Bear With Me

by Jessica Redland

  I smiled. ‘Oh, I do that too! It’s in my job description. And hugging them. They get upset otherwise.’

  ‘It would be my dream job,’ gushed her friend. ‘I don’t think anything would get me down if I was surrounded by bears all day.’

  Thanking me for answering their questions, they disappeared into the next room ten minutes later, leaving me pondering on their comments. Yes, I was lucky. I had my dream job working with something I’d been passionate about since childhood. I often put in long hours but it never felt like work. Since Scott had disappeared from my life, the joy had gone, though. I’d stopped looking at the bears and had just been getting on with my work on autopilot whilst my mind flitted from the lie that the last 18 months of my life had been, to worries about the future and what that meant for Mum.

  I moved the kick-stool again, picked up my clipboard, and returned to my work. Then I stopped and put the clipboard down. I picked up the largest bear in the display: a 1930s cream bear from the UK’s oldest bear manufacturer, Dean’s. I held him around his tummy, with his arms outstretched for a hug, and stared into his black eyes. I could almost hear him telling me to stop worrying about things I had no control over and give him a hug instead.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ Owen said, appearing by my side again as I gently cradled the bear in my arms, mindful of his age. ‘He’s not worth it, Jemma. Scott, that is. The bear’s definitely worth it.’

  ‘Thanks, Owen.’

  I replaced the bear as Owen left the room again. I would get the joy back. As hurtful as it was, I needed to put my time with Scott behind me, accept it was over, and stop trying to find an explanation for what he’d done. Let’s face it, was there ever going to be an explanation that would be acceptable for his infidelity? The old clichés for having an affair like, “my wife doesn’t understand me,” weren’t going to wash with me, especially when they looked so happy together on his real social media. And surely nothing could explain and justify the fake identity from the outset?

  I shook my head. Scott meant nothing to me. Tiff was right: he wasn’t worth another minute of my time. Owen was right. Leah, Drew, Mum and Karen were right. He was clearly a very cruel person and it was fortunate that it had come to light so I could move on. From now on, I was going to focus on the important things in life: my job, my friends, and my family. Particularly my family because, although Mum assured me she was coping with the Parkinson’s and was finally exercising, I couldn’t shake this feeling that there was something else going on with her.

  Throwing myself into my work for the rest of the day, I finished the display I’d been working on by mid-afternoon then caught up with some paperwork in the office. My phone stayed in my drawer, out of sight and out of mind. I could do this.

  Bidding goodnight to Owen, I flicked through my emails on my phone as I left the building. It was part of my going-home routine, deleting all the marketing emails that had materialised throughout the day. As I reached for the final internal door, I stopped dead. Oh my God! He’d emailed.

  To: Jemma Browne

  From: Adam Hannigan

  Subject: Sorry

  I’ve started and deleted this email so many times. I’m so sorry, Jemma. It seems such an inadequate word for what I’ve done to you but please know that I wasn’t lying when I said that I love you only. I still do and I always will. Please forgive me.

  I’m sorry to hear about your mum. I hope she responds well to treatment. Thinking of you all and missing you like crazy xxx

  What the hell was he playing at? He loved me only? He still did? Kisses? As my stomach churned and my heart raced, I was back to square one. Despite everything he’d done, he still meant the world to me and I missed him like crazy too.

  Chapter 14

  Jemma

  ‘What do you fancy seeing?’ Leah asked as we stood in the cinema lobby checking out the viewing times on Thursday evening.

  ‘Anything but romance,’ I said.

  ‘Still no word since Monday’s email?’

  ‘No. All quiet again. Do you think it’s my fault? Should I have emailed him back?’

  ‘Of course not! Unless it was to give him a mouthful. He’s a lying, cheating… Seriously, Jemma, he’s not someone you want or need in your life. You’ve got your apology. You’ve got your closure. Move on.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can.’ I shuffled over to a nearby leather sofa, suddenly feeling quite weak. ‘I still don’t know why he did it. And he says he still loves me.’

