Welsh & Wild

Welsh & Wild

By Ellie Forsythe

Copyright 2015 Ellie Forsythe

Published by Black Shire Publishing

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Cover art by Abigail Fero

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Chapter 1

Tegan crossed her legs, leaning back into the uncomfortable chair. Her eyes shifted once more to the clock on the wall. It was twenty minutes past her appointment time. She sighed and wriggled again.

The receptionist, the mother of a girl Tegan had gone to school with, glared at her. Flushing, Tegan looked away and tried to sit up straight and still like the adult her birth certificate purported her to be. There was nothing in the room to focus her attention on.

The magazines carefully laid out on the table in front of her struggled to catch her eye. Most of them were over twenty years old, publications that Tegan had read again and again during her regular visits to the town doctor. She’d never seen anyone ever pick one up.

A bubble popped and Tegan jumped, shooting Rhain, the only other person in the tiny waiting room, a dirty look. Rhain ignored her, flicking through the pages of her magazine. It was clearly one she’d brought with her, being of this decade. She’d been reading it since Tegan had entered the surgery, half an hour earlier. It must have been engrossing.

Ms. Apted, Dr. Banes will see you.

Rhain bounced up from her chair, tossing the magazine haphazardly onto the table. She scooped up her belongings and hurried through behind the door that Tegan should have walked through twenty minutes ago.

Tegan sighed again and her eyes settled on the magazine that Rhain had left behind. It was one of those popular publications that Tegan had never been allowed to read. Bored, she reached over to pick it up, looking around guiltily first. The receptionist was busy with something else.

Rhain had been reading an article called ‘British and Beautiful’. Tegan scoffed, about to turn the page when her eyes caught on one of the smaller headings within the article. ‘Welsh and Wild’, it said. Unable to help herself, Tegan’s eyes rolled over the words, devouring them, scoffing in her head as she compared herself to this Welsh woman the magazine described. The writer had clearly never met anyone Welsh.

Crossing her legs again, Tegan abandoned the subheading, skipping back up to the beginning of the article. Possibly the whole thing was worth another look since she had nothing else to do. She was drawn into it now and she told herself she was only reading it because she was bored. Tegan made it halfway through before it was snatched out of her hands.

Thank you! Rhain announced, blowing a bubble in Tegan’s face as she stuffed the magazine into her large bag. But you’ll have to buy your own.

Tegan reddened but didn’t say anything in response as Rhain flounced out of the doctor’s surgery and into the wet, Welsh weather waiting for her outside. The receptionist glared at Tegan again. As the only person left in the waiting room, it was clear that Tegan was next and should be ushered back into the surgery to see the doctor. Mrs. Rees was delighting in making her wait longer than strictly necessary. She enjoyed exercising her power where she could.

With her bag still at her feet, Tegan didn’t budge as she stared at the clock. Mrs. Rees would take her own time no matter what Tegan did. It was the way it had always been.

Ms. Ellis, the receptionist drawled as though she hadn’t hosted a disastrous birthday party where Tegan first learned she was allergic to nuts. As if she’d never met Tegan before in her life, impossible in the size of their town.

Getting up, Tegan grabbed her bag and hurried through before Mrs. Rees could change her mind. It was a routine appointment that Tegan had every other month to fill her prescription for her emergency epinephrine injection. The routine never changed, an apt description for all of Tegan’s life.

She rolled her eyes thinking about the article she’d been reading. Welsh and wild. Nothing seemed further from her reality.

Chapter 2

Tegan slouched down the main street of her town, a small nowhere that bordered Snowdonia. The main street had four shops: a Co-op, a corner market, a bookies and a pawn shop. None of them were very well kept though they were heavily used by the few inhabitants of the town. There was one pub.

She didn’t have to be at work for another couple of hours and, Tegan didn’t know what to do with herself. Frequently, she worked days at the pub in addition to the evening shifts and it was uncommon that she didn’t have to. Her hours rarely synced with her friend’s, who worked at the Co-op, leaving Tegan with few options for company.

Living at home with her mum meant that Tegan preferred to spend time outside the house. Her mum, a hefty and overbearing woman, was lonely and bored, having little to do. With no husband and a small pool of people to interact with, she ended up putting too much effort into Tegan. The result was that when home, Tegan ended up hiding in her room, hoping her mum wouldn’t think of another excuse to knock on her door.

As often happened, Tegan ended up in the corner store. She perused the chocolates and circumspectly looked at the magazine racks. It was easy to spot the same fluorescent cover she’d seen Rhian with. Sidling over, Tegan hovered, trying to pretend she was looking at the newspapers. Alan Jenners, who worked behind the counters on Tuesdays and Thursdays, wasn’t paying attention to her and neither were the school kids trying to pretend they weren’t skipping classes.

Taking a deep breath, Tegan snatched up a copy and scurried over to the corner by the milk where she hoped no one would bother her. She flicked through the pages until she was looking at the article once again. It was a silly article, she could see that. It wasn’t the sort of thing she normally read but for some reason, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Excuse me.

Mortified and startled, Tegan jumped, whirling to see who’d spoken. The pastor from the local church stood behind her, a puzzled and slightly aggravated look on his face. He clearly needed some milk.

So sorry, Tegan gasped.

She fled for the front counter, scraping out the coins she would need. Alan barely looked up from his phone to charge her for the magazine. She blessed his incurious nature and snatched up her purchase fleeing out into the spitting rain.

Tegan tucked it away safely into her bag as she hurried down the pavement towards her house. In this weather, there weren’t many places for her to take shelter outside her room.

The house stood apart from the road, only some spare gravel marking out where a car should be parked. Tegan’s boots clattered, sending the wet gravel in various directions. She slipped in through the front door, sighing in relief as she heard her mum’s loud voice on the phone.

Her door was wedged tight, swollen with the weather and it took some time to wrench it open and dive inside to the relative safety of her childhood room. She’d escaped it once, when she went to university for a semester. It hadn’t worked out and she’d found herself back here as though nothing had ever changed. It seemed almost as if nothing would.

Shoving that depressing thought away, Tegan flopped onto her tiny bed, shedding her wet coat before she fished out the magazine. She wiped the few drops of rain