“I see.”
“You don’t believe that I didn’t sleep with her?”
“Can we change the subject?” I asked suddenly, taking another long sip of my drink so he couldn’t see the blush of jealousy that was raging in my cheeks.
“That’s up to you. You ask me a question about my past, about the girls I slept with, and I’ll answer it. I’m done lying to you. I’ve nothing to hide anymore. I’ve lost everything I was ever trying to save anyway.”
“I just… I know I have no right to, but discussing how intimate you got with other women, it makes me feel like this little girl who doesn’t want someone else playing with her dolls. I don’t want to be that girl.”
He leaned closer, ducking his head until I had no choice but to stare into his eyes again. “You think I was intimate with her? With any of them?”
“You slept with them, didn’t you?”
Alex laughed freely for a moment before he somehow managed to compose himself. “That’s not intimacy, baby. That’s sex – a physical act with no mental connection. Just… gratification. You should know two things, Nat. One: I never looked any other woman in the eye while I was inside them. No other woman beside you. I couldn’t stare into a girl’s eyes and let them know I was thinking of someone else. You were all I ever saw. I've been a bastard, sure, but I'm not that fucking heartless. Two: You’re the only woman walking this damn planet that I’ve dared to share a bit of my soul with. If you can’t see that that is what intimacy is – not if someone woman lets me screw her just for a temporary reprieve of Natalie Vincent induced insanity – then I can’t help you out here. I won’t ever be able to convince you of the difference between you and them. You… You blew my mind. They blew me off at best. I’ve been a slave to you, even before I let you go. But the shackles have seemed a little tighter since I stupidly watched you walk away. You’re the biggest regret I never allowed myself to have.”
“What am I meant to say to that? I did everything you asked me to do. I walked away when it killed me to do so.”
“I know,” he interrupted. “Believe me, I know.”
“Do you?” I pushed out as I moved closer towards him. “Do you?”
“I wish I could find a way to show you how much I hated hurting you. I thought I was doing the right thing. I was young. I was scared.”
“So was I,” I reminded him. “What’s changed so much now?”
“Everything. Don’t you see? Everything has changed now. My mum has gone. My dad gets weaker every day. It’s only a matter of time before he finishes himself off and leaves me with nothing. He’s all I’ve got now. He’s fifty-five and he’s dying. That’s not an ‘if’ anymore, it’s a ‘when’, and I know it will be soon, but that doesn’t stop me from trying to help him until he takes his last breath. But what happens then, Nat? What? I drift around wishing that I hadn’t fucked up? I spend the rest of my life knowing I gave up the best thing that ever happened to me and I wasn’t even man enough to put up a fight? Sure. I can do that. I can pick up women, fuck them and think of you. I can give them pleasure, imagining it’s you I’m kissing, imagining that it’s your body I’m begging for forgiveness from with my mouth?”
“Alex…”
“Or do I try and do what I should have done five years ago? Do I realise that I’m still young, only twenty-two with a whole life ahead of me? And do I try to fix that early while I still have time? Do I try to lay all my shit bare and hope, even if there’s only a one percent chance, that at some point you might decide that you can’t live without me, either?”
“You said you weren’t here to break me and Marcus up.”
“And I’m not, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hope you will pick me anyway. It’s a long shot, but at this point, it’s all I’ve got.”
“I can’t just drop my life and everyone in it because you’ve decided that I’m good enough now.”
“I chose the path I thought was right at the time. I didn’t choose what I wanted. Those two things don’t always go hand in hand. And you were always good enough.”
“Try telling that to the seventeen-year-old girl whose heart you broke.”
“Fuck, how I wish I could,” he groaned, scrunching his face together as though the very thought was the one thing that brought him the most pain. “I’d never let her go. I’d never leave her side.” When he opened his eyes, they shone at me, inviting me in, inviting me to take a look at all the deepest secrets he’d kept hidden beneath them his whole life. “I’d live just to make you the happiest woman in the world.”