  Leah plonked herself down beside me. ‘Listen to me, Jemma Browne. I know you loved him, I know you’d planned to spend the rest of your life with him, and I know you’re hurting like hell right now, but you won’t always feel this way. There’s loads of clichés about time healing and the reason there’s loads of them is because it’s true. The pain goes and people move on with their lives. Most of us get our hearts broken at some point. Sometimes several times. Hello!’ She pointed both her thumbs towards her chest to indicate her unlucky-in-love status. Leah didn’t do steady burn. She either didn’t feel the chemistry and moved on immediately before allowing anything to develop, or she felt the fizz and fell for the bloke big time. Usually it wasn’t reciprocal.

  I picked at a loose thread dangling from the hem of my coat. ‘What if I still love him?’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I might do.’

  ‘DO YOU?’

  I shrunk in my seat, trying to avoid the gazes Leah’s shout had attracted. ‘Yes. Don’t get mad with me. I can’t help it. I hate him for what he’s done to me and his wife, but I still love him. There’s no switch to magically turn off my feelings.’

  Leah put her arm around me and I rested my head on her shoulder. ‘What are we going to do with you?’

  ‘Give me time, I suppose.’

  She squeezed my arm then helped me to my feet. ‘Come on. We’ll do horror. Maybe we can scare those feelings out of you.’

  Five minutes later, we’d purchased our tickets and were in the queue for snacks. Leah refused to watch a film without popcorn and a large Sprite.

  I delved into my bag as my phone started ringing.

  ‘Hi Tiff.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘At the cinema with Leah, queuing for popcorn.’

  ‘You need to come home.’

  ‘Are you okay? Is Drew?’

  Leah raised her eyebrows questioningly. I shrugged.

  ‘It’s Scott,’ Tiff said. ‘He’s here.’

  ‘At the flat?’ I grabbed Leah’s arm and pulled her out of the queue.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What does he want?’

  ‘To beg you to run away to a Mormon community in America and set up home with his many wives and children. I don’t bloody know. Funnily enough, I didn’t fancy a cup of tea, a garibaldi biscuit, and a nice chat with him.’

  ‘We’re leaving now.’ I pulled Leah towards the door. ‘I’m sorry, Tiff. Are you going to be okay on your own with him?’ We set off in the direction of the flat.

  ‘I’m not with him. Drew is.’

  ‘Is he giving him a hard time?’

  ‘He wanted to,’ Tiff said, ‘but he decided that’s your place so, instead, he’s staring him out and refusing to speak to him.’

  An image popped into my head of Scott sitting on the chair with Drew on the coffee table, legs almost touching, intimidating the hell out of him.

  ‘Is he drunk?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘What do you think I should do?’

  ‘Push the twat out of the kitchen window and hope he doesn’t bounce.’

  Despite my anxiety, I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘And a sensible suggestion would be…?’

  ‘Send him packing, of course. Jemma! You’re not seriously thinking of taking him back, are you?’

  I paused
for a moment. Was I? When I’d been talking to Leah earlier, Scott had gone silent on me again so it wasn’t a possibility. But if he was at the flat…? ‘I don’t know what to think about anything at the moment. I’m so confused.’

  ‘You loved Scott, Jemma, but Scott doesn’t exist. He’s a figment of Adam’s imagination. You don’t love Adam. You don’t even know Adam, for God’s sake. And Adam’s the one who’s real. Unfortunately.’

  I didn’t want to argue with her. ‘I’ll see you shortly.’

  ‘Don’t take him back, Jemma. He’s a liar. From the minute you met him, he’s deceived you. Don’t lose sight of that.’

  Scott (I couldn’t get my head around him being called Adam) and Drew both stood up when I pushed open the door to the flat.

  ‘Jemma!’ Scott held up a bunch of flowers and I suddenly saw red.

  ‘Supermarket flowers? Really?’

  He looked down at them, shamefaced. ‘There were no proper florist shops open.’

