Someone Else's Dream by Colin Griffiths

what she had done and now the guilt was cutting her up inside. She had been drawn into his world, once again and this time, she was hating it. She somehow knew this wouldn’t be the last she would hear of it. Matt would never let go now.
     
    Dale and Hayleigh were sitting in the kitchen of their four-bedroomed, lavishly furnished, detached house. The kitchen was their favourite room; the dining table was a large mahogany antique piece of furniture, highly polished, which seemed to reflect everything in the kitchen, including those that sat at it. The chairs were high-backed, but padded and luxuriously comfortable. It looked out into the garden, through two large patios doors and the extravagant garden was vast, with herbaceous borders and a large fish pond full of koi. The pond would be lit up at night, casting the shadows of rippling water over the house.
     
    Most nights they would sit there, sharing their glass of wine after dinner. Tonight was no exception as they sat next to each other; a television quietly showing News at Ten, stood on one of the kitchen worktops. The guilt racking through her mind like a headache that would not ease, she knew painkillers would not release her of this particular pain. She just wanted to forget it, put it at the back of her mind, but, her mind wouldn’t let her. She stared through the patio doors, along with her husband to be.
     
    “Did you see that?” she suddenly squealed. Dale, who was staring out the window, in his own world of work and legal cases, jumped from his thoughts, almost spilling his wine as he did so.
     
    “See what?”
     
    “There’s someone out there,” she said, “See!” she added, as the shadow could clearly be seen passing one of the lights around the fish pond. Dale got up. He did see it and opened the patio doors, shouting obscenities while running into the garden, just as the intruder climbed over the six-foot wall, where he had obviously come from. Dale, convinced he had gone, went back to the kitchen.
     
    “Bloody kids, I bet they’re after the koi; the bastards!” he told Hayleigh.
     
    “Have they gone?” she asked nervously, still staring out of the patio doors.
     
    “Yeah, they’ve gone; we won’t be seeing them again.”
     
    Hayleigh involuntarily shivered and a feeling came over her body; a feeling that told her the words of her husband to be,  were somehow, in vain. He won’t let go now! She repeatedly told herself.
    *              *              *
    “You don’t look much better,” Matt told her; “in fact you look worse.”
     
    And she did, Marcia’s eye was now completely closed and her lip swollen and split. It was the bruises coming out that made it look worse. Her pretty face was temporary blighted by her unknown attacker. She was just thankful there was nothing broken and no lasting damage. She knew she would heal; what she didn’t know was how long it would take for the memories to fade.
     
    Matt had just come to pick her up after she had been given the all-clear, by the doctor. Marcia’s parents lived in Sheffield, a fair journey from the Doncaster hospital where she was treated. Matt was only a ten-minute drive away and he did live just down the road from her. She had text him asking him to pick her up and within twenty minutes he was there. She sat silently, on the short drive home, her face was still pounding as the painkillers she had been given appeared to be wearing off. She was feeling a little bit awkward after rejecting his request for ‘dinner’, but Matt’s demeanour didn’t give off any animosity and she was thankful for that. By the time she got home she was thinking how nice it was he had lusted after her and her feelings towards him came rushing back to what they were previously.
     
    She felt guilty now for rejecting his offer though she did wonder why he hadn’t really bothered with her for three years, it was as if suddenly he was let loose. She’d thought, to