Paradise Syndrome

by Louise Hall

  Kian gently stroked her soft cheek. He brushed his lips over hers.

  That brief taste wasn’t enough. He didn’t care that they were in the middle of a crowded dance floor. He needed to connect with his wife, to break through the barriers she’d put up ever since they’d moved to Seattle. He licked at the seam of her soft lips until they parted, allowing him inside. His hand pressed more firmly against the small of her back. Kian licked inside her mouth, feeling her melt like cotton candy against his tongue. He could feel the swelling of her bump against his stomach.

  The song changed again, this time to something more up-tempo. Cate opened her eyes, suddenly realising where they were. She had never liked being the centre of attention. She could feel Kian’s erection throbbing against her belly and it made liquid heat pool between her legs. She felt like she was caught in a riptide; torn between wanting to stay bathed in the sheer bliss of being kissed by her husband and the discomfort of knowing that they were being watched. Her traitorous body, already denied its pleasure for weeks, wanted to throw caution to the wind; her tingling nipples strained against the front of her silk gown, aching to be touched.

  “We can’t do this,” Cate found resolve from somewhere and pushed Kian back a little.

  She rubbed at her swollen lips, sure that her glossy lipstick had smudged over her skin. She folded her arms across her breasts, trying to hide her wanton desperation.

  She could feel the eyes of the rest of the guests like tiny pinpricks on her skin. She desperately needed some air. It had been a mistake coming here tonight.

  Kian watched his wife disappear into the shadows of the gardens. He didn’t understand what had just happened. For the briefest moment, he’d had his wife back.

  He followed her into the darkness, surreptitiously adjusting his trousers. Tonight was the clearest indication yet that they weren’t just going through a rough patch.

  “Cate?” He found her looking up at one of the sculptures. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Cate didn’t turn around. “I just needed some fresh air. Go back to the party.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” Kian said gruffly, reaching for her wrist. “Look at me.”

  Cate tugged at her wrist, “I’m OK.”

  Unrelenting, Kian turned her around to face him. The tracks of her tears glittered silver in the moonlight. He hated seeing her cry. “Don’t cry.”

  “It’s just the pregnancy hormones,” Cate tried again to free her wrist. “I should be used to them by now.”

  Kian wiped away her tears with his thumbs. “Stay here,” he kissed her cheek.

  When he came back, he’d got both of their jackets. “What are you doing?”

  “We’re leaving,” Kian said, holding out her jacket so she could slip her arms inside.

  “We can’t leave,” Cate panicked. “It’s Trent and Lena’s engagement party.”

  “I’ve made our excuses. Let’s go.”

  Cate felt wretched. Ever since she’d moved to Seattle, she just couldn’t do anything right. She followed Kian out of the party, noting the tension bristling off his strong shoulders. He must be so angry with her right now, making a scene in front of his team-mates.

  Every single day she looked at how much it would cost to fly back to Manchester, she could seek refuge in her old bedroom at her mum’s house, surrounded by all of her teenage paraphernalia. That was what she’d done when she’d found out that Kian had cheated on her with one of his sister’s friends at the World Cup. This time would be different though, Cate thought sadly, following Kian along the pathway back to the Space Needle. Liv, who had been her life raft during the first few weeks after she’d left Kian, wasn’t in Manchester anymore. She was touring Europe with Jax.

  When the town car arrived, Kian held the door open for Cate and she slid across the backseat, as far away from him as possible.

  The car pulled up outside the ferry terminal and Kian got out. He offered her his hand. “I thought we could take the ferry home.”

  They bought tickets and went and sat on the plastic bucket seats waiting for the next boat to arrive. It was cool inside the almost deserted building; the kiosks were closed. Cate pulled her jacket more tightly around her body. Her feet were aching inside her heels.

