Title not found

by Creator not found

  Without thinking, I dial his number and as I wait for him to pick up, the tears fall and sobs burst from my chest, relieving the pressure.

  “Are you ready, baby?”

  I try to speak but I can’t. I hold the phone to my ear, willing myself to gain some composure but it won’t happen. I’m sobbing uncontrollably, the eyes of smokers on me as I slump to the ground on my hunkers.

  “Scarlett? Scarlett, what’s happened? Where are you?”

  The words leave my mouth in chokes, breaking through my tears. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

  “Baby, please, where are you? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  “You don’t sound fucking fine, Scarlett. Has someone hurt you? Where are you?”

  “No. No one’s hurt me.” I press my finger and thumb into the corners of my eyes to stop the tears but it works only momentarily, then another sob breaks the silence. No one except you, Gregory. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “I’m coming to get you. Where are you?”

  “I’m at the same place you dropped me off.” I can hear him moving quickly and I hear the rustle of keys then the bang of a door.

  “Are there people around you?” He voice is stricken with panic.

  “Yes. I’m okay. I’m in the smokers’ shelter outside.” I sniffle back another onset of tears.

  “I’m getting in the car, baby. I’ll put you on speaker. Stay on the line for me. Can you do that?”

  “Yes. Gregory, people think you’re...that you’re a bad person, that you’re bad for me. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand that people think bad of you because of me and what I did. How can I do that to you?” The sobs come back again with a vengeance. I press my face into my hand to mask myself from onlookers.

  “I don’t care what other people think, Scarlett. I only care what you think.” I hear a horn sound down the phone. He must be driving like a man with rage. “Do you think I’m a bad person?”

  “No. But I think... I don’t know what I think.” Pressing my fingers to my lips, I look to the roof of the outdoor canopy.

  “Scarlett? Are you there?”

  “Yes. I’m here.”

  “Keep talking to me, angel. I’m almost there.”

  “I think we’re bad for each other, Gregory. People should be together because they bring out the best in each other, shouldn’t they?”

  “You do bring out the best in me, Scarlett. You make me feel like a decent person. I’ve never felt like a decent person before. You give me more purpose than anything else in my life.”

  My eyes fills again and now I don’t know if it’s because I want to hold him and tell him that I understand the pain he locks away—at least I want to understand—or if it’s frustration because I’m so utterly and completely lost.

  “I make people think badly of you, Gregory. I make you angry. I make you do things you shouldn’t have to do. And you make me... I just don’t know how I got here. I don’t know who I was or who I am anymore. I’m outside a bar in Chelsea crying and wasted. Since when do I behave like this? I...I don’t know anything anymore.”

  “You know you love me.” His words are calm and quiet. A test.

  “I do love you, Gregory. But I don’t know who you are either because you won’t let me in.”

  “You do know me, Scarlett. You do.” The panic is back in his voice, despite knowing I’m safe. “No one has ever known me like you, understood me when I can’t say the things I think and feel. No one has ever come close to breaking down my walls. Only you, baby.”

  “You say these things and it makes me think...Gregory, I don’t even know if you love me.” I pause, waiting, but he doesn’t say a word. His heavy breath comes down the line and my heart aches in my chest. “How can you do and say things like I’m yours and I’m your purpose and not know if you love me?”

  His silence gives me the obvious answer. He tells me what I need to hear for now, until this whole mess is over. He wants me to be able to move on. That’s why the police, so when we’re over, I’ll be able to accept his plea of self-defence as my own, if it works. He doesn’t want me. I won’t keep waiting, humiliating myself. He’s been forced to stay with me and that’s not what I want.

  “Gregory?”

  “Yes.”

  I take a deep breath, my shoulders chugging back against the cold brick wall. “I’ve been asked to move to Dubai with work. For six months. On secondment.”

  Silence.

  “I’m going to go, Gregory. I’m going to go to Dubai. So if you love me, tell me now.”

  “Scarlett!” Amanda shouts as she lands in front of my face, making me drop my phone. “I was looking for you. Ed’s come to pick me up. We’ll drop you home.”

  I shake my head and press the heel of my hand against my brow as it begins to throb. I look up and try to focus on Amanda but she just won’t stand still.

  “Oh, God, Scarlett, are you going to be sick?”

  I nod my head then somehow stand and take two steps towards the corner and throw up. I heave as it just keeps coming.

  “Scarlett, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for us to fight,” Amanda says as she holds my hair back.

  Then my legs give way and I’m being lifted through the smoking area, back inside and along the corridor to the front of the bar.

  “I’ll get the door,” Amanda says.

  “I’ve got it,” Gregory snaps. He opens the door, still holding me against his chest then sits me down into the passenger seat of his Lamborghini and buckles me in.

  “Look after her.” I can’t open my eyes but I know if I could, Gregory would be glaring at Amanda. “I don’t like you, Gregory, you’ve broken her. But I want my best friend back and it seems like you’re the only person who can fix her.”

  The car door is closed and I lean my head against the cold window before the driver door is opened and shut and the car is moving.

