“I think you should put some clothes on, don’t you, Fin?” Elizabeth says, throwing my boxers and shorts at me. It’s only when she says that that I realise I’m stood there stark bollock naked. I guess I should be grateful that being beat on by Ruben meant I lost my hard on.
“I should go,” I mutter to both Connie and Elizabeth once I’m half-dressed, seeing as Connie is sat still wearing my t-shirt. I grab my wallet off the side. The used condom on the floor makes me cringe, but I leave it where it is and walk out, quickly.
Present…
Thinking back, the first time we got caught together reminds me that it should have taught me a lesson. I hurt Ruben badly by sleeping with Connie. It didn’t matter how much I liked her. She was a no go, and I just ignored that and did what I wanted. I’d promised Ruben not long before it happened that I would never do anything with her. When I promised, I totally believed it was a promise I could keep, because I didn’t in a million years think that she would be willing.
Ruben isn’t just my best friend, he’s my brother, and I hated myself for doing that to him. I was in a bad place for a long time after that day. Not only was my home life going down the pan, but I’d lost my adopted family. I owed the Fosters so much and that’s how I repaid them. Thankfully, Nigel didn’t sack me, and I was able to throw myself into work. Nigel did his best to ensure that Ruben and I were working on different sites, which I was grateful for. He knew as well as I did how angry Ruben was at me. And I couldn’t blame him.
It took the best part of a year for things between Ruben and me to get back to somewhere near normal. By that, I mean he could be in the same room as me and not want to end me. I was grateful, but I missed him and the Fosters like crazy. Okay, so it was totally my own fault. Firstly, I shouldn’t have done what I did, and secondly, in hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t have tossed Connie aside like a piece of rubbish afterwards. I thought it was the right thing to do, though.
Connie’s eyelids fluttering catch my attention and bring me out of my daydream.
“You’re awake,” she says, stating the obvious when she sees me looking back down her. “I’m so sorry, Fin. He wasn’t meant to find out that way.” Her eyes start filling with tears again and it breaks my heart. This isn’t her fault. It’s all on me, and my lack of self-control.
“Don’t, Connie,” I warn. “I knew this was going to happen, but I wasn’t strong enough to let it stop me.”
“I thought he was going to kill you this time. He was like a man possessed. Nothing like last time. And you just stood there and took it. Why didn’t you fight back? You could have stopped him so you didn’t end up in this state.”
“I wasn’t going to fight back, Connie. I was in the wrong. I swore to him so many times that I wouldn’t touch you again, and yet here we are. I deserved what he gave me and then some.”
“Stop…” she sobs out. “You did not deserve this, Fin. He just doesn’t understand that this,” she says, gesturing between us, “Isn’t just a bit of fun. He doesn’t know that I love you, and that I always have.”
“He won’t accept this, Con. He’ll never accept us being together.”
“Wha…what are you saying?” she asks, and I can hear the fear in her voice. She knows what’s coming next.
“We need to end this,” I say, with as much resolve as I can muster.
“No,” she says defiantly. “I’m not going to let him ruin what we’ve got, Fin. It’s too good, and don’t you dare deny it. I know you feel the same.”
“It doesn’t matter what I feel. I won’t do this to him, he’s always been there for me and so have your parents. I won’t cause them any more problems, and us being together will cause problems and you know it. Ruben will make sure of it.”
She just sits and stares at me with tears running down her face, with a look of utter disbelief.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me again. I thought things were different this time. I thought this was it, after everything you’ve put me through.” She gets up and walks to the curtain as if going to leave.
“Do you know what, Fin? Fuck you. I’ve wasted enough of my life, love and tears on you. I won’t put myself through it anymore. This is it, though. You make this decision now and I won’t come crawling back like the pathetic little girl that I’ve been before. I deserve more than this, Fin. I deserve to be treated properly. I deserve to be loved.” With that said, she swipes the curtain aside and she’s gone.
“You’re right,” I mutter quietly to myself. “You deserve all of that and more, and it should be me giving it to you.” I stare at the curtain as it falls back into place like she was never here. The pain from my broken nose and ribs subsides in that moment, and the pain in my chest takes over.
Chapter Two
Connie
I don’t make it any further than the corridor on the way back to the relatives’ room where Mum and Emma are waiting for me, before I give in to my sobs. I lean back against the wall and I don’t know I’m falling until my arse hits the floor. I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them as I cry.
I knew Ruben wouldn’t be happy about Fin and me, but I didn’t expect this. I thought we’d tell him how we really feel about each other and he’d get over it. But because I decided that the pregnancy test that I’d been carrying around in my handbag for weeks was burning a hole in the leather, I made the stupid decision to piss on it at Emma’s while waiting for her and Ruben to arrive for the party. I didn’t even think twice about just putting it in the bin. How fucking stupid was that?
So now my brother hates me, and he all but killed Fin because of it. I’ve been cast aside, again, and he doesn’t even know about the baby because I haven’t been brave enough to admit my stupid mistake. Well, at least I know how he really feels about me. Clearly, he was never as serious about me as I was about him, and I’d have hated for him to hang around for a baby if it wasn’t what he really wanted.