  When the boat arrived, Kian led Cate upstairs to the outside deck. She looked at the glittering Seattle skyline dominated by the Space Needle. She wanted so badly for it to feel like home, to feel the same affection for the Space Needle, Smith Tower and Century Link Field as she did for Beetham Tower, the Imperial War Museum and Rovers Stadium back home.

  She wrapped her hands around the metal railing and looked down at the dark water. It felt as black as she did. In the first few weeks after they’d arrived in Seattle, when she’d still felt optimistic about this new chapter in their lives, she’d taken Lola and Mateo on a tourist bus tour of Seattle. The guide had said that the Sound was deep enough that the Statue of Liberty could be put inside it and you wouldn’t even be able to see the flame rising out of the water.

  Cate felt Kian come up behind her. His hands anchored hers to the railing. She looked at the gleaming gold bands on their fingers. She couldn’t go back home. Her husband was here. Cate took the vows they’d made all those years ago in that tiny chapel in Las Vegas seriously. Unlike the last time, he hadn’t given her a reason to leave.

  The ferry juddered, making Cate stumble in her wretched heels. Kian reached for her elbow and gently guided her back across the deck to the row of painted white benches. “Here,” he knelt in front of her and carefully removed her heels. Her toes wiggled, savouring the newfound freedom. Kian sat down beside her on the bench. “What’s wrong, angel?”

  She couldn’t have felt less like an angel at that moment.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Cate faked a smile.

  “Don’t lie to me,” Kian growled. He touched her cheek, stopping her from looking away.

  “I’m just…” The words were on the tip of her tongue but if she told Kian how she really felt, he would feel guilty for bringing them out here. She would forever taint this exciting new adventure for him. “I’m just tired and emotional.” It was scary how easy it was to lie.

  CHAPTER 16

  A couple of days later, Seattle F.C had a home game but Cate was so mortified by how she’d behaved at Trent and Lena’s engagement party that she decided to stay home.

  The children were asleep upstairs so she went outside to the dock and dangled her bare feet in the cold water of the Sound. She trailed her ankles through the murky depths feeling them gradually become numb.

  Cate put the palms of her hands on the wooden slats and imagined lifting herself up and sinking down into the Sound, letting the tempting blackness swallow her whole. She looked at the cluster of rocks a little further along the coast and wondered just how many rocks she’d need to stuff her pockets with to ensure that she wouldn’t resurface again.

  Maybe she’d be doing them all a favour? She thought about what Kian’s reptilian U.S. agent had said when she’d first arrived in Seattle. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this,” he’d remarked when Kian was out of earshot, “but your husband’s job pays the bills.” Cate had been too stunned to react; she’d just sat there with a fake smile plastered on her face. Yes, it was true but she’d never heard it put quite so bluntly before.

  “Your job,” he’d ventured closer, making sure that nobody else in the room could hear him, “is to keep him happy.” Again, she knew he was right. That’s what good, little WAGS did – it was what separated the wives and fiancées from the “flavours of the month.” They blended into the background, taking care of the home and the children so that their husbands could focus all of their attention on sports.

  Based on her performances since she’d moved to Seattle, if keeping her husband happy had been a real job, Cate would have been given her P45 (or the American equivalent) a long time ago. Kian was a lot of things right now but he definitely wasn’t happy. He was frustrated; s
he could see it burning in his almost-black eyes whenever she caught him looking at her. He was more than likely horny; she could barely remember the last time they’d made love. He was definitely angry; she’d embarrassed him in front of his team-mates at the engagement party.

  The trouble was that Cate didn’t know how to make Kian happy anymore; she didn’t remember what being happy actually felt like.

  She scooted forward on the dock, her calves sinking deeper into the icy-cold water. The numbness was a blessed relief. The water was so black that she couldn’t see her toes anymore.

  As she lifted herself up off the dock, the baby kicked inside her womb. Cate sat down again with a thump and dropped her head in her hands. She’d been so entranced by the black nothingness that she’d forgotten that she was pregnant. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, rubbing her hands over her swollen belly, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

  Hot tears trickled down her cheeks. She felt even more like a failure. How could she have even contemplated taking not just her own life but the life of her unborn child? What kind of a mother am I? Cate dragged her fingers through her inky-black hair, her fingernails scratching thick, angry welts into her scalp.

