Alone Read Online Free PDF Page A

still valid and her work hadn’t yet notified
the company about her being fired. Hopefully, the claim would slip
through the net, but if it didn’t she was in even more
trouble.
    A heavy sigh escaped her and she stood
up. The restaurant must still be open, despite the late hour. She
desperately needed some caffeine.
     
    Strips of long fluorescent
lights lit up
the cafeteria with a harsh, unnatural light.
    Blocks of tables and benches reminded
Serenity of her school canteen, soulless and unloved. Behind the
aluminum, heated display cabinet, a tired-looking woman in an apron
gave her a half-hearted smile as she walked in. Floor to ceiling
windows made up the far wall, giving a view out on a small patch of
yard for the hospital residents.
    A lone figure sat in the corner of the
restaurant, their face turned to the window. Above the person’s
head, the fluorescent strip light had blown, and the figure sat in
partial darkness.
    Serenity’s heart caught in her chest. She
didn’t need light to know the person’s identity. Even though she
had only spent moments with him, she would recognize the breadth of
his shoulders, the angle of his jaw and the curve of his forearms
anywhere.
    She stopped dead in the middle of the
room. Blood rushed through her ears, thumping like horses’ hooves
in her head. Adrenaline flowed like water; speeding up her heart,
making her hands tremble.
    “ Can I help you, love?” the
woman behind the counter called to her.
    Serenity couldn’t respond. She stood
frozen. Part of her wanted to turn and run, the other part of her
wanted to fall to her knees and weep, but she stared,
inert.
    Then he turned, his beautiful eyes
focusing on hers, despite the gloom surrounding him, and she found
herself able to walk again.
    “ Are you okay?” the woman
asked. This time Serenity managed to give her a smile and nod of
reassurance, but her eyes never left the man sitting by the
window.
    She walked toward him as though
gliding on water. As she approached, he got to his feet.
    “ What are you doing here?”
she tried to say, but her voice came out as a whisper.
    “ I’m visiting
someone.”
    “ Oh? A family member? A
friend?”
    “ It’s good to see you
again,” he said, not answering her question.
    “ It’s strange seeing you
again. Small world, I guess.”
    He gestured to the seat opposite him.
“Will you sit with me a while? Allow me to buy you a
coffee?”
    The act seemed so normal in such surreal
circumstances and she grasped onto the lifeline he
presented.
    “ Coffee,” she repeated.
“Yes, coffee would be good.”
    He brushed past her as he headed to
the counter, sending a thrill of goose bumps up her arm. She stood
watching his broad back as he walked away, then she sat heavily,
her legs weak.
    He was here. God, he was here!
    She
didn’t dare take her eyes off him, fearing he would turn out to be
a figment of her over-stressed imagination. As he paid the woman
behind the counter, he caught her watching and gave her a smile she
wanted to pack up and take home.
    He returned with two cups of thick,
dark coffee. In her nervousness, she took a sip too quickly and
burned her mouth.
    “ Careful,” he said with a
smile, his green eyes lighting up. “The coffee’s hot.”
    She couldn’t help but smile back.
“Thanks, I think I figured that one out.”
    “ Your husband is
here.”
    The sentence wasn’t a question but she
answered with a nod.
    “ What happened?” he
asked.
    “ He had a... accident.” She
glanced up at him. For reasons beyond understanding, an underlying
current of truth ran beneath their words, but neither of them
tapped into it.
    The strangeness of the evening made
her head hurt. She couldn’t explain what had happened in her
bedroom, but she remembered her initial reaction—the face of the
man before her, flashing in her mind.
    “ What are you doing here?”
she asked again.
    “ I needed to make sure you
were all right.”
    His words made her heart race
and the hairs