Page 5 of The Love of Our Lives

Light.

Soft material against my face.

I take a moment to open my eyes. Turning over, the scent of jasmine floods my nose; a washing powder I don’t know.

Weird.

It doesn’t smell like home, or the hospital.

Hospital .

Collapsing on the pathway.

My eyes snap open, body instantly rigid.

I frantically scan my surroundings to find that I’m in a bedroom, but not one I’ve ever seen before.

It’s small and airy, with a large window raised open to the breeze.

A dreamcatcher is hanging down the glass pane, its beaded tassels fluttering back and forth above. An old desk is crammed in below.

Where the hell am I?

I place a hand against my chest. Up, down, up, down. It’s beating insanely fast. Oh god, why am I not in a hospital? Or home?

Think, Maggie.

Did a passer-by find me in the Botanics? Maybe they took me back to theirs and then called the ambulance.

But it shouldn’t take this long.

It never takes this long.

I just need to stay here, stay calm. What time is it?

Turning to the white-washed bedside table beside me, I spot a radio alarm, one of the modern ones with the time and date on its face. I must still be groggy because the date in the corner of the radio alarm doesn’t make any sense. It’s saying it’s the twenty-sixth of July, but that’s tomorrow.

And the date is behind by two years.

Blinking away from it, confused, I turn my attention to the time now – 11 a.m.

Shit!

I must have spent the night here; Mum will be so worried.

‘Hello?’ I call out desperately, except my voice comes out half a step lower, smoother and in a different accent – as though I’m from the South of England or something. I reach for my throat.

What the hell is wrong with my voice?

With shaking hands, I shove back the flowery sheets to find I’m wearing a stranger’s pyjamas – silky blue ones, with little fireflies on them.

But why did someone change me? What’s going on?

Oh god, what if someone drugged me? But then, surely someone who did that wouldn’t change me into nice pyjamas. No, that can’t be it.

Sitting up in bed, I step out and on to the cool wooden floor. I keep waiting for those stabbing pains again, some sign that my body is failing me, but nothing comes, thankfully.

‘Hello?’ I try again, upright now. Oh god, where am I? Glancing back at the window, there are more flats opposite – old Edinburgh tenements. But I’m in a completely different part of town from the looks of it.

None of this is making any sense.

Walking out of the room now, I find myself in a narrow, whitewashed corridor. What looks like a small living room sits at the end and I stumble towards it.

I pass a main door on the right, with a row of coats hanging beside it.

I’m in a flat then. I keep going blindly to the end, clasping on to the slightly uneven walls like I’m drunk, even though I never really have been.

In the living room now, I take in the small tatty sofas, the worn wooden floor.

Sample pots of paint sit beside one white wall, like someone’s been trying to pick a colour, and a big bay window at the back casts shimmering light across an old circular dining room table.

A warm breeze drifts in from outside and, though it’s all sunny summer skies on the other side of the pane, a tingle goes through me.

This isn’t right.

Just breathe, Maggie .

A small internal kitchen sits at the back of the living room and I head there next.

It’s a bit haphazard, with jars of pasta and spices all about the place; a box of pans on the floor like someone’s just moved in.

Looking back to the living room, I notice something on the mantlepiece.

Walking over, I pick up what appears to be an invite.

It’s on stiff letterhead and across the top, in gold lettering, are the words Toby and Fran .

To Emily , it starts, followed by information about a wedding somewhere in London next year. OK, so an Emily must live here then. But who is she? And where has she gone? Why has this Emily person left me here?

All I know is I have to get to a hospital; I have to get checked out. Turning back out of the room, I head towards the coat rack . Please let my stuff be there.

Rifling through yellow rain jackets and colourful coats, my hand eventually hits something cold and hard, and I pull the clothes aside to find a mirror behind.

A reflection stares back out.

My throat catches.

And everything around me stops.