‘From the start? Like, from when I was five?’
‘From when you came back here,’ he corrected, because that’s what he’d meant. But then he paused, considered the way things had always been. The way she’d been a Schofield and he’d been a Farrell. So yeah, maybe it’d all been wrong from then as well.
He hadn’t said it, but she read it into his silence anyway. ‘You were my best friend. Don’t take that from me.’
He shifted, uncomfortable. Even this conversation was wrong! Couldn’t she see that? ‘Look, Lily. What happened last night shouldn’t have happened at all. It’s not going to happen again. We should just steer well clear of each other. For as long as you’re here.’
She looked at him, eyes huge, still uncomprehending the hows and whys, but at last the message was getting through. Finally she said, ‘So that’s it. Saxon didn’t have it wrong. You’re breaking up with me, just like that.’
He was on the verge of saying he wasn’t breaking up with her, because they’d never been together, and he’d been careful to make sure he’d been really clear about that. But he bit his tongue. It wasn’t necessary to point that out. It would be cruel and unhelpful. ‘It’s for the best.’
She flinched. ‘Can’t we talk about it at least?’
‘Talking’s not going to change anything.’
She looked down at her hands, clasping the soft cream blanket around her shoulders. ‘So that’s it. You’re not even going to try.’
Try what exactly? She was making it sound like they were in some kind of relationship and they weren’t. He’d made it abundantly clear from day one what the deal was. She couldn’t turn around now and try to change the terms. ‘This conversation is going around in circles. I went to see you today to tell you that last night shouldn’t have happened, and that it’s not going to happen again. Nothing is. End of story.’
‘End of story?’ she repeated, quiet and incredulous. She shook her head. ‘End of story?’ she repeated again, louder. She leapt to her feet, blanket still around her, the calm of a moment ago all but disappeared. ‘You think all you have to say is “end of story”, and that’s it?’
He was trying to stay calm, trying to recall his aim of causing no more harm, but frustration was starting to build. ‘That’s the thing about these things, Lil, either both parties are in, or it’s not on. It’s not a negotiation. So if I’m telling you I’m out, you’re just going to have to accept it.’
She pointed to where she’d been sitting on the sofa. ‘Sit there like a good girl and not say another word?’ Then pointed towards the front door. ‘Better yet, leave right now? You’d like that, wouldn’t you, if I made it that easy?’
So much for his hopes for a calm, rational, brief discussion. ‘What are you hoping to achieve here, Lily? What do you want exactly?’
‘I want us to talk! I’ve had enough of you shutting me down all the time. You can hear me out at least. You owe me that much.’
‘I owe you?’ He couldn’t believe it. She was standing firm in front of him, jaw set, one hand on her hip, the other clutching the blanket tight. Angry. She had no right to be angry with him. Despite what had happened last night, she had no right to be angry with him. Not after what she’d done.
‘I don’t owe you a fucking thing.’ Quiet words, but delivered with more intensity, more emotion than he usually let out, because he couldn’t keep it contained any longer.
She got it. She shifted back, subconsciously moving away from danger. Away from him. ‘Jesus, Josh. What’s happened to you?’
She’d happened to him. The Schofields had happened to him.
She turned away for a moment, head down, studying her bare feet. And he thought that was it, she finally got it. She finally got how he felt, that he was speaking the truth when he said they should steer clear of each other. That with the way he felt about her, nothing good could come of them together.
He should have known better. Lily bent but she didn’t break. And she didn’t know what was good for her.
She turned back to face him, eyes, everything, resolved. ‘I know what’s going on here. You’re still mad at me because of what happened that afternoon.’
Still mad at her? Like she’d stolen his last cookie or lost his favourite pair of sunglasses. Those were the kind of things that might make him ‘mad at her’. Did she have any idea what she’d done? What she’d cost him? Clearly not.
‘I think of you, and I think of ten summers of being best friends. You think of me and all you see is that last horrible afternoon,’ she continued, and her tone indicated where she believed the blame for all this lay. He should just forget about that afternoon, focus on the ten years prior.
Easy for her—for her, that afternoon was where it had ended. For him, it was just the beginning.
Ironic that before everything had gone to hell in a handbasket, that’d been the best day of his life. God, he’d been so happy. He and Lily, finally together the way he wanted. Holding hands, shy, but so full of joy his heart had almost burst. They’d walked into Mirabook, looking for Josh’s dad to ask him for a lift into the next town so they could see a movie. A first date to confirm their relationship status before Lily disappeared back to Sydney.
They hadn’t found his dad; they’d walked in on Lily’s parents. And that had been the beginning of the end. Because for him, it hadn’t just been that ‘last horrible afternoon’. Lily had no comprehension of what it’d been like, and he had no desire to tell her. Nothing good could come of it. ‘We’re not talking about this. You’d better go.’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m not leaving. This time, you are going to listen.’ She paused a moment, gathering herself. Her head was down again, her hair falling forward over the face. She looked up, met his eyes briefly, and then looked away. ‘I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for everything that happened that day.’
