The red dress Chapter ten

 Alan slowly opened his eyes and looked over to where Lisa was still sleeping. He remembered back to the night before when she'd kissed him while he slept and he'd felt her long silky hair touching his naked chest. When he’d struggled back to consciousness to find her with her back to him, apparently asleep, he lay on the bed wanting her...as he had the night before. He decided the stress of the last thirty-six hours was really getting to him, and the sooner he got back home and took Lisa to his parents' house, the better.
 
     Lisa woke to hear a shower running in the distance. As she opened her eyes she struggled to get her bearings and slowly, gradually, she remembered where she was, and why. She had slept surprisingly well, and put it down to the fact her mother was now over two hundred miles away, so she couldn't hurt her any more. She had escaped. Even the thought of her uncertain future couldn't dampen her feeling of well being. She knew she had Alan to thank for that.
 
     He came out of the bathroom with a bath towel wrapped around his waist, his wide bare shoulders glistening with droplets of water from the shower. He looked down at her and smiled thinking how lovely she looked first thing in the morning.
 
     “Morning, sleepyhead!'” he said sheepishly, unable to resist staring at her.
 
Lisa stretched her arms above her head and looked back at him while trying unsuccessfully to ignore the effect his wet, naked chest was having on her.
 
     “Good morning! What's the shower like?” she asked with a radiant smile.
 
Alan was rubbing his hair dry and looked up from under the towel.
 
     “Great… if you like being machine gunned by a million hot bullets!”
 
Lisa was glad he didn't seem as uptight as he had been the night before. She knotted her hair up on top of her head and went for a shower. When she came out dressed in the only clothes she now owned, and she cursed at not having any makeup, because it made her feel naked without it.
 
      Lisa expected to find Alan dressed, but instead he was sitting on the bed still with the towel around his waist, his head in his hands. His mobile lay on the bed beside him, and when he looked up at her she knew something awful had happened.
 
     “What's wrong?” she asked, her tone of voice reflecting her concern.
 
Alan's face was twisted with anger. Whatever had happened had rendered him speechless and he couldn't look Lisa in the eye. She sat on the bed beside him and put her hand on his shoulder before asking him again.
 
     “For God's sake... what's happened, Alan?”
 
At last Alan looked at her, and she could see the anger and confusion in his eyes.
 
     “Thanks to your mother, there's a warrant out for my arrest!” he answered bitterly.
 
 Lisa's heart sank. She should have guessed her mother had something to do with it. Even at a distance, she was still trying to ruin her life.
 
     “What in God's name for?” she asked.
 
Alan jumped up from the bed and walked over to the other side of the room. Having Lisa so close to him was just adding to his problems.
 
     “Oh - abduction, assault, theft, being in procession of drugs - nothing serious!”
 
Lisa felt numb. “How do you know?”
 
Alan explained how he had turned his phone off the night before to save the juice because he had forgotten to bring his charger. When he'd turned his phone on to ring his mother to discuss bringing Lisa back to the house, there were at least a dozen messages and missed calls.
 
     “But how did my mother know where you lived?” Lisa asked, still trying not to believe her mother would go so far.
 
     “She phoned Vikki's Mum, who in turn gave your mother my parents’ address.”
 
     “But the charges… you didn't do any of that!” she cried, trying desperately to think what she could do to put it right.
 
     “I know that…You know that… but the police don't! It's her word against ours. The whole thing's a bloody nightmare...”
 
     The enormity of the situation began to sink in as Alan recounted what his mother had told him.
 
Apparently Lisa's mother had claimed Lisa was only fifteen and that Alan had come into the house, beaten her mother, stolen jewellery, and dragged Lisa out of the house before abducting her. Her mother had also given the police a bag of drugs, claiming Alan had left them at the house.
 
     It wasn't looking at all good for him, according to his parents. He was to go straight to the police in Chelmsford, before they found him. Alan's father had alerted his solicitor to be on hand and ready to go to the station once they got there.
     Lisa was devastated. Already, Alan seemed to be being punished for helping her.
 