  Chapter Eighteen

  My head feels like concrete. Actually, it feels like it’s been bashed by concrete. Concrete that’s been dropped from the top of a skyscraper and landed sharp edge down, perfectly in the centre of my skull. I don’t dare move. Opening my eyes seems like an impossible feat, one which should be attempted with extreme caution. Despite my effort, my lids are just too heavy to peel back and expose my no doubt bloodshot whites and constricted pupils to the world.

  My mouth is dry but strangely tastes of mint. With monumental effort, I roll from my foetal position to my back and straighten my legs. That small act alone sets off a bass drum in my temples and at the bottom of my skull. Groaning, I move my hands to my face and slowly, very slowly, behind the safety of my fingers, I open my eyes. They feel sore, bruised even, as I rub life into them with my fingertips. When I’ve amassed the courage I need, I drop my hands to the duck feather pillow above my head and expose myself to the sunlight creeping through the sides of the crushed silk curtains.

  It comes to me slowly, my brain reacting to each new detail as I turn my head around the bedroom. The large Georgian sash bay window with soft beige cushions turning the ledge into a seat is hidden by the teal curtains. The abstract art on the walls. The large gothic hanging mirror. The familiar soft brown-black leather sofa in one corner of the room and the matching ottoman at the bottom of the king bed I’m lying in. Gregory’s pale blue jumper-covered back is perched on the end of the bed, his muscles exposed as he leans forward, resting his elbows on his spread legs.

  I push myself up to sit, holding onto my head with one hand to stop it from falling off, and groaning under the strain of the small movement. My body is covered in a short, plum-coloured nightdress, trimmed at the sweetheart neckline with antique-white lace.

  “There’s isotonic water on the side table,” he grumbles without looking at me.

/>   There are also two white pills. I assume they’re paracetamol but right now I don’t care what they are, I’ll try anything. I pop them on my tongue and wash them down with the disgusting pink isotonic drink.

  “You brought me to the farm?” I ask, once my twisted face has returned to normal. The same twisted face I pulled after those lethal shots of tequila.

  He turns to look at me over his shoulder. He looks like crap. In a very hot, Gregory kind of way, he looks like he hasn’t slept at all. “You said you couldn’t be at the Shard.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  “You said you couldn’t be where it all happened.”

  I search my memory and come up empty. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause such a faff.” He leans forward and pulls his hands through his hair. “And I’m sorry for getting drunk. I know you didn’t want me to...to make myself vulnerable. It just sort of happened.”

  “Scarlett, I wouldn’t ever want you to get that drunk. I didn’t know where you were. You were so upset I thought that something had happened to you. You were vulnerable.”

  “I know.” I turn the glass of pink liquid around in my lap.

  He moves his full body, lifting one knee onto the mattress and rests a hand on the duvet on top of my leg. “It wasn’t just about you being vulnerable. I knew this would happen. You’ve been carrying too much around and I knew if you got drunk...” He shakes his head and disappears somewhere. His eyes are distant. “The truth always comes out in drink.”

  And the penny drops. “Gregory, I swear I didn’t say anything to anyone. I wanted to. But I didn’t.”

  He looks up at me now, his face the image of confusion.

  “Amanda and I had a fight. Oh, God, Amanda. I just left her! I was so angry I walked out of the bar and left her.” I dart from the bed, searching for something, my bag, my phone.

  “Amanda’s fine, Scarlett. Williams picked her up.”

  “Williams was at the bar?” I slump down on the sofa, defeated after my brief unsuccessful search. “I really don’t remember that at all.”

  He sits up straight, his eyes still distant but the cogs of his mind whirring. “What do you remember?”

  Let me see. “I remember dancing. Then bloody Luke wanting to do shots. Amanda wouldn’t do hers so I had three.” My body shudders. “Amanda and I argued. That’s why I left. I was angry and upset and...I...” I glance quickly up to him and find two irises set on me, scrutinising my words. I hate myself for being so needy.

  “Go on.”

  “I just wanted to talk to you. I missed you and what Amanda said...”

  “What did she say?”

  I look at him, into those big dark brown eyes, the angles of his face, day old weekend stubble lining his jaw. The guilt comes back. “I remember crying.”

  He nods.

  “I’m such an embarrassment. Oh, God, I was sick! I was sick outside the club.” My hands move to my mouth. “I’m so, so sorry, Gregory, I’m such an embarrassment. I bet you wonder everyday how you got stuck in this...situation...with me.”

  “Scarlett, what are you talking about?”

  “I can’t believe I did that. I’m a disgrace. That’s hideous.” My head shakes as I close my eyes, my entire insides cringing. “I always used to be the sober one. The one helping everyone else throw up, dabbing mascara from other girls’ cheeks. What’s happened to me?”

  “Being drunk, even being sick, doesn’t make you a bad person, Scarlett.”

  “Oh, no. My nightdress.” I tug the silk around my body. “We went to the Shard. Was I sick there too?”

  “In spectacular fashion. I showered you there and changed you into some leggings and a shirt.” He motions to my clothes, on top of a folded duvet on the floor. “You were a little frantic in the apartment. So I packed some things and drove here.”

  My eyes flick from the bed to the folded duvet on the empty space next to me on the sofa. “You slept on the sofa?”

