A Thousand Small Explosions

by John Marrs

  Although it was a token gesture, when the reverend asked if there was any reason why the couple shouldn’t marry, a small part of Bethany hoped that Mark might take it as a prompt to profess his undying love for her. But that only happened in the romcoms and soaps she watched and she knew she wasn’t going to get her happy ever after.

  Once they’d been declared man and wife, Bethany braced herself before she kissed her husband in front of the man she actually loved.

  Bethany had found herself in Australia by following her heart. But in marrying Kevin, she had followed her head – or more specifically, her conscience. She had put someone else’s needs above her own, and for a moment, she allowed herself to feel proud of that selfless act.

  However, it didn’t stop a little voice in the back of her mind from telling her she’d married the wrong brother. But there was little she could do about it now.

  CHAPTER 59

  NICK

  The fairy lights pinned around the window gave the bedroom a warm, buttermilk glow but they didn’t help Nick to feel relaxed or to calm down.

  Instead, he felt more tightly wound up than he could ever recall. Moments earlier, he’d created an awkward scene by storming away from the dinner party he and Sally were hosting after assassinating the characters of friends Sumaira and Deepak. Now, behind a closed door, he propped himself up against the headboard and stretched his feet out on the bed and took another swig straight from the bottle. He stopped himself from checking his phone to see if Alex had texted, but he couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing.

  ‘You said “him”.’

  Nick was startled by Sally’s sudden appearance. He hadn’t heard her usher their guests out of the flat or enter their bedroom.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Downstairs, when you were tearing a strip off our best friends about how they weren’t really Matched, you said, “Nobody in the world exists right at that moment apart from you and him.” You were referring to Alexander, your Match. When you went to that appointment with him, you felt it didn’t you? All that stuff you said about love being like a tsunami knocking you over, that’s what happened when you met him.’

  Nick said nothing and couldn’t bring himself to raise his head and look Sally in the eye or lie to her any more than he had of late.

  ‘I’m a fucking idiot,’ she laughed. ‘Have you seen him again since that first time?’ Again, Nick didn’t reply. ‘Of course you have,’ she continued. ‘All those late nights at work, the weekends where you and your boss were supposed to be planning out new campaigns and strategies, you were with him weren’t you?’

  Nick reluctantly nodded.

  ‘So you are gay.’

  ‘I don’t know what I am or what this is.’

  ‘But you have feelings for him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And does he have feelings for you?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘You mean you’re unsure?’

  ‘We haven’t discussed it.’

  ‘How come, because you spend all your time together screwing but not talking?’

  ‘We haven’t done that.’

  ‘You expect me to believe you?’

  ‘No, but I’m telling you that nothing has happened physically between us…nothing at all.’

  ‘But you’d like it to.’

  ‘I don’t know what I want.’

  Nick was telling the truth, because the lines between what he felt about Alex emotionally and physically were starting to blur and there’d been times where he had imagined what it might be like to be intimate with him. He’d even watched a couple of porn clips on his laptop to see how same-sex sex worked, and while he wasn’t repulsed by it, he wasn’t turned on either.

  ‘It might not be physical between you two, but it is emotional and that’s the equivalent of an affair.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Nick muttered and held his head in his hands.

  ‘How could you do this to me?’ Sally continued and sat on the end of the bed, staring at the exposed brick wall in front of her. ‘You know I grew up in a family where all my parents did was lie to each other about fidelity and you know what honesty means to me. And then you do this.’

  ‘I didn’t start it,’ Nick interrupted. ‘You were the one who wasn’t happy with the way we were. You were the one who kept scratching and scratching until you created a sore and now I’ve picked at the scab and this has happened. You should have left things the way they were.’

  ‘But I was right not to because we weren’t Matched! We were in love but deep down we both knew there was none of that fireworks stuff between us like you were talking about earlier. We don’t have the “explosions” like you have with him.’

  ‘We could have been happy if you’d just left us alone and we hadn’t done that test in the first place.’

  ‘Then you should never have seen him again,’ she yelled.

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like to meet someone you are Matched with because you don’t have one!’

  Sally was about to reply but her emotions got the better of her. She doubled over as she began to weep. She was the backbone of their relationship and it scared Nick that he had broken her. When he placed his hand on her shoulder, it was her turn to recoil from his touch like he’d done with her earlier.

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Yes you did,’ she sobbed, ‘and you’re right. I pushed you into this and now I don’t know how to make it stop.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ Nick replied and closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER 60

  ELLIE

  Ellie hitched up her little black dress, slid down her underwear and began a long-overdue bathroom break in a toilet cubicle.

  Each time she’d attempted to make her way towards the restrooms during her company’s Christmas party, she’d been yanked in all manner of different directions by staff wanting to bend her ear. Ellie understood why though as her attendance at an event was such a rarity that her people wanted to make the most of her.

