by Kyra Lennon
I nodded. “Will do.” I looked back at Ash who was sitting in my car, looking straight ahead. “I should go. I’ll drive him to the B&B a bit later. It’s probably better that he’s not on his own yet.”
“I agree.” Sergeant Wright walked with me to my car, helping me load Ash’s case in the boot. “There are a lot of resources available if either of you need them.”
“Thank you. The hospital gave me some phone numbers, and I know Ash has some too. I’ll make sure to check on him every day.”
“He’s lucky to have you in his life. I don’t want to think about what would have happened if he’d had no-one.”
With a long sigh, I said, “Well, I’ve been through some stuff too. I’m happy to be here for him as long as he needs.”
Sergeant Wright gave a small smile. “We’ll be in touch.”
Returning his smile, I said, “Thanks.”
As he walked away, I rounded the car and opened the door to the driver’s side, climbing in. Ash turned to look at me as I did.
“Are you okay?” I asked. I felt like that was the only question I’d asked him lately.
He nodded. “Yeah. I think so. I just want to get the hell out of here.”
I didn’t waste any time in granting his request. Although it was a little out of the way of his B&B, I decided it would be better to go outside of the city and head somewhere quieter. I knew of a small café back in Stockport that was cosy, comfortable, and just on the edge of town. It was one of my favourites, and Keely and I went there on days when she didn’t have the children with her. It wasn’t that it wasn’t child friendly, it was just that people rarely brought children in there. It was more of a Central Perk kind of vibe, but with booths instead of sofas.
Ash and I slid into one of the booths, sitting opposite each other, and once we’d both ordered coffee and a slice of Victoria sponge each, his shoulders started to slowly relax. It was as if he couldn’t calm down until he was as far away from his old home as he could get.
“She’s fucking insane,” he said after a while, blowing out a long breath as he played with one of the sugar packets on the table. “She cried, Evie.” He looked up at me. “She cried and apologised, after she accused me of having a thing with you and trying to attack me again.”
“Yeah. Sergeant Wright mentioned that,” I said, scrunching up my nose as I thought about how ridiculous she was. “Has she always been this paranoid?”
“Not until she got controlling. In the beginning, she was relaxed and okay with me having friends, male or female. It was just when we started living together. Once I was paying for everything, and working to keep us both alive, that was when she changed.” He shook his head. “It makes no sense to me. I never gave her any reason to be jealous. I worked hard. We used to go out together. It still wasn’t enough.”
“Ash, can I ask what happened… you know… the first time she did something to you?”
I was curious to know how it had all gotten so out of hand. As far as I was concerned, if a man laid a hand on me in a violent way, he’d never get a chance to do it again. But I also knew that for a lot of people, it was more complicated than just physical abuse.
He placed the sugar packet back in the bowl and drummed his thumb on the table. “That’s the thing. I don’t know exactly how it happened. I’ve had a lot of time over the last few days, and all I’ve done is think about it. How we got here. What I know for sure is that it started off with her taking me to bed every time I wanted to go out with my friends. Saying we should have a quiet night in together, and after cancelling on my mates a few times, they stopped asking me to go out with them. The same thing happened with money. If I bought something new, she’d ask me if we could really afford it.” He shook his head again. “It wasn’t really a big thing, it was just stuff she dropped into conversations. And at the time, they bothered me, but I always shrugged them off, telling myself I was making a big deal out of nothing. So I said nothing.”
“And then…?”
“Then, she hit me. We’d been living together for about three months. She was in a bitchy mood over something and I was sitting on the couch, reading stuff online. She said she’d asked me a question, but I honestly didn’t hear her. She walked over, got right in my face and screamed at me about how I never listen. She slapped me. I was just… stunned. It came out of nowhere. She’d never done anything like it before. Instead of apologising right away, she stormed out and came back a few hours later. She sat on my lap and said she was sorry, but that she felt like I never listened to her when she was speaking to me. In the end, I was the one who apologised. I paid her more attention from then on, always made sure I listened to her, but I guess it escalated from there.”
I could almost hear him questioning himself. Wondering if it really was his fault, and maybe if he’d been a better boyfriend, she wouldn’t have hurt him.
I’d once done the same. With Jay. With my baby. Maybe if I’d had a healthier diet, got a bit more exercise. Maybe I hadn’t got enough of this or that vitamin inside me. And maybe if I hadn’t lost my baby, hadn’t been so selfish with my grief, Jay would never have left me.
The truth is, perhaps some of those things were true, and perhaps they weren’t. Who knows, if just one thing had been different, maybe the outcome would have changed. But chasing that idea around in my head was what had almost killed me.
What-ifs are an exercise in futility.
“She was so calculating,” Ash said quietly, almost as if he wasn’t talking to me, more thinking out loud. “It wasn’t like her moods went up and down, more that the longer we were together, the worse she got. Sometimes I felt like she was pushing me to see how long it would take for me to snap. There were some days when she didn’t mind if I left a plate in the sink, and other days, if she found the smallest crumb on the floor, she’d freak out. And she used to say she was sorry for stuff but then still blame it on me. ‘I’m really sorry I kicked you, but you know, you could have just taken the rubbish out instead of sitting down and playing on your phone all day.’ And that would have been an okay thing to say if it hadn’t come after I’d done a late shift and slept all morning, ready for my next shift, and had just woken up to make coffee. That was the thing. She never gave me much chance to do anything before flipping out.”