My past, my present and all my possible futures were suffocating me, making the walls of the bar suddenly feel as though they were caving in. All the anger, the loss, the hurt, the pain – they were all there, beating their angry drums of war in my chest, chanting, how dare he, how dare he, how dare he? The lust for the boy, the need for the man, the daydreams of a life together where we curled up in front of the fire in winter, sprawled out on hot beaches during summer holidays, and decorated the tree together at Christmas – all those things attacked me, too. Every emotion had a conflicting partner there, sparring them on, taunting them with too late, it’s tough, got to move on, remarks that did nothing to dilute the ache in my chest.
“This is bullshit,” I whispered as the anger started to rise. “If you loved me, you’d never have let me go.” My face tensed, the unfairness of this whole, sorry, fucked up situation suddenly proving too much for me to deal with.
“You know I loved you,” he croaked.
“You were a coward,” I hissed, unable to stop myself from pressing my chest against the table and letting it all out. “A fucking coward who chose to base a life decision on a theory of ‘what if’ rather than looking at the facts in front of you. And the facts were I would have stood by you through every fire. All of them. I would have burned right beside you with a smile on my face. But you chose to run instead of fight, and along the way, you decided to nail the coffin shut on us forever by making a fool out of me in front of everyone that night at the club. You made me feel cheap and desperate. You made me feel like a pawn in your sick game.”
The muscles in his jaw twitched as his face set to stone. Whatever he’d been expecting from me, this hadn’t been it.
“I loved you, Alex,” I told him, not hiding the fact that it felt like someone was stabbing me in the throat as I spoke. “From the minute I saw you the night of Lizzy’s death, a part of me knew. I saw you and it was like with just one look, one offer to see me home safe, I knew you were special. You twisted me up. You made me think things I’d never thought before. I believed in you. I saw every part of you, and I wanted it forever. I was just a teenager and I knew what I wanted. Was I scared? Terrified. But you… I believed in you. I believed in us. Natalie and Alex. Us.”
“Natexus,” he mouthed.
“All the way,” I finished for him, my tone sharp as my nostrils flared and my head began to shake. “You were my best friend. My best fucking friend who I wanted to drown in. I told you everything.”
His eyes scanned the table as his panic set in, and in that moment, he didn’t look strong like he had done the first time I saw him at work. He looked like the boy who laid on the floor as his father went to town on him. He looked vulnerable, unsure and desperate. And I wanted to go to him, save him, show him that I didn’t mean to shout, and I really did care for him still. But all the years of pretending had finally caught up with me, until pretending wasn’t even a word I knew how to spell anymore.
Pushing my chair back, I didn’t take my eyes off him as I began to stand. Alex didn’t do anything except watch every move I made, those frown lines of his telling me all I needed to know as his eyes pleaded with me to stay. He watched me as I drained my drink. He watched me as I wiped my wet lips with the back of my hand. He watched me sigh and sigh and sigh again. He watched me pick up my bag and hook it over my shoulder. He watched and waited as I took a step closer to him, until I was so close I towered over him. He lea
ned away, one hand over the back of the chair, the other resting on the table while his eyes, open and vulnerable once more, looked up at me and waited.
“I’d never done anything to let you down back then, yet you walked away from me and forced me to walk away from you. I felt so worthless after that, so lost. I wasn’t sure how to carry on. I hated feeling weak,” I told him softly. “I’d never live with myself if I inflicted that same pain on someone who had never once let me down. And Marcus has never done anything but love me, even when there wasn’t much about me for him to love.”
As the lights of the bar twinkled against the sheen of moisture in his eyes, I lifted my hand to his chin, pinching it between my thumb and index finger before I cupped one side of his face in my palm. He was warm and familiar, but I felt cold and alone.
There had been life before Alex Law… and this was my life after him.
The pain of not having what I could no longer deny I still craved.
The pain of missing someone who had always felt like such an intricate part of who I was.
