Chapter 5

Mikki dropped Will off at home: they held each other and kissed before she drove off to Southwark. When Will took his things up the flat, the very first thing that he saw as he opened the front door, was a piece of paper on the table:

Will. I'm very sorry, Mate, but I've had to go home for good, as my father is very ill! You knew that this was my final year anyway, so I would have been going in a few months anyway. I'm not going to leave you stuck with all the rent and bills, though: I've left you a cheque for two months rent and what we normally pay, on average, for other things.

I wish you well with the rest of your course, Mate ... I'm sure that you'll make a great doctor! Take care! Tom

Will had a quick look around the flat. Tom had taken everything of his out of his room and his toiletries from the bathroom, but he had apparently left everything else: even those household things that they had bought between them!

As Tom had said, Will knew that his flatmate was in his last year of university and would soon be moving out, but with everything else that had happened recently, his premature departure still surprised him. But there was no point dwelling on it. He must soon put everything else behind him and get ready for his last few months of the first year of his own course. First, however, he would need to buy a few supplies to get him through at least the next few days. He picked up Tom's cheque; he might as well get it into the bank, then he'd go to the supermarket.

He turned on his phone for the first time in several days: he wasn't really expecting to find anything, but he looked anyway. There was a message from Mikki: 'Miss You XXX', was all it said. He didn't reply: he wasn't really sure what he should say.

When he returned about an hour or so later, he saw her car outside the house from several hundred feet away. He wondered what had happened: they hadn't arranged to meet today! Mikki was sitting on the doorstep and looked up as she heard him coming; he saw that she had been crying. He put down the shopping and she put her arms around him.

"What's wrong?" She shook her head. " ... Can we go up, first!"

Will opened the front door and they walked up the stairs to the landing, where he opened his flat's front door. Mikki followed him through to the kitchen and he put the kettle on and took the things out of bags and put them away. Mikki leant against the sink watching him in silence: Will had been waiting for her to speak, but she was obviously waiting for the right moment. He made two mugs of tea and carried them through to the living room.

"Shall I take your coat, Love!"

She took it off and handed it to him and he carried it through to the bedroom and put it on the bed with his own. They sat down on the sofa and she nestled against his shoulder.

" ... We had a big fight ... me and Kelly. I left a note saying I was going to Derbyshire with you, and that I was coming back Tuesday. Well, she got back from her field trip on Wednesday and I wasn't there, or Thursday, so she rang around my friends and no one had heard from me, so they were worried. My phone was switched off, so they just got 'not available' messages.