It Started With A Tweet(16)
‘As I said, I was wrong. You’d never be able to digitally detox. It’s a shame, as I had a great place in mind and everything.’
‘You did?’
‘Uh-huh, and I even gave them a ring when I was in the taxi to see if they had any last-minute availability.’
‘And did they?’ I ask, not sure I want to hear the answer.
‘Yes, they do, but if you don’t think you could do it .?.?.’
‘Holy shit,’ I say, ignoring Rosie and staring at the screen in disbelief as I read a tweet.
Dominic Cutler @DomDomDom2434
Apparently I’m hot as hell .?.?.
WB_MARKETING Sexy knickers ￡25, Brazilian ￡35, New outfit ￡170. When your Tinder date is hot as hell & you’re going to f**k his brains out = #priceless
‘What?’ asks Erica.
‘Dickhead Dominic is getting in on the action.’
‘Who’s that?’ asks Rosie.
‘The Tinder date from last night, the one who the tweet was about.’
‘Ah,’ she says.
I scrunch my eyes up. I desperately want to look, but at the same time I don’t want to.
‘Daisy, this isn’t good for you,’ says Rosie in a calm voice. ‘Why don’t we pack a few things? All of this will have blown over by the time you get back.’
I watch in horror as my twitter search for ‘#priceless’ has new notifications, and as I click on them, I see that other people are retweeting Dominic’s tweet.
‘I’ll help pack,’ says Erica, pulling open my drawers and seeing they’re all empty.
‘Washing. Haven’t done. Nothing Clean,’ I stutter, unable to string together a sentence.
‘That’s OK,’ says Rosie. ‘You can wash them at mine tonight and I’ve got a tumble dryer too.’
‘What about booking the place? Maybe it’s been booked up since you phoned,’ I say clutching at straws.
Rosie pulls her phone out of her bag. ‘I’ll phone them right now,’ she says, walking out of the room.
I’m vaguely aware of Erica packing me a suitcase full of my dirty washing.
‘There,’ she says, zipping it shut. ‘You’re all good to go.’
She pulls the suitcase off the bed and drags it down the corridor into the lounge before she comes back and gently removes my laptop from in front of me. I snatch my phone and clutch it to my chest before she can nab that too and I find myself escorted to the lounge.
‘Great news!’ says Rosie as she hangs up the phone. ‘We’re all booked in. I’ll print all the paperwork off when we’re back at my flat.’
I groan, wondering why I agreed to go. But at least we’re not going until tomorrow, which means I’ve still got my phone and, hopefully, enough time to convince my sister to change her mind.
Chapter Six
Time since last Internet usage: 1 hour and 55 minutes
Bang!
My eyes fly open as the Land Rover hits a boulder as we pull over for a passing lorry, and my bum flies off my seat before crashing down again. Lorry past, we pull out onto the uneven and bumpy road, causing me to rock sideways. I must have nodded off. The last thing I remember was the concrete landscape of Manchester, and now we’re way out in the country and all I can see are green fields and rolling hills. I barely got any sleep last night at Rosie’s flat. I was too busy staring at my phone as #priceless continued to trend in the UK.
‘Where are we?’ I ask, rubbing my eyes.
I look out of the window and take in the grey slate walls that pepper the fields. I’m guessing we’re somewhere like the Lake or Peak District.
‘We’re in Cumbria, Sleepyhead.’
I’m stare out of the window, admiring the scenery when it begins to dawn on me that we’re on our way to a detox, and I suddenly start to panic, wondering what I’ve missed while I’ve been sleeping.
I’m searching for my phone in my handbag, which is difficult because of the way Rosie is flying round the bends at almost break-neck speed. She seems to know which way to turn at every corner and I get the impression that she knows the roads well.
‘I take it you come out this way a lot?’
‘A fair bit. We should be there in a couple of minutes.’
‘I don’t know if that’s exciting or not,’ I say, wishing I’d asked more questions about where exactly we are off to before I agreed to it. ‘Does this place have a hot tub or a spa or something?’
‘It has something,’ she says continuing her vagueness.
I finally pull the phone out of my bag, hoping that I can have one last look at Twitter and say my final goodbyes. I can’t believe this will be my last phone contact for a week. I should have been making the most of our final minutes together rather than sleeping.
‘There’s no bloody signal,’ I say shrieking. I start waving it around my head in a desperate attempt to find one. ‘There’s nothing.’
I can feel my heart race even faster than it has been over the past twenty-four hours watching the live Twitter stream. I’m about to hand over my phone for at least a week and I can’t even check Twitter or Facebook beforehand. I haven’t had time to say a proper goodbye to Siri; he doesn’t like to speak to me unless he’s connected to the Internet, he’s fickle like that. I didn’t even send Erica a hand wave Emoji and a heart, or put a holiday response on my email. Now it’s going to look as if that ill-fated tweet has forced me offline.