Read The Forest of Adventures (#1 of The Knight Trilogy) for Free Online Page B

voice was flat
and toneless.
    “Hey there! Do you want a top
up?” I asked her as I took off my jacket and walked past her to the
counter.
    “No, I’m good thanks.”
    I ordered a coffee for myself
and two slices of blueberry cheesecake in the faint hope it might
cheer her up.
    “Here you go, yummy cheesecake
heaven!” I smiled, keeping my tone light and cheerful. “So what’s
up? What’s he done?” I asked sitting myself down.
    Daisy looked uncomfortable,
possibly aware that anything she had to say would sound somewhat
insignificant compared to my situation.
    “Come on Daisy, a problem
shared is a problem halved and all that jazz!” I invited her to
spill. It didn’t take any more encouragement.
    “Dan and me, it’s so over. He’s
a cheating, sneaking bastard. I can’t believe I fell for such a
snake. Joe rang me yesterday and told me he needed to see me
urgently. When we met, he had an envelope in his hand and as soon
as I saw it I felt sick. I knew what it was going to be. He looked
so embarrassed that I thought that he was going to cry.” Daisy
herself looked as if she was about to lose it.
    “Sorry, I don’t follow. What
was it he had in the envelope?” I asked, desperately trying to see
some kind of connection between the two.
    “You know last weekend I went
down to Falmouth to see Dan. We went to this really cool
house-party on the Friday night and I met loads of his friends. We
were getting on so well and he told me that he was serious about
me. Saturday, we went for lunch and had a really long talk about
how things were going. He talked about wanting to take the next
step. You know – that step.”
    “Oh, I see.”
    “He gave me a box with a big
bow on it just like I was a princess. Don’t look like that Mina. I
know – alright- I know. In it was a set of gorgeous underwear and I
was so excited. It was all so romantic but I should have realised
it was all just too perfect - I feel so stupid Mina. I feel so
utterly stupid and I hate him but I hate myself more.” I recovered
the pack of tissues that had taken permanent residence in my
pocket. “I desperately wanted to tell someone but I couldn’t talk
to Joe and you, well you know…” She smiled apologetically at
me.
    I don’t know why this simple
smile of sympathy made me feel so rubbish.
    “Daisy, you’re my best friend
and I love you. You should’ve come to me, we’ve always shared
everything.” My voice caught on my own hypocrisy.
    It had always been true. Daisy
and I had shared everything since as long as I could remember so
why now couldn’t I tell her about Blake. What was stopping me from
telling her about the events on the day of Sam’s accident? What was
stopping me share with my dearest, closest friend how I really
felt? Why couldn’t I tell her how confused I was? How I was
terrified that I was going insane and on a one way road to
hell?
    Sensing she’d hurt me, she
breathed in preparing to go on, “ It , you know, having
s…sleeping with Dan was o.k. I wouldn’t say it was like I expected
to be, it didn’t feel as nice as I thought it would.” She let out a
nervous giggle, “Lets put it this way, it wasn’t like in the films
but I suppose only an idiot would think that it would be.”
    She went on to tell me how he’d
persuaded her to have some photographs taken for an ‘art project’.
He was exactly the lowlife dick that Sam and I had thought he was
and I was surprised that Daisy, who was normally so grounded had
fallen for it. By the end of the weekend he’d managed to get her to
pose naked and before her train had even pulled in home, he’d
posted them onto the internet. Joe’s friend had recognised her and
Joe had been left with the task of breaking the bad news. I knew
this would have really hurt him in light of the fact that he adored
her.
    “Joe says he’s going to sort it
out for me. There’s a way of reporting them and having them
removed. He’s also offered to go down there and confront