     “Alan, I am so, so, sorry, I never dreamt she was capable of anything like this. I can't believe it...”
 
She stared up at him from the bed, imagining how angry he must feel.
 
     “Neither can I, but there's more bad news … A witness came forward with my car make and registration number, so now the police are looking for us. They might even arrest us… sorry me, before we get back to Chelmsford. My parents are going ballistic!”
 
Seeing how upset he was, Lisa felt guilty for allowing him to get involved in the first place.
 
     “Oh God, Alan, you must wish you had never set eyes on me!”
 
Alan wished he could pretend otherwise. He knew it wasn't her fault, but he had never experienced anything like this before.
 
     “If I do, Lisa...it's not just because of all this. My life was so simple before I met you, and now everything’s fucked up. I used to know where I was going, who I loved, what I wanted out of life... and suddenly, I'm on the run with a girl I barely know who’s turned my life upside down. God, Lisa, if anyone is looking for excitement in their lives, you’re the answer...but I wasn't!”
 
     At that moment, Lisa hated her mother with bitterness beyond belief. It was bad enough that she'd screwed up her life, but now she was hurting anyone associated with her as well. How did she get away with it? Lisa resolved that she wouldn't. They had to fight back. She went over to Alan and looked up at him, her face determined.
 
     “It's going to be okay...we haven't done anything wrong. We'll go to the police and tell them what happened. There's two of us, and one of her. We'll make the police believe us!”
 
 Alan looked up at her beautiful face and prayed to God that she was right…
    
 
 
 
     After they checked out, they lapsed into silence as they made their way South. Lisa thought it was ironic that nothing had happened between her and Alan the night before, because if the age and abduction thing were an issue, then a medical could hopefully prove her virginity was still intact. Just like Nick, her mother was obsessed with her bloody virginity, and Lisa was beginning to hate both of them for it.
 
      As for Alan, he felt as though he was caught up in the middle of some horrible nightmare. Forty-eight hours with Lisa, and his whole life was in shambles. He knew his parents were seriously unhappy about the situation, never having had any involvement with the police in their lives before, and now their only son was literally 'on the run.' He just hoped he could explain it all to them when he got home.
 
     The drive back to Chelmsford was nerve racking. Every time either of them saw anything vaguely resembling a police car, they expected to be pulled over. They were only a couple of hours away, but they couldn't get there fast enough. The fact they both knew they had done nothing wrong didn't make either of them feel any better, and their uncertainty of how far Lisa's mother would go worried them both sick. The day before Lisa had been the abused, Alan the rescuer, but now they were both feeling like criminals, and Lisa's experience with the police the previous year had convinced her they were the enemy.
 
At last Alan broke the silence.
 
     “Where will your mother have got the drugs from?” he asked, still confused by the whole thing.
 
Somehow the idea of Lisa's Mother finding a drug peddler on some corner of Dunoon, didn't quite fit with her image.
 
     'I've been trying to work that out myself,' she answered, shaking her head.
 
Lisa knew a couple of the locals who smoked the odd joint, but that was all she was aware of. She doubted very much her mother was capable of laying her hands on anything stronger than a packet of aspirin.
 
     As Alan drove, they talked through the alleged charges one by one, and by the time they reached Chelmsford, they were both so strung up that Alan was convinced, like the day before, he was going to crash the car. The relief when they eventually reached Chelmsford was enormous. He found a parking place in the multi-storey car park around the corner from the police station, and phoned his father to tell him they would be there in ten minutes.
 
      Alan had instinctively taken hold of Lisa's hand as they walked from the car to the station steps, and she resolutely held on to it until they reached the doors to go into the station. They had become united as they faced an adversary who had used wealth and her domineering character to try and put them down. In trying to split them asunder, Lisa's mother had simply pushed them together. For the moment, they were as one, bound together by the need to fight their mutual enemy. 

Alan looked down at Lisa as they hesitated before going in.
 
     “Don't worry,” He said, and kissed her gently on the lips…