“Shit, Connie,” I hear in the distance. I haven’t got the energy to look up and see who it is, though. Seconds later, I feel someone sit down beside me and pull my sobbing body into them. I know instantly that it’s Emma, because she smells like raspberries and coconut.
She continues to hold me while I sob. I have no idea how long we’re there for, but a lot of people walk up and down the corridor past us. People must think someone has died. Well, to be honest, I kind of feel like someone has. I meant what I said: I won’t go back to him again. It hurts too much every time he decides to end it.
Ten years ago…
The second Fin is out of my room, my mum turns her stare on me. I can’t help my face burning up in embarrassment. I’ve always been very open with my mum about this kind of stuff, but having her walk in on this is pushing the limits slightly, especially as I know there is a used condom on the floor and I know that she’s seen it.
I can’t quite decipher the look in her eyes. I can see disappointment, sympathy, and a little of her own embarrassment. It’s the disappointment and sympathy that cause me to burst into tears.
“I’m sorry,” I wail as I put my head in my hands.
She wraps her arms around my shoulders and rocks me until I calm down.
“I don’t think Fin was the right choice, love,” is all she says when I’ve quietened down a little, and it makes my tears turn into laughter. Of all the things she could say in this situation.
“I need to go and find Ruben,” I say, getting up and grabbing some clothes. Mum tries to tell me to leave him to calm down and come home by himself, but I can’t sit here and wait, I need to talk to him.
Mum leaves me to get dressed, and within minutes, I’m out of the house and heading across the fields.
I knew he’d be in the barn. It’s where he always goes when things get a bit much. He loves it here, so much that he’s actually planning on buying the barn and land from my parents so he can convert it to a house.
“Ru,” I say when I find him sat on a couple of pallets with
a can of beer in his hand.
“What the fuck, Con?”
“I’m sorry, I just got carried away,” I say, willing the tears that are threatening to spill again to go away.
“Aw, don’t cry. It’s not your fault. Come here,” he says, getting up and pulling me into his arms. “This is all Fin’s fault. He shouldn’t have been anywhere near you. Did he force you?”
“What? No! It was as much me as it was him. Please don’t give him a hard time about this, Ru.”
“Too late for that. He knew what would happen if he touched you.”
“Ruben, please. Just let it go.”
“No. No I won’t let it go. He had no right to touch you, to do…that.” He runs his eyes quickly down my body, looking disgusted with me. “You’re too sweet, too pure for him.”
“I-”
“Can you just leave me to it, please?” he says, grabbing another can and turning his back on me.
I can tell he’s still angry so I do as he asks, not wanting to rile him up any more. I have somewhere else I need to go, anyway.
Fin’s house is the other side of the village, so it takes me a while to get there, walking. Life has been made much easier for Fin, Ruben and my parents now they can both drive themselves back and forth. I can’t wait to have the same luxury.
Fin must see me coming, because he has the front door open before I even lift my arm to knock.
He looks a hell of a lot better than the last time I saw him. He’s cleaned the blood off and has a couple of butterfly stitches across one eyebrow. Both his eyes are black and swollen, though, and both his bottom and top lip are split open with dried blood on them. I lift my hand to touch his poor face, but he cuts me off.
“Don’t,” he says coldly, and pushes my outstretched arm away. I flinch back at the coolness of his tone.
“Can I come in?”
He glances behind him before saying, “No. We’ll talk out here.” He steps forward and forces me to walk backwards and down the couple of steps to the driveway before he closes the door behind him. I follow him around to the side of the house to a bench and I sit down. I wait for him to join me, but he just stands and puts his hands in his jean pockets. He looks off into the distance before saying, “Nothing is going to happen between us again. It was a mistake.”
“What? Is this because I’m Ruben’s sister?”
“It’s because of a lot of things, Connie, things that you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh, so it’s because of my age, then. I understand things perfectly fine, thank you very much, so try me. Explain what I couldn’t possibly understand.”
“No. All you need to know is that it was a one-time thing, and a mistake at that.”
I try my best to stay strong, to swallow down the hurt that is quickly bubbling up and threatening to spill out through my eyes.
“Finlay, dinner’s ready. Don’t keep Mum waiting,” is shouted from somewhere.
“Okay Dad, I’m coming,” Fin responds quickly in a panic.
“Mum?” I question, knowing full well his mum is long gone, but I just get pulled up from the bench and pushed, none to gently, towards their driveway.
“You need to leave, now.”
I walk away a few steps before turning and looking back at Fin, but he’s already through the door and is closing it on me.
I run all the way home, trying my hardest to keep all my emotions bottled up until I make it to the safety of my room.
“Connie, is that you?” Mum calls when I start running up the stairs. “Is everything okay, love?”
“Yeah everything’s fine. I’ll be down in a bit.” I shout back, hoping I sounded fine and that she’ll leave me alone for a while so I can attempt to pull myself together and tend to my broken heart.
Present…
Emma eventually pulled me up off the hospital floor and took me to where Mum was waiting. She took one look at me and pulled me in for a long hug. They could obviously tell without having to ask that I needed to get out of there, so they quickly gathered their stuff and ushered me out to the car park and into the car.