  ‘You’ve missed the point. It’s the flowers rather than their origin. After what you’ve done, you expect a bunch of flowers to fix it?’

  ‘No, but…’

  Drew walked towards me, and touched my arm. ‘Do you want me to stay?’

  I shook my head. ‘Thanks, though.’

  ‘We’re in our rooms if you need us.’ He rubbed my arm, then turned round to face Scott. ‘You!’ he said, and pointed two fingers towards his eyes then towards Scott. Very childish but I appreciated the gesture.

  The three of them headed to their rooms. I dropped my bag on the floor, shrugged off my coat and hung it up on one of the hooks by the door whilst trying to slow my racing heart. Why did he have to be so damned gorgeous? He was wearing his charcoal grey suit and a sky blue shirt; the outfit he knew I found sexiest. He wasn’t playing fair. I strode into the lounge area and sat down on the armchair opposite him.

  ‘You look amazing, Jemma,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, well, I was out on a date when I got Tiff’s call.’

  He looked pretty devastated. Good. ‘You’re seeing someone else?’

  It was so tempting to keep it up, but I wasn’t a liar like him. I sighed. ‘No. I think you’ll find it’s you who’s seeing someone else, not me. Do you really think I could move on that quickly? This happens to be what I wore to work today and I was at the cinema with Leah just now.’

  He nodded, a clear expression of relief on his face.

  Silence.

  I stared at him, an eyebrow raised slightly in question. I wasn’t going to make this easy for him.

  He gulped. ‘How’s your mum? I was so sorry to hear about the Parkinson’s.’

  ‘Not good, but shit happens. And speaking of shit happening, why are you here?’ I sounded more confident than I felt.

  He visibly squirmed. ‘I’ve made a huge mistake.’

  ‘Just the one?’

  ‘No. Loads of mistakes. I don’t know what I was thinking.’

  ‘Neither do I. I’m so tempted to kick you out of here, but the part of me that needs to know why you did what you did won’t let me. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? You’re married. Tell me about that. The truth this time.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I’m married. Her name’s Fiona and we were mates at school.’

  ‘And? You need to give me a bit more than that.’

  ‘Okay, detailed version then.’

  ‘Not too detailed, though. I don’t want to hear the graphic stuff.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that to you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I thought you wouldn’t cheat on me but life’s full of surprises, isn’t it?’

  He shrugged. ‘I guess so. So, Fi and I hung out at school. Just as friends. When she was 18, she moved in with this really rough bloke, Begsey, who’d been a few years above us at school. I couldn’t stand him and he hated me too. He didn’t believe that men and women could be friends and kept accusing me of trying it on with his woman. Spending time with her caused arguments and, in the end, he actually banned her from seeing me. I had a girlfriend at the time who was pretty jealous of Fi too so we ended up drifting apart to save our relationships. A couple of years later, I bumped into Fi. She’d lost weight, she had a black eye, and she looked awful. She told me she’d walked into a kitchen cupboard she’d left open, but I wasn’t buying it. She’d never been a good liar.’

  ‘Unlike you.’ I felt mean saying it if the story about Fiona was true, but he was still a liar about other things so I defiantly held eye contact.

  He stared at me for a moment then nodded. ‘I deserved that, Jemma. I did. I’m not lying to you now, though. I promise what I’m telling you tonight is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

  ‘We’ll see. Go on…’

  ‘I took her for a coffee and it all tumbled out. Begsey would often go out drinking with his mates but he was a violent drunk and nearly always ended up in a fight. The local police cells were like a second home to him. Then one night it was Fi who he hit instead. Of course, he swore it would never happen again but he couldn’t seem to help himself after that first time. The beatings became more and more regular. She wouldn’t leave him, though. She said she loved him and that he was a great boyfriend when he was sober and all that crap. He’d also managed to convince her that it was all her fault for not cooking his dinner or not keeping the house tidy or for dressing the wrong way. A few months later, she discovered she was pregnant and it struck her that he could cause a miscarriage or, if she went to term, he might use the baby as a mini punch bag. She called me up in tears, begging me to help her move her stuff out before he got home from the pub. She had nowhere to go. Her parents had moved to a tiny two-bed bungalow with her sister so I offered her my spare room. Unfortunately she did lose the baby and couldn’t be sure it wasn’t Begsey’s fault from previous beatings. I convinced her to report him and helped her through the court case. The friendship developed and, four years ago, we got married.’