Not really knowing what to say to that, I was glad the drinks and cakes arrived, so I wouldn’t have to speak. Perhaps it was best that I said nothing for the time being. Ash had talked to me a lot since he’d been in hospital, and I knew he was still trying to understand it all. I didn’t want to interrupt, though I was a little concerned about the way his eyes had dimmed again. It was bound to happen when he talked about everything again, but it worried me. I hated to think of him being alone later, with only his thoughts for company.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay for the rest of the day?” I asked him, watching him over the rim of my coffee mug.
He glanced up at me before taking a sip of his own drink. “I’ll have to be. I can’t rely on people being around all the time.”
“How do you feel, though? Not the answer you gave the doctor so you could get out of hospital, but really. How do you feel?”
“That’s a loaded question.” He put his cup down on the table. “I’m happy not to be in hospital. I’m angry about everything Natalie did.” He looked up at me. “I forgot to mention, she ripped up all my childhood photos while I was in hospital.”
My mouth dropped open. “Why the hell would she do that?”
He shrugged. “She pieced them all back together and put them back in the albums, but they’re definitely ruined.”
“Would your mum have copies of them? Maybe she can send some over.”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “Even if she had some, I doubt she’d do that. It doesn’t matter. I hardly ever looked at them anyway.”
His words sounded genuine, but his expression told me that her shredding his memories hurt him more than anything else she’d ever done. I
suddenly wished I had been allowed into the flat with him. I wouldn’t have been able to do anything, but I would have been happy if my presence made Natalie even a little bit uncomfortable.
I didn’t understand her reaction to me. She’d made it clear to him on a daily basis that she thought he was worthless, so why would it have mattered to her if he was cheating on her? If she didn’t think anything of him, why stay, and why care what he got up to?
I guessed that either, somewhere inside her, she did care, or maybe she thought so little of him that him leaving her was just a massive dent in her ego. Or perhaps she actually regretted throwing away someone who was so damn good.
Whatever it was, the damage was done.
So much damage.
Ash was so sweet. So kind. And had I not been so hung up on the age gap in the beginning, I might have noticed how good-looking he was. How anyone could cause so much pain to someone so amazing was beyond me.
In the time I’d been thinking, Ash’s eyes had dimmed further. He was holding his fork in his hand but he hadn’t touched his cake.
And in that second, I made a decision.
“Ash, can you please come home with me?”
He looked up, blinking as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard me correctly, so I continued.
“I know you’ll lose your deposit on the B&B, but I don’t think being on your own right now is the best thing. I have a spare room, and the house is big enough for you to have your own space. I spend most of my time in my office anyway.”
After a moment, Ash shook his head. “I can’t, Evie. You’ve already done so much for me. I can’t take over your house too. I wouldn’t be able to help much with paying for stuff, and…”
“I don’t want anything from you, Ash,” I interrupted. “Keep your money and save it for a deposit on a new place when you’re ready. I just can’t see the sense in you wasting money paying to stay somewhere when I have an unused room. Plus, it’s out of Manchester, away from everything. But mostly, I don’t want you to be alone.”
His eyes didn’t leave mine, almost as if he was searching them to check if I meant what I said. He’d have no luck finding anything but sincerity. I wouldn’t allow him to get lonely if I could help it. If he didn’t want to come, that was fine with me, but I needed him to know I wasn’t just offering out of pity. I was offering because I knew how it felt to lose everything and to feel afraid.
Dropping his head back, Ash let out a sigh before looking back at me again. “I don’t know. I appreciate the offer, but you gave up your Christmas for me. I can’t ask you for anything else.”
“You didn’t ask,” I pointed out. “Ash, come on. Think about it. If you truly think the B&B is the right place for you to be, that’s okay. I’ll take you there when we’re done here. But I want you to consider what I’m offering. Just think about it.”
As I walked into Evie’s house, I still felt a bit uneasy. I couldn’t stop thinking about how much she’d done for me. Sitting with me on Christmas Day, Boxing Day, visiting every day and bringing me stuff until I was released from hospital. Even coming back to the flat with me. That shouldn’t have been on her, but she did it without a second thought. But this? Her offering me her spare room? I hadn’t expected that. It seemed like too much. More than I should have taken from her.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about that one thing. Being alone. I knew I’d have to face it at some point. I wasn’t trying to avoid it forever, but my thoughts. They were dangerous. They’d drifted back to Natalie way more than they should have when I was lying in a hospital bed, and even though I was still so angry with her for everything, that nagging voice in my mind wouldn’t quit. It kept telling me everything that had happened was down to me. It kept telling me that I needed her, and that without her, my life would be shit.
I was pretty sure she had said those words to me many times. It was always her voice I heard in my head. If I was left alone, then what? Would I let that voice take over? Would I go back?