  Until Tim had landed in Ellie’s life, she hadn’t been so much aloof as she had been wary of people. And added to that was an underlying shyness which, when the two were combined, meant that she found it awkward to relax in public. Speeches or lectures were a different matter as she attended those for a purpose. But mingling and small talk afterwards made her self-conscious. However, with Tim’s encouragement, she had come on in leaps and bounds in confronting her shortcomings and despite employees and work friends competing for her attention, she was actually enjoying herself.

  She recalled how at last year’s Christmas bash, she had been consumed by work and little else. Business was booming but she had no-one to share the spoils with. And as December 25th approached, she had an epiphany when she realised she had inadvertently taken her joyless life out on her employees by signing off on a very impersonal sit-down dinner in the ballroom of a generic hotel. She might have footed the bill but she had also sucked the fun out of Christmas. “I was the Grinch,” she told herself and vowed to make a change.

  So this year was different. She gave her company’s social committee permission and a blank cheque to hire London’s historic Old Billingsgate, a former fishmarket hall-turned-events venue. Christmas-themed props including giant toy polar bears, trees, ice sculptures and sleighs were hired to give it a winter wonderland feel which surrounded them as they tucked into a five-course meal. And afterwards, roulette wheels, card tables, slot machines and a swing band kept her employees entertained.

  Every so often, Ellie glanced across the room to check on Tim and to make sure he was still in sight and enjoying himself. But she needn’t have worried because each time she saw him he was chatting to someone new. She liked that he was a sociable sort and that she could leave him to his own devices without worrying.

  As an early Christmas present, Ellie had sent him to Savile Row to be measured for his first tailor-made suit. And upon its fast-track completion and
delivery, he refused to take it off for the rest of the night. She hadn’t minded as she found him sexy in it and she’d have gladly paid for a whole wardrobe of them if it made him happy. But based on past lessons learned, Ellie knew how easy it was for someone with money to smother someone without it.

  Her bathroom break over, she flushed the toilet and made her way to the sink to wash her hands.

  ‘Hi Ellie, what an amazing night!’ began Kat, her Head of Personnel and one of her longest standing employees. Her half-moon eyes were a telltale sign Kat was drunk.

  ‘It seems to be going well, yes,’ Ellie smiled.

  ‘I think there might be a few sore heads being dragged around the corridors tomorrow. Including mine.’

  ‘Well that’s what tonight’s for.’

  ‘Your new chap seems to be going down well with people.’

  ‘I feel a bit bad actually, I’ve left him to fend for himself most of the night.’

  ‘Well, I think he can hold his own. At least that’s what I remember about him.’

  ‘Do you know him?’ Ellie asked, puzzled.

  ‘Of course,’ Kat replied, surprised by the question. ‘But I must admit, I don’t remember him making it to the second round of interviews.’

  ‘I don’t think I follow you.’

  ‘I interviewed him for a job about a year ago or so; something in computer programming, you know, about the time when Miriam went on maternity leave. He was very affable and relatively experienced but there were better candidates so I didn’t recommend he went any further. That’s how you met, right? At the interview?’

  ‘I think you must be mixing him up with someone else.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Matthew is his name?’

  ‘No, it’s Tim.’

  ‘Oh okay, well, maybe I’m wrong. Nice guy all the same. Anyway, I hope you two have a lovely Christmas together.’

  ‘And you,’ Ellie replied with a knitted brow.

  CHAPTER 61

  AMANDA

  Amanda recognised Michelle from her online photographs and the naked selfies she’d sent to Richard as soon as the café door opened.

  She was immediately irked that Richard’s former girlfriend was even prettier in the flesh than she was in her pictures; her hair was shorter and blonder and she wore skinny jeans and a figure-hugging top. Her fake tan gave her a healthy glow and showed off her bleached white teeth. ‘Bitch,’ Amanda mumbled to herself and subconsciously wrapped her coat tighter over her pregnant belly. As much as she was looking forward to the prospect of impending motherhood, the sacrifice of fashion for elasticated comfort clothing was getting on her nerves and she longed to slip on a pair of heels and skinny jeans that would fit over her swollen ankles.

  She waved at Michelle and put on an artificial smile, beckoning her over to a table at the rear of the café. It had taken a week of messaging before Michelle would agree to meet Amanda. Even now, Amanda couldn’t be sure why she felt compelled to come face to face with a significant part of Richard’s past, but some invisible force inside her told her to pursue it.

  ‘Can I order you a coffee?’ Amanda began.

  ‘No, I can’t stop for long as I’m on my lunch break,’ Michelle replied, politely but curtly. ‘I’m still not really sure why you wanted to meet me.’

  ‘Like I said in my messages, I was Matched with Richard and wanted to know more about him. We’ll never get the chance to meet and I know the two of you were … close.’

  Michelle cautiously eyed Amanda up and down before she hunched forward on her chair. ‘Rich and I had an on and off relationship. I was in my last year at university and he was working at the gym when we first hooked up. I was pretty much in love with him, but Rich? Well, I think he might have been at first but then he started pulling away. In the end, I felt like he was just using me for hook ups.’

  ‘Really?’ said Amanda, surprised by Richard’s treatment of her but secretly satisfied that even pretty girls sometimes get used.