The pain of all those mistakes haunting the two of us forever.
Leaning down, I placed a gentle kiss on those whiskey-coated lips of his and allowed myself to close my eyes. It wasn’t intimate, it wasn’t sexy and it contained no passion whatsoever. It was a goodbye, and he felt that as much as I did. When my eyes flickered open, I spoke against his mouth and stared straight into his soul before I whispered my parting words.
“I love you, Alex, and I’m so grateful you love me still. But I will not let a good man like Marcus pay for our mistakes. I won’t hurt him. I can’t hurt him. You have to let me go now.”
Then I left…
Dragging my heartache in an invisible suitcase behind me.
THIRTY-SIX
I didn’t need to over-analyse why I was avoiding telling Marcus what had gone on with Alex. I knew, deep down, that I’d already betrayed him too much. The sad reality of it all was that had I made the decision to speak to him about any of it, Marcus would probably understand where I was coming from. He’d had his own heartache during university, too, but we were never really allowed to discuss what had gone wrong with his sour love affair. I didn’t even know the name of the girl who had made the first dent in his lovely, squishable heart. I just knew that dent was there. I knew his heart had gained a few bumps and scratches along the way, exactly like mine had.
We didn’t need to discuss those car crashes over dinner and wine.
Neither of us wanted to relive those moments.
It was the day before Suzie and Paul’s big reception at the Leeds Marriott Hotel, and to nobody's surprise, I still hadn’t figured out what the hell I was going to wear.
“What about the black one?” Marcus asked as he trailed behind me, his feet dragging along the pavement after hours and hours of scouring railing after railing of dresses, skirts and fancy tops.
“I can’t wear black to a wedding. Isn’t that some kind of big no-no?” I glanced over my shoulder and watched as his floppy hair bounced into one of his eyes.
“I thought it was white that was a no-no.”
“White is definitely out.”
Marcus groaned, and the next thing I knew, he’d reached out to grab the top of my arm, spun me around in his grip and there I was, pressed up against him, staring up into his wonderful eyes. “I want to go home.” He pouted, causing me to smile without restriction.
“It’s alright for you. You guys can just rock up in a pair of trousers and a nice, smart shirt and boom, you look amazing.”
“Nat, you could wear a fucking bin bag and you’d look fantastic.”
The roll of my eyes was involuntary, and the heat rose to my cheeks once again as I leaned back in his strong arms and groaned up to the clear blue skies. “God help me, I hate this. Why can’t I do this whole shopping thing? Your sister is fabulous at this kind of stuff. I need her. Where is she?”
“Uch. I was getting a boner from having you so close to me then, but now you’ve gone and mentioned my sister and all is lost.”
I laughed freely as I continued to stare upwards. “Please stay focused. We have about an hour left before it’s too late and the shops close.”
“Fine,” he grumbled. Marcus was reluctant to let me go as he reached into the front pocket of his jeans, but he did anyway, never taking his eyes from me as he dialled whomever it was he was so desperate to speak to. Pushing the phone to his ear, Marcus then slid his free hand around my waist, pulling me close as he eyed the rest of the shoppers passing us by. “Sammy, hey it’s me. Ha ha, very funny. No, I don’t have time for your shit right now, sis. I need your help. What? I haven’t even told you what it is I need from you yet and you’re trying to get something out of it? What happened to that sweet little girl that used to sit on my lap and hang off every word I said? Fine. You win. I’ll sort you out a date with Julian from work.”
Their back and forth banter had me smiling as I looked up at him adoringly.
“Now that’s sorted, listen up. I’m out shopping with Nat.” He paused, glancing down at me from the corners of his eyes. “It’s going… well, you know how shopping with Nat goes. We need a dress for Suzie and Paul’s reception thing tomorrow night, and if I’m left to help her choose, she’s going to end up going to the party looking like she took the wrong turn for the circus. Ouch.” He flinched where I slapped him, but smiled anyway. “What suits her? Tell me everything. I mean shape, colour, style, any of it. All that girly stuff that I was born without, you have thirty seconds to teach me every bit of it. Go.”