No one says anything the whole way home, and I’m more than grateful. I don’t think I could cope with their questions right now.
When Emma pulls up in the driveway to my parents’ house. I mumble a thanks to her and promise I’ll see her soon before following my mum inside. I can’t go into my house for fear of seeing Ruben. I’m struggling to get my head around the events of the day, and I can’t get the look of his murderous eyes out of my head. I need space and time to think.
Without even talking, it’s like my mum knows exactly what I need. She grabs hold of my hand once we’re inside, shouts to my dad what we are there and that she’ll be back in a bit, before pulling me up the stairs. I follow along behind her like a little child. She pulls me into the family bathroom and sits me on the closed toilet seat before going about running a bath for me. She leaves the room for a few minutes and returns with my favourite pair of cupcake pyjamas. God know how she got those so quickly, but that is the least of my worries.
After giving me a kiss on the cheek, she leaves me to it. I strip off as quickly as I can, because the soothing water of the bath is calling to me. I have to blast some cold in because I’ve read somewhere that pregnant women shouldn’t have hot baths. Once I’m happy I’m not going to cook the grape that’s growing inside me, I settle in.
Ten minutes later, Mum reappears with a giant glass of wine for me. I take one look at it and burst into tears. I want to drink that so badly right now, but I know I can’t.
“Connie, what’s wrong?” she asks as she places the glass on the side of the bath and kneels next to it so she can grab my hand.
“I…I can’t drink th…that,” I stutter out.
“Why can’t you…oh! Connie, are you…” she doesn’t finish the question because she can obviously see the answer in my eyes. Her own eyes fill with tears - I guess in sympathy for me. “Oh love, it’s Fin’s, isn’t it?”
I just nod at her before clarifying. “Nine weeks. That’s why Ruben went so crazy. He found my pregnancy test in Emma’s bathroom bin. Fin walked in the room after he finished questioning me, and he put two and two together.”
“Oh shit, well that helps to explain it, I guess.”
“Yeah,” I say sadly.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but what happened with Fin in the hospital?”
I let out a huge breath as I muster up the strength to answer that question. I don’t have secrets from my mum, and I’m not about to start now.
“He did exactly what he’s done before, and just cast me aside when the going got tough. I thought it was different this time, Mum. He’d told me that he loved me and that I was it for him. Then, one sign of trouble and he takes off running. He said that he can’t stay with me because of Ruben, and he doesn’t want to cause problems for our family. He hasn’t even tried fighting for us,” I say quietly.
“Oh, baby. Ruben obviously didn’t knock any sense into him them,” she says, trying to bring a little bit of humour to the situation. I manage to twitch the corner of my mouth up at her.
“I told him that if that was his opinion, then it’s over between us. I’m not going back again, Mum. I can’t keep picking myself up when he drops me. I can’t keep repeating this over and over, it’s too painful.”
“I think that’s the right thing to do. You need to find someone who is going to treat you right, and let’s be honest, Fin hasn’t treated you right. No matter how much you love him and think he’s the one, he doesn’t deserve you. I hate to ask, but what are you going to do about…” She doesn’t finish her sentence and instead looks down to where my stomach is under all the bubbles.
Without realising I’ve done it, my hand comes up to rest on top of my still flat belly. “I don’t know. I don’t think I can get rid of it, though.”
“Oh, I didn’t even think that was an option. Does Fin know?”
I sha
ke my head, feeling ashamed of myself for not telling him.
“I know it might not feel like it now, but he does deserve to know, to be part of it, even if you’re not going to be together.”
“I know. It’s just so hard. I’m scared he’ll think I did it on purpose. I swear I didn’t. It was an accident…but that doesn’t mean I regret it,” I add quickly, not wanting the little grape to know I might not want it.
“He knows you better than that, Connie.”
“I hope so,” I mutter quietly.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Mum says as she gets up and goes to the door. “Oh, shall I tell your dad, or do you want to?”
“Go ahead. I think I’m just going to get into bed once I get out of here. I don’t want anyone else knowing, though. Not until I’ve told Fin and had a scan.”
“Of course, it goes without saying. I’ll bring you up a hot chocolate when I hear you get out. Try to relax,” she says, before disappearing and closing the door behind her.
Mum does as promised, and seconds after I slide my weary body inside my childhood bed, she appears with a giant mug of steaming chocolate. My belly growls at the sight, reminding me I haven’t eaten for hours. Luckily, in her other hand is a packet of my favourite chocolate and caramel biscuits. Probably not the healthiest thing for a pregnant woman to have, but it’s only one night and I need it.
I grab my handbag that mum brought up with her and check my phone. Predictably, I’ve got a couple of messages from Emma, telling me that she’s there for me, and that Ruben is at her place so I can go home if I want to. I’ve got multiple messages from Ruben apologising for his stupidity. I’d bet my life on the fact he hasn’t sent the same kind of messages to Fin.
I just flick my light off after finishing my picnic when my phone lights up on the bedside table. I grab it, thinking nothing of it, but the name on the screen stops me in my tracks. I swipe it unlocked and open my messages to see what he has to say.
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