  ‘Yeah, and I got the feeling he had a few of us on the go, like some of the older women he trained at the gym. They were always trying it on with him, especially the married ones. I just don’t reckon he was the type to settle down and have one regular girlfriend.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Amanda, feeling suddenly very deflated. ‘Maybe that’s when he did the Match Your DNA test. He knew you weren’t the one and didn’t see any point in continuing it.’

  When she saw a glimmer of hurt in Michelle’s eyes, she regretted her choice of words.

  ‘Maybe,’ she conceded, ‘but I was surprised when you said on Facebook you’d been Matched because Rich was adamant he never wanted to do the test.’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘He said something like it’d take all the thrill out of the chase; that life was a gamble and a life without risks was a life not worth living. So there was no way in hell he’d be told who he was supposed to fall in love with.’

  ‘Maybe he changed his mind.’

  ‘Possibly, but I doubt it.’

  Amanda leaned back in her chair and stared at the table as the picture of Richard she’d spent months painting, with the help of Jenny and Emma, faded before her.

  ‘I guess I knew in my heart of hearts he wasn’t the one,’ continued Michelle, ‘I’ve read about how it feels when you meet your Match, and I didn’t get any of that with Richard. But he was a nice boy and we had a lot of fun. And can I be honest with you?’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘And I’m not saying this because I’m jealous you’ve been Matched with him or anything, but no matter how much the two of you might have been in love if things had been different, I still don’t reckon Rich was the type of guy who’d throw all his eggs in one basket. He’d have always played around on you.’

  ‘Really,’ Amanda replied, her tone flat. ‘Now you just sound bitter.’

  ‘Honestly, I’m not. He was just too much of a free spirit. He wanted to travel the world again and the last thing on his mind would have been settling down and having kids. He didn’t even like them that much.’

  ‘Didn’t like what, children?’

  ‘Uh-huh. They got on his nerves. We once had to walk out of a TGI Friday after the starters because there was a children’s party on the next table. They drove him mad. He even admitted – although he did say he was ashamed of himself – that he was glad his sister couldn’t have kids so he wouldn’t have to pretend to like being around them.’

  ‘Why did he get his sperm stored then? His mum and Emma told me all he wanted was a family of his own?’

  Michelle’s eyes suddenly widened and she looked Amanda directly in the eye. ‘You know them?’ Amanda nodded.

  ‘Then take my advice and steer well clear as they’re a couple of bloody nutters those two, no wonder Rich never wanted me to meet them.’

  ‘Nutters? Why, what did they do?’

  Michelle moved closer to Amanda, her voice low and her expression grave. ‘A few weeks after Rich’s accident they found out where I lived and turned up on my doorstep. The conversation began a lot like this one, wanting to find out more about Richard that maybe they didn’t know, but by the end of the night, they were offering me his sperm to have his baby. What the hell is that all about?’

  Amanda felt her blood run cold and the hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention. ‘They wanted you to have his baby?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Wanted? They became pretty bloody insistent. It was the most awkward conversation I’ve ever had in my life.’

  Amanda’s fists clenched and she tried to control her breathing and prevent herself from breaking into a panic attack.

  ‘When I said no, they got a bit… I don’t know… pushy about it and even offered me money to do it and covering the cost of everything,’ Michelle continued. ‘They’d really thought it through and said I could move in with them until I had it. It went on for weeks – calls, texts, tweets, emails … in the end I threatened to go to the police if they didn’t leave
me alone and they finally stopped. It weirded me out though and that’s why I was reluctant to meet you at first, I thought they’d sent you.’

  ‘I guess that’s understandable,’ Amanda replied and desperately tried to justify the actions of the two people she thought of as family. ‘Maybe they weren’t thinking straight and were still grieving Richard’s death.’

  ‘Death?’ repeated Michelle. ‘Who told you Rich was dead? He’s still very much alive.’

  CHAPTER 62

  CHRISTOPHER

  ‘Jesus Christ, how much do you weigh?’ Christopher panted as he dragged Number Twenty across the hallway floor and towards the kitchen.

  He was a physically fit man but felt the sweat beading above his brow being absorbed into his balaclava. Her App profile pictures weren’t reflective of her true size. Even when he’d followed her around Top Shop, Zara and H&M one afternoon in a pre-strike reconnaissance mission, he assumed she had bulked up on clothing because of the unusually cold snap. But in the comfort of her own home, it turned out that she was a girl with an ample amount of flesh.

  The layout of her two-storey flat meant the kitchen was located on a different floor to the bedrooms, so Christopher adapted and changed his kill pattern. Once he’d let the billiard ball drop onto the vinyl flooring outside her bedroom and she’d come out to investigate, he enveloped the wire around her neck. But when it became lost in her excess skin, he yanked at it hard, knocking her off balance. Her weight thrust him into the wall, causing two framed paintings to fall. There he remained pinned behind her, using every ounce of strength to keep them both upright or risk ending up on the floor like he had with the thumb-biting Number Nine.