He should have known, should have anticipated how this would feel, but he was shocked by how inadequate it was. Jesus, she wasn’t even looking at him properly. He shifted, stared at his hands resting on his knees and tried to come to terms with her apology. It didn’t work. Anger followed disbelief, making his muscles tense and his skin feel too tight. He’d given himself a moment to calm down, but the opposite had happened. He was ready to put a fist through a wall.
That was it? That was all she had to say to him? He hadn’t wanted to talk about it, any of it, but she’d steamrolled her way through, and if she was going to force it, he’d expected a great deal more than that. That quick, careless apology was the ultimate insult—much, much worse than no apology at all. He didn’t want to talk about it, but he couldn’t let her get away with that.
‘It wasn’t just that day. My father lost his job because of you,’ he ground out. That wasn’t all he’d lost. It wasn’t enough, what he’d just said, but it was a start. It cost him more than she’d ever know just to say that.
She tucked the wave of hair behind her ear. Her eyes met his briefly, before skitting away. ‘I never meant for things to turn out the way they did. You must know that.’
Oh, she’d never meant for things to turn out the way they did. That was okay then. ‘I don’t know what you want, Lily, but if it’s forgiveness, you’re not getting it from me.’
She frowned. ‘I said sorry. I am sorry. What more do you want?’
What more did he want? He wanted his father back!
‘You ruined my life. Our lives. You and your family ruined our lives.’
There wasn’t just anger in his tone, there was hatred, and she drew in a rapid shocked breath, eyes wide, hand coming up to cover her open mouth, before falling away again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated miserably, tears welling. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I just knew I had to do something.’
They’d walked into a nightmare. Lily’s dad looming over her mother, hands squeezing her shoulders hard, close, too close to her throat. He was screaming into her face, abusing her about the affair he suspected her of having. Josh had neve
r seen anything like it, he’d been shell-shocked. It was Lily who’d been the brave one. She’d dropped his hand and run towards her parents, attempted to insert herself between the two of them, pushing at her dad. Adding her voice to the cacophony, she’d pleaded with her dad to let her mum go, but it hadn’t worked.
‘You shouldn’t have lied.’ He had a sour, bitter taste in his mouth. It was thinking about that day, remembering it. It always made him feel nauseous.
The tears fell, ran down her face. ‘I thought he was going to kill her. I didn’t know how to stop him. It was the only thing I could think of.’
She’d lied, told her father that it wasn’t her mother he’d seen emerging from the stables early that morning. It was her. With Josh. They’d been there all night. She’d looked at him then, silently begging for his complicity. And goddamn him, he’d gone along with it. That lie had spelled the beginning of the end for his family.
‘I know it wasn’t right, what I did. None of it was right.’
He almost shuddered, remembering. It was all so close right now. Her lie worked. Keith had released his wife and turned on Josh. Screaming ugly things at him. How he wasn’t good enough to touch a hair on his daughter’s head. How he was going to kill him. He’d approached Josh, still raving, each step closer a threat. Josh had been paralysed, totally shocked by what he was witnessing. It was so far from anything he’d experienced, his own quiet, steady parents. Keith had crossed the line between verbal and physical abuse, punching his jaw so hard he’d fallen over, sprawled on the floor.
‘I didn’t know what was going to happen. We had no way of knowing what was going to happen.’
His father had come running into the room, checked his son was okay, then rounded on Keith, letting him know exactly what he thought of a man who attacked women and children.
Lily’s father had been livid. Finding another vent for his rage, he’d fired John Farrell on the spot.
‘I’m sorry your father lost his job. I’m sorry it turned out like that.’
He buried his face in his hands.
‘Don’t you think if I could go back in time, I would?’ she pleaded. ‘I’ve replayed it so many times in my head, trying to get a different ending. It never works, I can never change it.’
‘You didn’t say a word. You just stood by and let it happen.’
When the two men were sparring, Lily’s mother had seized on the opportunity for escape, dragged Lily by the hand from the room. Lily let her. She’d looked at him one last time, sorrow and horror in her eyes, and that had been the last he’d seen of her. She could have spoken up then. Josh’s dad was there, he would have taken control, kept everyone safe. She could have spoken up, said that she’d lied before, that she and Josh had never been together. But she’d made her choice, and she’d chosen her lying, cheating, abusive family over him and his father. Over the truth. ‘You could have told the truth when my dad got there.’
‘You think it would have made any difference?’
‘It might have stopped my dad getting fired.’
She let out a sad half-laugh. ‘No, it wouldn’t have. Don’t you see? Your dad wasn’t sacked because my dad thought we’d snuck out together at night. It was the way John looked at him when he came into the room and saw mum and me cowering and you on the floor. He was disgusted. His face, his words made that clear. He let my dad know he thought he was a weak coward. That’s why he was sacked. It was too late. It was already too late.’
So what she was saying was it was his dad’s sense of honour, of right, that had sealed his fate. He’d declared Keith’s behaviour unacceptable, made him feel like the smaller man, and Keith could never forgive that. He would never have reinstated Josh’s father, even if Lily had spoken up and told the truth.
