“We’ll figure it out.”
Rolling her eyes, she shoves me away and moves to the desk where her bag and keys are.
“You’re leaving?” I keep my voice even, though inside I’m panicking.
“I have to go and deal with this mess. I need to get changed out of your clothes and call my solicitor. The inn opens in a week and I’m not equipped to handle the business side of things. That was Silas’ job!”
She’s stressed; I can see that. I don’t know what to do. “I’ll come with you.”
“Isaac…” She slips her shoes onto her feet as her hand presses against my chest, holding me back. “This isn’t some fairytale. I’m not eighteen anymore. You can’t just show up, whisk me away and marry me. I want…” She sighs a long, deep sigh. “I deserve more than that and I don’t want to do this now. Not with everything looming over us like it is. I’m not in the right frame of mind to be making any decisions with regard to my life.”
“We’ll figure it out.” This is it… I can feel it.
“We won’t.” Her voice is soft, too soft. It’s almost sad, resolute. She believes what she’s saying. “We won’t because I don’t trust you.” Fuck, that stings. “And you still don’t trust me.”
“But… the kitchen…” Didn’t that mean anything to her?
“It was amazing, but we can’t do this now.”
“Don’t walk away.” I beg, feeling my heart crack. “I need you.”
“You’re using me as a distraction,” she snaps and her words sink straight in and shatter my soul. “You need to grieve. I need to grieve. And then we’ll talk.”
“Is this just about my mum?” I ask bitterly and run my fingers through my hair. “Or is this about him?”
“We were over for a long time. Me and you. You can’t feel that way. You don’t have the right.”
“I don’t?”
“You’re getting irritable. Let’s stop.”
“Did you love him? Be honest. Do you still?”
I see her contemplate telling me the truth. I know that’s what she’s doing. “Yes, yes and yes. But we’re over.”
“So you used me in the kitchen? Knowing we wouldn’t be...”
“We both wanted it.” She bends down to tie her laces. “Don’t be a dick.”
“Elle…” I don’t know what to say to make her stay. I don’t know what to do. “Please.”
She stands and looks at me with swollen red eyes. Even after crying, she still looks beautiful. “I’ll call you.” I feel her lips against mine as a painful wave of flutters attacks my stomach. For a moment I tricked myself into believing that everything would be okay, that I’d have Elle back to help me through this.
Help me through what, though? I don’t feel anything. I feel fine, just angry. My temper is rising because she’s being so stubborn.
“When? When will you fucking call me exactly?” I shouldn’t be mad because she’s right. We don’t trust each other. We did everything wrong the last time. But I need her now. I need her with me now. Not tomorrow, not next week. Now.
“Later,” she promises and rests her head against my chin. “Thank you for…”
“For what?” I prompt when she doesn’t continue. “For giving you the best orgasm you’ve had in years? Is that what you were trying to say? Is that all that meant to you?”
“I don’t know what I meant!”
“My mum just died, Elle. I need you here, with me.”
“Stop,” she pleads and pulls the door open, her keys rattling in her hand. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I know that you won’t come back.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. I know you. You’ll leave and convince yourself that I’m a bastard.”
She laughs cruelly. “Aren’t you?” And then she walks away and I let her, too stunned and hurt to try anymore.
I slam the door closed, angry at myself, angry at her, angry at the cold air coming into the house… Angry. Just fucking angry.
“She’ll come back,” my dad says, probably having listened to the entire conversation. A bottle of bleach is slapped into my hands along with a roll of new cleaning cloths. “I don’t want to know… just get my kitchen sterile. Now.”
Yeah… he heard.
Eloise
Leaving him looking so hurt and dejected affected me more than he’ll probably believe, but now isn’t the time to do this. Judith is… she’s gone. I haven’t even begun to adjust to that fact yet. He definitely hasn’t and that worries me. Save for his three day drinking binge where he was God only knows where, he hasn’t shown any sign that he has even acknowledged his mother’s death.
That concerns me greatly.
I can’t believe I had sex with him. It was so good that the thought of it, even now, makes me tingle all over.
We used to have such an amazing sex life. I almost forgot how good it was.
Isaac: I need you to come back.
I drop my phone on the console of the car and almost speed home. Every red light and stop sign pisses me off. How can Silas do this? Where the fuck am I going to find the money to buy him out?
“That piece of shit, arsehole, fucking wanker.” I exclaim and slam my hand against the steering wheel.
As soon as I’m home, I race to my old bedroom and pull out my laptop. I call my solicitor and start looking for possible loans. There’s no way, no way at all I can let somebody buy him out. I’ll be fucked.
Eloise: You’re a pathetic excuse of a man and a businessman. Dropping out of an amazing opportunity because you’re sore about where your dick can’t go anymore.
Okay, so maybe not the wisest message I’ve sent. I’m letting my emotions override my reasoning. I huff, switch off everything and throw it away from me.
I then grab the book from my bag and lie in bed, snuggled against my old grey teddy.