  “I was worried you’d be sick again.”

  I can feel my brow furrow. “Why didn’t you stay in the bed with me?”

  He sighs, his shoulders sagging. “You really don’t remember what you said to me on the phone last night?”

  My heart rate rises as panic descends. “What? What did I say?”

  “Nothing you shouldn’t have said, baby. I just wish I’d given you the answers you needed.” I try to remember what I said but my slow mind just can’t function. “Get here.” He flicks his head for me to go to him and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. I crawl onto his lap and he holds me to him, pressing my head into his neck and dropping the most gentle of kisses on my brow.

  * * *

  Gregory drags me out for a walk. We walk for hours with his dogs, Bramble and Buster. They run and bark playfully in the crisp, hangover-curing air but Gregory is distant. All day I have the feeling that he’s put up an invisible wall. When he touches me, my skin doesn’t spark, when he speaks, his voice is soft melancholy rather than soft warm. Getting drunk, forgetting everything for a few hours, really wasn’t worth it.

  Kian comes to meet us when we arrive back at the farm. His head is covered in a thick wool hat and his insulated fleece gloves make him look even more youthful than he is. His wellies are almost as muddy as Bramble and Buster, who he directs to the back of the house to be washed down.

  I kick off one wellie with my opposite foot but the other is stuck. Gregory sits me back onto the window ledge, bending and flexing the boot until he’s able to free my foot. He helps me out of my winter coat and hangs it up with his Barbour. When I pull off my gloves, he presses my hands together between his and blows hot breath onto them.

  “I’m sorry, Scarlett, for everything I’m not.”

  “What are you talking about, Gregory?”

  I know today of all days I won’t hear those magic words but I still want him to know. “I love you, just as you are.”

  He drops his lips to my brow and pulls me tighter in to him. Maybe I’m becoming resigned to the fact he just won’t say what I want to hear because this time, it doesn’t shatter me. Or maybe it’s because I need to start accepting that we’re a CPS decision away from the end of us.

  Kian’s been in the lounge and struck up the open log fire. I sink down onto the sofa and bring my legs into my chest. Gregory disappears and returns again with two cups of hot tea. Then he slips down onto the sofa next to me and wraps his big, comforting arm around me, pulling me into his side.

  We drink our tea in silence, staring into the roaring fire.

  “Gregory, I am sorry.”

  “I know, baby, we’ve all been there. It’s done. Stop worrying.”

  “If that’s how you feel, why are you so...off? What did I say to you last night?”

  “Nothing you shouldn’t have said.”

  “Stop saying that. Please. What did I say?”

  He sighs but squeezes his arm tighter around me. “You said a lot of things. A lot of honest things.”

  “Gregory, please.”

  He sighs again. “You said you think I’m bad for you. That you don’t know who you are anymore. Is that how you feel?”

  I shrug under the weight of an overwhelming sense of guilt.

  “Scarlett?”

  “Yes. I don’t think you’re bad for me, I didn’t mean that. But I... I’m struggling to get a handle on things, yes and I...”

  “And you what?”

  I shrug.

  He lifts my chin and turns my head to face him. “And what?”

  I don’t dare defy the intensity of his gaze. “I’m scared that we’ve gotten ourselves into this situation because...because of circumstances. I mean, look at us living together. That was never supposed to happen but you felt like you needed to protect me.”

  “We’ve
discussed that, Scarlett. I asked you to move in with me for more reasons than protection.”

  Just not love. I suddenly have no energy to continue the conversation so I turn away from him and bring the back of his hand to my lips, leaning into his side, shielded from his scrutiny.

  “You also told me you want to move to Dubai.” His words are little more than a whisper.

  Holy shit! I dart upright and face him. “I told you about Dubai? God, Gregory, I’m sorry, I never meant to tell you like that, that’s really shitty of me. It’s...it’s been playing on my mind—”

  “I got that.”

  “No. You don’t get it. I haven’t mentioned it because it’s only a secondment and I’ve decided not to go.” Panic is clear in my shaky words. “Please believe me, Gregory. If I said that last night it was drink talking. I haven’t told my boss that I won’t go yet but I’ve already made the decision.”

  “Shhh, calm down, baby. I...I’ve been thinking about it a lot today and I think maybe you’re right.”

  “What? No.”

  “Shhh.” He strokes my fallen hair back behind my ear. “So much has happened and...it would give you time to think. Space. Like you’ve been saying you need.”

  “You...” The words are crushing my chest. “You want me to go?”

  “No, Scarlett. Damn it. I don’t want you to get trapped in a dark world, in my world that you don’t...you deserve better. You deserve knights and flowers, a man with a good heart. A man who can feel the way any man should around you, like he’s the luckiest man alive, and make you see that, give you the fairy tale.”

  I hold my hand to his chest. “Gregory, yours is the only heart I’ll ever want. Please believe me. I know you think you can’t let me in but you can, I don’t ever want to leave. I don’t want the fairy tale.” A single, silent tear tickles my cheek as it worms down my skin like the slither of doubt in my mind. Is he protecting me from him or him from himself?