Too Late: Day 1

Word Count: 6,082

Summary of Events:

Amarina waited her turn in line eagerly as a part of a team autograph signing put on by Arsenal, where she received a special photo hand-signed before her by Callan Reid. Following the autograph signing Callan went home to unwind, having found the autograph signing to be rather stressful because of how many of the autograph-seekers had been young women swooning over his looks. When Callan had handed Amarina her picture she'd noticed white scars on his wrist, and so when she got home she searched madly for photo evidence of them elsewhere, but found that in every photo of him he was wearing long sleeves all the way to his wrists, which made her wonder if she'd just been seeing things . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Amarina was grateful that she didn’t have to worry about such after-supper chores, especially on the heels of Mum’s comment about her always wearing sleeves.

She wasn’t insulted by it, but it had caused her to realise something: what if the fact that Callan Reid always wore sleeves wasn’t a mark against his having the scars she was sure she’d seen, but was actually a mark for it, if not even proof of it being true?

After all, she wore sleeves all the time — and was quite used to doing so, thus the warmth of this particular day was no bother to her — to hide her cuts, why wouldn’t he do the same thing?

In fact, he ought to be more likely to hide his cuts because of the fact that he was a celebrity, and celebrities weren’t supposed to have the same sorts of struggles as the common people who adored them.

But he did, and the more she thought about it, the more she felt heartened and felt that it was no wonder she liked him, they had that common bond.

There was, however, one major difference: the precise, straight lines she’d seen on his wrist were white, not the varying shades of red and even brown that hers were, that suggested that his were long-healed, meaning that he’d been able to find help, or even a way out.

If that was true, then maybe he would be able to help her too. She wondered if she shouldn’t message him on social media and see.

Quickly she took up her mobile and opened it, going straight to her social media app, where she hit the icon that brought up a blank area with the keypad and a blinking line waiting to make text appear on the screen.

She stared for a long moment at the blankness, trying to think of what to say; eventually she typed in his social media name, which she liked for its uniqueness, as he’d managed to blend his first and last name together into what looked like a random word.

But after that she couldn’t think of anything else to say, and after a long time staring at the screen she was also faced with a realisation: because she’d been foolish enough to very clearly attach her name to her second social media account after she’d thrown her old mobile away in fright, the monster — for she could think of him as nothing else since then — whom she’d thrown her mobile at had been able to find her new account, and he followed her, despite her efforts to get him to stop.

If she posted anything to Callan Reid the monster would see it, and surely — she felt as if she should rush to the bathroom and vomit at the thought — he would send the pictures to Callan Reid.

Immediately she cancelled the composition, deleted the draft, and fled the app before tossing her mobile to the other end of her bed.

She would be destroyed if Callan Reid saw those pictures. It was bad enough they’d been seen by other people. But if Callan Reid saw them it would be the end of her. No. She couldn’t send him anything over social media.