I liked to think I wouldn’t have been so stupid, but the fact was, I just wasn’t used to being without her. Leaving the flat had been a relief, but at the same time, it was familiar. Not the good kind, but sometimes, the things you know, however bad, are better than being cut adrift with no idea what to do next.
When Evie had asked me to stay, I’d given her all my reasons why I shouldn’t. Sometimes I wondered if she thought I was as pathetic as Natalie did. Always with the excuses. And with every excuse, I wondered if Evie thought I was protesting too much, pretending I didn’t want to go when I really did. Because second guessing my every word and thought was what I did best.
From what I knew of Evie, I guessed she took things at face value. And more than that, she seemed to understand how my mind worked, probably because she’d been in the same kind of position once. Wanting help but not knowing how to ask. Feeling lonely, but not knowing how to fix it.
“Are you okay?” Evie asked, and I realised I’d frozen by the closed door, right in front of it in the hallway.
I blinked, gripping onto my suitcase and hoping I’d find my way back to reality soon, before Evie took me back to the hospital and re-admitted me.
“I am,” I said. “Just… it’s been a long day.”
She nodded. “I know. You want another cup of tea before I show you around?”
“Please.”
I needed to thaw out a bit anyway. It was cold outside, but Evie’s house was warm. Much like her.
I let go of my suitcase. “Is it okay to leave this here?” I asked, trying to keep the nervousness from my voice.
“Of course. We can take it upstairs later.” She smiled. “Follow me.”
She turned and walked down the hall towards the kitchen. As I walked by, there was a closed door to my right, and a slightly open one next to it, which I guessed was the living room. To the right, stairs ran up against the wall.
When I reached the kitchen, Evie stood by the kettle and flicked the switch, and I looked around. It was a small kitchen, but off the back of it there was a conservatory which was carpeted and housed two large beige sofas and a coffee table. It looked out onto a small patch of grass with a rotary washing line closed up in the middle. The kitchen itself was neat and tidy. The cupboards were made of light-coloured wood, and the counter tops were black marble. All of the appliances were dark to match the units.
Evie watched me for a moment as I hovered in the doorway, looking around.
“I know this is all a bit unexpected, but while you’re here, you can treat this place like it’s yours. There are drawers and a wardrobe in the spare room, so you can unpack, and if you want something to eat or drink, help yourself. Same with washing. If you want anything throwing in the washing machine, go ahead. You can use whatever you want. The TV is in the living room, and there’s one in the spare room too if you want to be on your own. And I’ll give you the Wi-Fi code in a minute.”
How was she so chill? She’d invited me into her home like it was nothing, like it was easy to just trust that I wasn’t going to wreck everything, like I’d done in my own flat.
At least, according to Natalie I had.
“Ash,” she said with a small laugh as she reached up to the overhead cupboard to get two cups. “Relax.”
I shook my head. “I guess I’m not used to this level of trust. At the flat, some days, if I crumpled a cushion, I was in trouble. She wanted me to do everything, but she hovered around, watching while I used the washing machine or the dishwasher.”
“Well,” Evie said, placing teabags into the cups, “it’s not like that around here. If you wanna wash up, go ahead.” She laughed again. “I don’t have a dishwasher, so any help there is welcome.”
I felt some tension leaving my shoulders and the back of my neck at the sound of her laugh. “I’ll do my best. Just… ignore me if I get weird sometimes.”
Because I knew I would. I knew I’d ask for permission for every damn thing for at least the first couple of days. Probably lo
nger.
“Will do,” she said with another smile.
Once the tea was made, Evie led the way to her living room, and it was pretty much what I expected. Soft blues on the walls, a slightly different shade of blue for the furniture and a warm cream carpet. The TV cabinet was made from the same kind of wood that made the kitchen cupboards, and it was also neat and tidy. Cosy.
Evie immediately sat down in the chair I assumed was her favourite, at the side of the room by another closed door; I wasn’t sure where that one led. Beside her was a large bookshelf, completely full of only books. When I lived with my mum, her bookshelf held some books, but mostly DVDs and CDs.
Perching on the edge of the sofa, cup in hand, I chuckled. “Hey, you have a PS4.”
It sat on the floor in front of the TV unit, and there was a small pile of games stacked up beside it.
“I do.” She smiled. “I don’t get much time to play, but I like to when I get the chance.”
My eyebrows rose as I read over the titles. I was expecting more girly type games, and I was surprised when I spotted the latest Grand Theft Auto game, Red Dead Redemption II, and World War Z, amongst others.
“Surprised?” she asked, and I looked over at her and nodded.
She gave me a small grin. “I’m not always predictable.”
“No, I never thought you were,” I said quickly, and she laughed again.
“It’s fine,” she said, taking a sip of her tea. “I was predictable. I am, most of the time.”
Her eyes dimmed a little, and I said, “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything. It was just me, thinking about things.” She shook her head and gestured in the direction of the PlayStation. “Jay used to play when I met him. He had a couple of consoles. He tried to get me to play and I always declined, but one day, I gave in. Kicked his ass at Mario Kart and then moved on to the hard stuff.”
“I haven’t played much in a while, but I will happily play you if you get some time.” I gave her what felt like my first smile of the day. And if anyone deserved that smile, it was Evie.