And that was that. I stood there feeling slightly useless while I watched Marcus nod his head and listen to his sister’s instructions, and as if by magic, forty minutes later, I walked back to our car with a pair of shoes in one bag and a perfectly fitted dress in another, with not a worry in the world about how I was going to look the next night.
That was what Marcus did when he loved someone. He put them first. He made them smile. He went that extra mile to make things right.
As we drove out of Leeds with the reflection of the branches of the trees casting shadows on my face, I stared out of the window and smiled.
He was a good man for me. Marcus would always make sure I was happy. All the other stuff, the past, Alex, that pull I felt towards him, to even his name, I didn’t need any of that in my life. It was toxic where Marcus was medicine.
One would kill me. The other would keep my heart beating.
Any girl in their right mind would do what I was doing. They would thank their lucky stars for what they had, and they would hold on tight with both hands.
Marcus made sense.
He loved me.
And I loved him, too, despite the dents in my heart that sometimes made it awkward for him to get comfortable in there.
*******
It was a cliché moment – a ‘this is the part in the movie where the ugly duckling turns into a swan’ moment – but it was real, and as I smoothed down the stomach of my purple, knee-length, flowing, spaghetti strapped dress, I stared at my reflection in complete confusion. My hands roamed to the softer, waterfall effect of the material that fell out from my hips, hanging loosely from my thighs. Who was this woman I was seeing, with free flowing curls draped beautifully over her shoulders? Who was the woman with the toned back on display when I turned to look at my outfit from behind? Who was she, and was it all too much?
My nervous gulp only had me rubbing my lips together as I tried to create some moisture there. I was thirsty, my tongue was dry and my voice felt hoarse as I leaned forward and dabbed away some of the excess lip-gloss from the corners of my mouth. Breathing carefully, I eventually let my attention drift up to my eyes and tilted my head as I studied the pale blue that shone back at me, brighter and more alive than ever before. That probably had something to do with the smoky, black eye makeup that Sammy had applied earlier that afternoon. Her shrieks of surprise and adoration for the outfit Marcus and I had picked out coul
d have been heard from London. We sat drinking some cheap form of champagne while she polished my face and tried to make me sparkle, enjoying the fact that we were in a swanky hotel room, feeling a million miles away from home, when, in fact, we lived minutes away from the venue.
Paul and Suzie were the first friends of ours to marry. Cost didn’t come into it that night. We all wanted it to feel like a big event for the both of them, even though they probably didn’t need the fuss. They’d made their decision. They’d made their commitment. All of this was just stuff and fluff to them.
Married, I thought to myself as I continued to stare at my own reflection. Life had had a way of making me grow up prematurely. I’d seen grief and heartache so soon that a part of me felt like a huge chunk of my adolescence had been stolen.
The hands that slid around my waist had me jumping out of my thoughts, and as I slowly blinked and turned my focus on Marcus, whose chin was resting on my shoulder, I found myself smiling at the perfection of the man who showed the world he loved me every single day.
His hands slid to the front of my stomach then back to my waist again. He repeated the movement, his fingers getting lost in the feel of the smooth fabric that clung to my skin there.
“God, Nat.” He groaned, his eyes narrowing as he studied me from head to toe and back again, his hands never stopping as he kept touching me like he wasn’t entirely sure I was real. I knew that look of his. I knew it well, and it made my stomach tighten and my smile brighten.
“Put those thoughts on hold, naughty boy. We have a marriage to celebrate.”
“But…”
I cleared my throat and raised a brow, waiting for him to finally make eye contact again, and when he did, when he eventually saw that I meant it when I said we didn’t have time, his shoulders dropped like he was a petulant child, while laughter bubbled high up in my chest at the sight of him. Turning in his grip, I grabbed hold of his cheeks and sighed.
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