  A huge lump formed in my throat at the thought of him falling in love with and marrying someone else. And, much as I wanted to hate his wife, my heart went out to her… if he wasn’t lying again. And speaking of lies: ‘Why the false name? Were you worried I’d find you on Facebook and discover you were really married?’

  He shook his head. ‘It was nothing like that. It’s a bit embarrassing, actually. When we were bored at school, Fi and I would dare each other to do things or set each other silly challenges. We went through this phase where we had to introduce ourselves to strangers using the name of a film or TV character. It was stupid obvious stuff when we were kids like cartoon characters. After we got married, we somehow started it up again and it became less obvious characters. If the stranger recognised the name and mentioned the TV or film character, you lost and had to do the ironing for a month. If you got away with it, the other one had to do the ironing.’ Scott gave me a sheepish smile. ‘I told you it was embarrassing.’

  ‘So you’re telling me that Scott Hastings literally is a fictional character?’

  He nodded. ‘Fi loves Strictly Come Dancing and a friend introduced her to this Australian film from the 90s called Strictly Ballroom. Have you seen it?’

  ‘I think so. Years ago.’

  ‘Scott Hastings is the name of the male lead. When I met you, I’d had the challenge for months and hadn’t had the opportunity to use it so it just came out. I thought it wouldn’t matter. I wasn’t expecting things to progress with us and, when they did, how could I tell you that I’d lied about my name?’

  ‘Plus, it meant I wasn’t going to find out about your wife online, didn’t it?’

  He shrugged. ‘I suppose so but I didn’t set out to do it. You have to believe me.’

  I stared at him, my emotions in turmoil. It all sounded very plausible: one of those moments where you say or do something that you think will have no impact
yet it actually does. Hadn’t Karen told me on my birthday about that client who was supposedly getting slim and fit for her wedding… only she didn’t actually have a boyfriend but couldn’t think how to retract the lie? Was Adam’s lie about his name so different to that scenario? Perhaps not, but he’d still lied about being married.

  I stood up. ‘I need a drink. Do you want anything?’

  ‘I’d love a coffee.’

  ‘Stay here.’

  I headed into the kitchen area and busied myself boiling the kettle and pouring myself a glass of wine. I gulped it down then poured another large one.

  Returning to the lounge area, I handed Adam his coffee and returned to the armchair, far away from him. ‘I can see how the Scott Hastings thing happened and I can see how awkward it would be telling me you’d made it up. But what I can’t see is how you slept with me that night when you were married.’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  I shrugged. ‘No. Ooh, don’t tell me. You’d had an argument with your wife and you couldn’t help yourself. Or perhaps she didn’t understand you like I did, or whatever excuse it is that men use to justify their infidelity.’

  Adam put his mug down on the coffee table and stayed leaning forwards. ‘Why did you sleep with me that first night?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s not a trick question. There must have been a reason because, let’s face it, I was a stranger who you might never see again, and I know that you’d never had a one-night-stand. I remember you telling me that it usually took weeks, if not months, before you took that step with a boyfriend. So, why did you sleep with me that first night?’

  My cheeks flushed as I muttered, ‘Because I fell in love with you.’

  Scott stared at me, a soft smile on his lips. ‘Same here. It was unexpected and crazy but I knew I had to continue seeing you. I hadn’t had an argument with Fi. We weren’t going through a rough patch. She did understand me. I wasn’t looking for anyone else so it made no sense but there you were and it was like being struck by a lightning bolt. What I had with you was so exciting and passionate and completely different to what I had with Fi or any other girlfriends before her and I couldn’t get enough of you.’