“Judith, if you’re listening, bitch slap some sense into me with whatever ghostly powers you’ve been granted. I don’t have a clue what to do.” Tears spring to my eyes. I press the book to my forehead and sniffle like a baby. I just want peace of mind, just for tonight. I want everything to leave my brain so I can simply rest.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Isaac
I check my tie for the hundredth time. My mum always hated sloppy looking ties. My dad sits beside me, a handkerchief crumpled in his hand. We don’t speak. We haven’t spoken since we both woke up this morning, although I don’t think my dad actually slept last night in order to wake up this morning.
It’s time.
Time for the burial.
The burial that so many people are coming to, which, in my opinion, is shallow and fucking ridiculous. None of them were there when we needed help, none of them, yet here they are now that she’s dead.
I can’t control my bitter thoughts; they consume me. Rage consumes me. Rage at them. Rage at myself. Rage at my dad. Rage at Elle. She never did call me back.
It’s odd to think that my mum’s body is in that car directly ahead of us. It doesn’t bother me. I don’t feel upset. I think it’s because I said goodbye to her a long time ago. She hasn’t been her for years… fucking years.
I go through the motions of the day without speaking. We climb out of the car when we reach the cemetery and take the wooden box onto one shoulder; my dad on the right, me on the left, friends and family behind us. Two other men who I don’t even fucking know hold the box at the back. My mother was so light by the time she died that ninety percent of the weight we’re carrying is from the wood and the metal handles.
“I swear on all that is holy, if my son is put in a fucking box because of those little shits I’ll murder them myself!” My mum screamed from outside my hospital room and then broke down into sobs that broke my heart for the first time.
“We’ll deal with it.” My dad whispered to her. I stared at the door, feeling the weight of what I’d done to them come down on me. I couldn’t help it though. I wanted to do it again.
I didn’t want to be here anymore.
“How?” She cried, her voice weak now. “How?”
“Larry told me of a really good rehabilitation facility for teenagers like Zach.”
“I don’t want him to think we’re sending him away. He needs us.”
“He needs help,” my dad responded calmly. “Help that we aren’t equipped to give him.”
Time seems to skip ahead and she’s being lowered into the ground. I’m standing with no recollection of how I got here. Every face is blurred. Everybody is motionless. People who didn’t give a fuck are crying. They weren’t crying four years ago when we lost her to begin with.
The vicar talks and throws dirt down onto the box, because that’s all it is - a fucking box carrying an empty shell. A shell that was emptied four years ago.
My dad continues to wipe at his eyes as I stare expressionless at the tree in the distance.
I feel a pinkie finger graze mine and then fingers interlock with mine. It takes me back to Crystal’s funeral, back when Eloise was my student and I shouldn’t have been touching her but I did.
I had her.
She was mine.
And now she’s here for me, like I was there for her.
Her head rests against my shoulder. Her quiet sobs help me focus. I unlace our hands and wrap my arm around her shoulders. She cries into my chest.
Should I be crying?
“Amen,” everyone says and the crowds get tighter. My dad drops the first rose onto the box. Eloise and I move together, holding each other tight as we both drop ours.
“This is where people are buried when they leave us.” Mum told me, placing the yellow and white daisies onto the grave.
“Leave us?” I felt this irrational unease knowing now that there were possibly hundreds of bodies buried beneath me. “I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to be buried.”
“You won’t leave me.” She smiled up at me with warm eyes, her brown hair cut short and tucked behind her ears. Pulling me onto her lap, she kissed the side of my neck and we both placed our hands onto the smooth surface of the gravestone, directly over the name ‘George.’ “And hopefully I won’t leave you for a very, very long time. Long after you’ve had little babies of your own.”
“Yuck.” I scrunched my nose in disgust. She laughed through tears and kissed the crinkles away before reaching down my legs to pull my socks up to my knees. “Are they all dead?”
“Do you know what that means?”
I nodded. I was only five but I had a small understanding of what it meant to be dead. “You go to sleep and don’t wake up.”
“And then we bury the empty shell so we have somewhere to connect us.”
“Oh.”
“Come on. We’ve visited grandma and grandpa enough today. Do you want ice cream?”
I nodded and pulled my chubby little body to standing. “Can I get hot fudge?”
“No.” She smiled softly and ruffled my hair. “It makes you crazy.”
“I promise I won’t be crazy.”
“Isaac?” Eloise’s voice shakes me back. I blink the memory away and look at her. “Shall I get you a drink?”
I glance at my dad who is sitting across the table from me. He wouldn’t give a speech at the service. He hasn’t said a word all day. Now he silently broods over a glass of whiskey. His fourth glass.
“No.” I bring her hand to my lips and kiss the back of it gently.
“Nobody would blame you.”
I look at my ex-wife, unsure of what to say. For a long moment, I stare into her beautiful green eyes and count the little flecks of grey and hazel that swim in the irises. She stares back but I can’t read her thoughts. My mind is blank.
“Come home with me tonight,” I demand softly.
She opens her mouth, no doubt to refuse, so I look away and pull my hand from hers.
“Look,” she whispers and her hand goes to my thigh. “We need to talk properly. Throwing ourselves back together won’t work out for either of us.”
