ She sighs, hating the thought of inconveniencing her boss, who is always so accommodating.

Alex leaves shortly afterwards, the front door crashing behind him. Jess winces on her own behalf, and on behalf of their elderly neighbours. Alex doesn’t do it on purpose. A certain clumsiness comes with being so tall.

She falls back asleep. It’s ten when she wakes for the second time. The headache has receded, leaving her body tender, her mouth thick-tongued. Sunlight pours through the crack in the curtains, and she can cope with the brightness, which is a positive sign.

She uses the toilet, splashes water on her face, and brushes the gunge from her mouth. In the kitchen, she fills a glass with cold water and takes it outside to the balcony, where she sits down gingerly on one of the deckchairs. The sun is filtered, winterish. Deep breaths in and out, each intake opening up those defective vessels in her brain. Alex has built a vertical garden on one of the walls, Boston fern interspersed with white and purple violets. The opposite wall has shelves laden with pots of rosemary, thyme and other winter-proof herbs. This is the only part of the apartment that has Alex’s stamp on it. This and the bathroom sink, the white enamel perpetually stubbled with his facial hair.

She sends him a text.

Feeling much better. Sitting outside and enjoying our urban garden.

He must have his hands dirty because his reply takes about fifteen minutes.

Great you’re feeling better. Just heading out to your parents’ now. Want to tag along?

Jess’s mother asked him to quote on some landscaping around the pool. She has never used his