  She’d only thought about hurting herself once before. She’d sat cocooned in the empty bath with the shower curtain pulled across, having just found out that Kian had cheated on her with Jenna. She’d felt the unbearable, suffocating pressure inside her chest and had fumbled for the razor she’d thought she’d seen at the side of the bath. She hadn’t wanted to kill herself; she’d just wanted to break her skin to let out some of the pressure. Instead, she’d grabbed Lola’s rubber duck and just thinking about her three-year old daughter playing with her dolls just down the hallway had been enough to stop her.

  Cate looked back at the house. She thought about Lola and Mateo who were both fast asleep upstairs. What would have happened if she’d actually gone through with it? They would have been all alone – Kian wouldn’t be home for hours and it was Nate’s night off.

  Would they have woken up and come looking for her? Cate retched uncontrollably. She needed to purge herself of the hateful thoughts that had tempted her, even for the briefest moment, to lift her body up off that wooden dock. Would one of them have found her lifeless body, bloated and tinged with blue, floating in the Sound?

  She’d felt unhappiness before but this was different, it was heavy and smothering. In the past, there had always been a logical explanation for how she was feeling. She’d felt heartbroken because she’d been betrayed by her husband; humiliated because he’d lied about it for months afterwards, using their friends and family to help him cover it up. She’d had panic attacks because she was pregnant again and she’d almost died the first time she’d given birth.

  “Help me,” she whispered, her desperate plea skimming over the gunmetal waters of the Sound.

  Cate heard raised voices and when she turned around, Eric and Nate were stood on the strip of land between the two houses. She was too far away to hear what was being said.

  “Cate?”

  Keeping one hand on her belly, as if the constant reassurance could somehow atone for what she’d just thought about doing, she reached up and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

  Nate dropped down next to her on the dock, “you’re shivering?”

  He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into the heat of his body.

  “I’m OK.”

  She didn’t know if it was because Nate had found her at her lowest point, almost as if the Sound had answered her prayers, but Cate found herself confessing to Nate just how badly she was feeling. “Every morning I wake up and I think I’m going to be better today. I’m going to be the best mum and wife.”

  “That’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself,” Nate said gently.

  “I just don’t understand why I’m so unhappy,” Cate looked across at the bright lights of downtown Seattle just across the Sound. “I’ve got two happy, healthy children and another one on the way. A husband I love, a beautiful home…If you were looking from the outside in, you would think that I’d got it all.”

  Nate turned Cate around to face him, “depression doesn’t work like that, Cate.”

  Cate looked shocked, “I’m not depressed, I mean… I can’t be. What have I got to be depressed about?”

  “I’m not a psychologist or anything like that but you said you had similar feelings when you were pregnant with Lola and Mateo, maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones?”

  “I’ve heard about post-natal depression but I didn’t think it could happen while you were still pregnant?”

  “My mum had really bad depression when she was pregnant with me. I was born six weeks early after she crashed her car into a tree,” Nate confided. “My dad thinks it explains a lot.”

  “That’s awful,” Cate gasped, “is she OK now?”

  Nate looked at Cate’s ankles which were still submerged in the icy-cold water. “Your feet are turning blue.” He lifted them up out of the water and rubbed them to get the circulation going again. “I think you should tell Kian how you’re feeling.”

  Cate shook her head, “I can’t ruin this for him. He loves Seattle.”

  Nate wiped the tears which stained her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “Sweetheart, you just tried to hurt yourself.”

  Cate gripped Nate’s arms. “Please don’t say anything. I won’t ever do it again, I promise. I just got stuck in the moment… I thought that if I wasn’t here, it would make things easier for everybody but then I thought about Lola, Mats and the new baby.” She felt as if her heart was literally being ripped to shreds. “I couldn’t do it to them. I couldn’t do it.”