I don’t have the energy to argue anymore.
My dad slams his glass down on the table and stands. He wobbles a little before looking around the room. “I loved my wife,” he yells and everybody hushes, their chatter dwindling until it doesn’t exist. “Loved her.” Elle goes to move but I press on her thigh to keep her seated. My dad sways and glares at everybody in the room. “I love her too much to tolerate you bunch of hypocritical bastards on her behalf.”
Now I let her stand.
“Who…” He wobbles again and catches himself on the table. “Who the fuck do any of you, think… you… fucking are?” Elle sidles up to him and whispers in his ear. She wraps an arm around his waist to steady him. “Where were you?”
“John,” my dad’s long-time friend moves to him, giving me a pleading look. Obviously he expects me to step in. I don’t. I refuse. “Isaac, do something.”
“I’ll take him home.” Elle begins to walk him out of the room and I see the heartbreak on her face when my dad starts crying.
I remain seated and I remain quiet. As much as I can’t stand this room full of posers, I’m not about to embarrass my mum at her own wake.
My lips twitch at the thought.
My mum always hated it when anyone made a scene, especially me. It reminds me of when I used to tantrum over food.
She always let me watch as she made cakes and other treats. I loved her food. I loved it too much and she loved me too much to say no. She hated my tantrums too much to say no. I was a terror. I’m the reason I have never wanted kids. If my kid is anything like I was, I wouldn’t be able to cope.
I wish she had said no though. It was her food that led to my weight and my weight that led to my unhappiness.
Though I don’t blame my mum, not fully. I did nothing to help myself but then, when you’re young, you don’t realise what you’re doing to yourself until it’s too late.
“Fat Zach,” they yelled and the first egg hit the window.
I wasn’t just unpopular because I was big, I was unpopular because my dad was head teacher of our school and my mum was a History teacher. There are no other secondary schools within fifteen miles so I couldn’t transfer.
Year seven, my first year of secondary school, wasn’t great but it was the best year out of them all. Year ten was the worst. That was when their jokes became cruel. That was when their jokes began to hurt. Of course not everyone bullied me, mostly just the popular kids. The girls were the worst for it, one girl in particular.
I’m not even sure why I’m thinking about this. I wrote it all down. I got it out of my system. It doesn’t bother me anymore.
Eloise
Normally I wouldn’t let somebody drink so much but John needed it tonight. Just tonight. I won’t let him again tomorrow. I’ve already set about hiding the alcohol. It took me far too long to get him to bed, in between him crying like a child and yelling angrily about everyone who turned up. He was a stubborn nightmare.
I’m drained, emotionally, physically, spiritually… I’m done for the day.
I can’t believe Isaac didn’t help.
Although he hasn’t said a word all day, other than to tell me to stay with him, I’m worried about him. I wish, for once, he’d let me in. It’s frustrating, really fucking frustrating. I don’t think he realises how frustrating.
Heaven finally answers my prayers as I’m tidying the room.
“I tried to kill myself.” His voice comes from the dark hallway behind me as I’m shoving a bottle of whiskey under the couch. I jolt upright and spin to face my ex-husband. The light above goes out as he taps the switch. His words sink in and send a cold chill through my body. “I succeeded for all of two minutes.”
He’s finally talking to me, though I’m not sure this is coming at the right time or for the right reasons.
Is he doing this because he trusts me enough to do it, or is he doing it because he wants me to stay?
“Why did you turn the light off?”
I ask calmly as he takes a step towards me.
“I don’t want to see the shame on your face.”
“I’m not ashamed of you or your choices.” My breath hitches. “I’m sorry you felt like ending your life was the only choice.”
“I don’t want you to see the shame on my face.” I remain standing before him, unmoving as he spills his darkest secret. “I had just turned fifteen.” So young, I think but don’t say. “I was the size of a blimp and fucking miserable. Every single day they tormented me. Chased me… to see the fat kid wobble.” His laughter is cold and forced. “Like it was a game to them.”
I hate teenagers. “I’m sorry.”
“My dad was head teacher, which made them worse. It was like hurting the head teacher’s son scored extra points in their sick little games.”
My hand flies to my mouth.
“I won’t go into detail, but I find it hard to connect with people. I find it even harder to… well to trust.” His voice drops to a whisper and he takes another step towards me in the darkness, the only light coming from the lamppost across the road. It highlights his features enough for me to see his eyes glint hungrily. “Until you I haven’t loved another or cared for another. Even when I thought I trusted you, I didn’t fully. I treated you badly and I know it’s not an excuse but…”
He pauses as if wondering whether to go on. I fold my arms over my chest and nod for him to continue. Whether or not he sees it, I’m unsure.
“I never felt like I was good enough for you. I always felt like a fraud, like you’d see through me one day and just hate me as much as I hated myself.”
“Isaac,” I choke. His words cut through me and the urge to hold him to me is strong. I resist, though. He needs space for this.
“I hate myself now more than I ever did because I pushed you away.” One more step, he’s so close. “I love you. I can’t stop.”
Distinction: The Distraction Trilogy #3 Page 25