He turned it over. And over. Stared at his hands while he tried to think through how things could have gone differently. Tried to imagine how it would have been if his dad had continued to work for the Schofields after what had happened.
She was right. God, she was right. From the moment his dad had entered the room, it was already too late. His father had done the only thing he was capable of. He’d stood up for what he believed was the right way to treat people. No matter the consequences, he wouldn’t have done anything less than that. Never. It was so unfair, Josh wanted to howl.
‘What could I have done differently?’ Lily asked, unconsciously echoing his own thoughts. ‘Even to this day, I don’t know what else I could have done.’
Nothing. There was nothing else she could have done. He’d been there, he’d felt the terrifying unpredictable violence in that room. They couldn’t have left her mother alone with her father. Lily had had to do something. She’d had no more choice than his father had had. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that his dad, his strong, honourable father, was dead.
‘Tell me, Josh, what else was I supposed to do?’
He didn’t have an answer for her, but that wasn’t even the point. ‘It killed him. Mirabook was all he knew. Losing that job killed him. Your lies killed him.’
Her face turned deathly pale, every trace of life and emotion frozen out. ‘You blame me for his death.’ It wasn’t a question. She fell back on to the arm of the sofa, head resting in her hands. ‘You blame me for your dad’s death,’ she repeated.
She sounded incredulous, but could she doubt it? Yeah, he did. It wasn’t just her, her whole family was to blame, but she’d been there. She’d played her part. And since she was the only one left …
He felt a strange sense of relief. At least, it was out.
‘Josh, your dad had cancer. Maureen told me. That’s what killed him.’
Lily didn’t know. His father was dead long before the cancer took him. An empty shell of a man, and nothing his wife or son had tried had been able to bring him back to life.
She raised her head. ‘I just don’t know what to say. If I could change the past, I would. But I can’t. I am truly and deeply sorry your father lost his job that day. I am truly and deeply sorry for your loss.’ She paused a moment, looking around the room as if for guidance, before returning her dark gaze to his. ‘But I didn’t kill him, Josh. I can’t accept responsibility for his death. I made a mistake, I lied, and the consequences … were terrible. But I’m not to blame for his death.’
He had a moment of total and absolute blank shock. A moment earlier he’d felt relief the truth was out, and she finally knew how he felt and why. It was the biggest truth of his life, but now, somehow, she was telling him that she didn’t believe it.
He didn’t want to hear any more. He turned from her, but he couldn’t block her words.
‘The same goes for the rest of my family,’ she continued. ‘My mother, as careless and selfish as she was, is not to blame. My father was an arrogant, abusive arsehole, but he did not kill your father.’
She was relentless. He didn’t want to hear her words but he couldn’t fail to.
Something deep in him was growing, a tight ball of cold fear, getting bigger and harder. It was relentless too. Pressing up against the top of his belly, squeezing his lungs, so he could barely breathe.
Needing something to ground him, he focused on the noises of the room. The fire hissing and crackling. The wall clock ticking in the kitchen. His own breath, coming and going in ragged pulls.
‘Josh?’ Lily’s voice, from off to his right. ‘I’m so sorry you lost him. Maureen told me how fast it was. You’re still grieving, and my heart hurts for you.’ Her voice cracked. ‘But it’s not fair to blame me and my family. It’s not right. Surely you can see that.’
He heard her, but he didn’t reply. He didn’t even really process what she was saying. He was focused on suppressing the rising tide threatening to swamp him. He needed to get his shit together. With gritty determination, he pushed it back down. It took a moment, a long moment, but he finally got his breathing under control and his head back in the now.
Talking about it like this had brought it al
l back. Seeing it all again in his head was like experiencing it anew. He’d forgotten how scared they’d both been. It must have been worse for Lily—they were her parents after all. She’d been fourteen for Christ’s sakes, and her father had been all but strangling her mother.
Ten years older, ten years wiser, and he had to admit: she was right. She’d lied because she’d had no other options. And if she’d admitted later she and Josh had never had any kind of midnight tryst, it wouldn’t have saved his dad. All it would have achieved was to put Elisabeth back in danger.
Lily’s guilt had always been a black nugget of unassailable, unquestioned truth, hiding deep, deep within him. Now it’d been dragged out into the light, and it didn’t seem so unassailable anymore. The thought terrified him.
‘Josh?’
She sounded worried. She probably was worried. He was turned from her, all but huddled on the sofa, refusing to even acknowledge her words. He made an effort to unravel, to loosen. He turned a little, but he wasn’t ready to face her, so he kept his gaze on the coffee table in front of him, eyes running over familiar knots and grains without really seeing them.
‘I don’t know what to say or do here. When Saxon told me you planned on breaking up with me … I couldn’t believe it. I came here determined to talk things through with you. I was so sure about us. I was prepared to do anything—anything—to make you see we’re meant to be together. But if this is really how you feel … Maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s no future for us. I don’t know anymore.’
He didn’t know anymore either.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked eventually.
No.
‘Yes,’ he replied, voice hoarse as if it was years rather than minutes since he’d used it.
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