  “It’s OK,” Nate said gently. “I won’t say anything, I promise. But if you can’t talk to Kian, will you at least talk to me? You shouldn’t have to deal with this by yourself. My mom said that one of the worst things about her depression was how alone she felt.”

  “Thank you,” Cate squeezed her eyes shut. If Nate told anybody that she’d thought about killing herself and her unborn child, even for the briefest moment…

  “I can’t…” She pressed a hand to her throat. “I can’t breathe.”

  “Open your eyes,” Nate said calmly. “Look at me. It’s just a panic attack, sweetheart. You said you’d had them before.” He pressed the palms of her hands firmly against his chest. “Try and follow my breathing, OK.” As she felt his chest move in and out, the tight grip on her throat began to loosen.

  “I’m sorry,” Cate said quietly, “I’m such a basket case.”

  “Nonsense,” Nate smiled but it didn’t reach his pale-blue eyes. He looked across at Eric’s house, which was now shrouded in darkness. “We all have our issues, sweetheart.”

  “Can I ask you something?” Cate desperately needed a change of subject. “What’s going on with you and Eric? I overheard you at the Taco Shack. He said you shouldn’t have come here?”

  Nate didn’t say anything for a few seconds; he concentrated on drying Cate’s feet. “I’m sorry,” Cate stuttered, “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “I’m gay,” Nate said quietly. “That’s why I had to leave Sacramento. My dad doesn’t exactly approve.”

  “Layla said you came to visit her last year but had to leave early. Did something happen between you two?”

  “We kissed, that’s all,” Nate grunted. “Eric won’t admit that it was anything other than a drunken mistake.”

  “Does Layla know?”

  Nate shook his head, “I’ve never actually “come out” or whatever but I think she knows that I’m gay. I haven’t told her about Eric…” He looked across at Eric’s house again. “She loves her job. I’m not going to do anything to jeopardise that.”

  “Do you really think it’s a good idea to live and work next door to him?” Cate asked as Nate helped her stand up.

  “I haven’t got much family left,” Nate said. “I want to be close to Layla. Besides, Eric’s a busy guy, I�
�m sure he’ll try and avoid me as much as he can.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “Whoa, that’s really freaky,” India giggled when she answered the phone, “I was literally just thinking about you.”

  “Yeah?” Cate sat cross-legged on the wooden dock, looking out at Puget Sound.

  She’d hardly slept at all the previous night, thinking about how close she’d come to hurting herself and her unborn child.

  She was by herself again. Kian had left early for the team debrief where the coaches went over the mistakes they’d made in the previous night’s match. After she’d explained that she was going to call her old therapist, Nate had taken Mateo with him to drop Lola off at school.

  “Mm, the new series of Grey’s Anatomy starts this week on Sky. So how’s Seattle? Have you seen any dreamy doctors yet?”

  Cate picked at a loose thread on the hem of her maternity jeans. “Um… that’s kind of why I’m calling today. I was wondering if…” She closed her eyes. “I was wondering if you knew anybody here in Seattle that treats…” Cate cursed. Why was it so difficult to get the words out? “I’m probably just being silly; I mean it’s natural to feel up and down when you’re pregnant but… I don’t know, a friend of mine thinks that I might be depressed.”

  “I don’t think you’re being silly,” India said gently. “I was worried that this might happen. I’ll make some calls and get back to you, OK?”

  After she’d finished talking to India, Cate put her phone down beside her on the dock. She didn’t know how she was feeling. At first, she’d felt this amazing sense of relief. She’d felt validated that a respected mental health professional like India didn’t think that she was just being silly. It wasn’t normal to feel like this when you were pregnant. But those feelings had quickly been replaced by fear and hopelessness. If she was actually clinically depressed, Cate remembered enough from her Psychology degree to know that it wasn’t something that you could just click your fingers and immediately fix.