The Runaway Ex

by Shani Struthers

  Thankfully in an obedient mood, Hannah rose to her feet. As Penny had, she needed the support of the table to do so. Once her friend was standing, Layla started marching toward the beach, setting quite a pace for Hannah to match.

  “Hey, hold on,” said Hannah, puffing slightly. “Wait up a bit. Are you okay, Layla?”

  Layla didn’t reply. She just kept on walking, not stopping until the hard pavement beneath her feet gave way to soft sand. She hadn’t visited the beach yet—she hadn’t had time—but now she felt a desperate need to see Gull Rock again and the ocean that lapped against it. Quickly it came into sight, timeless and enduring—comforting. Turning to Hannah, noting the concern on her face, she finally answered.

  “No, I’m not okay. I’m far from it. I can’t pretend I’m cool with what’s happening.”

  “Hang on,” said Hannah, slightly confused. “What is happening exactly?”

  Layla rolled her eyes. “You know, this whole Tara thing, everyone meeting at the pub to welcome her home. The whole world, or so it seems, looking forward to seeing her. Who is this girl, Hannah? I mean really? What does she want with Joe?”

  “Calm down, Layla.” Hannah took hold of her hands. “I’m as baffled as you are about who she is and what she wants. I don’t know her either, remember? But we mustn’t jump to conclusions. We mustn’t presume she wants anything from Joe.”

  “But she made him come back with her to Trecastle, emotionally blackmailed him, or as good as.” On a sob, she added, “And he let her, Hannah. So easily he let her.”

  “But her reason for coming back, it might be what he says, a perfectly valid one.”

  “And it might not be. It might be because Australia isn’t quite the El Dorado she thought it was. It might be Australia sucks and she wants back what she threw away.”

  “After so many years?”

  Layla glanced again at Gull Rock.

  “If it’s love, what does time matter?”

  God, she was getting deep. She blamed the lunchtime drinking.

  Hannah pulled her close, stroking her hair, comforting her.

  “Look, let’s not get carried away, not until we know the real reasons behind Tara’s reappearance—which hopefully won’t be too long, from what you’ve said. What we were doing in the pub—me, you, and Penny—it was stupid. It’s got you all fired up, and no wonder. We need to stop speculating and deal with facts only, not make-believe.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Layla replied, pulling away slightly and wiping roughly at her eyes. “It’s not your boyfriend who was once in love with her.”

  “Not to my knowledge. But who knows what went on back in Port Levine?”

  “Really?”

  “Like we’ve just found out, Tara was popular—certainly with Jim. He couldn’t stop talking about her yesterday. How well she looked, how nice it was to see her again, what a laugh she was, the good old days. I had to tell him to shut up in the end.”

  Layla attempted a smile. “Looks like we’ve got a lot to live up to.”

  “Not at all. Just be yourself, Layla. That’s who Joseph loves. Not Tara, not me, but you. And he has done from the minute you met. Nothing can come between you.”

  Layla soaked up Hannah’s words, willing herself to believe them.

  “And don’t go in all guns blazing with Penny, either. What she’s suggested does make sense. It’s in our interests to get to know Tara too.”

  “You’re right. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so resistant.”

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t,” Hannah agreed. “But it’s not too late. Offer Tara an olive branch. Maybe suggest meeting up, just the two of you, get an insight into her personality. Don’t be so ready to condemn her without good reason.”

  Layla balked slightly at the accusation. “And you don’t think sharing a secret with my boyfriend—a secret that’s upset him—and then telling him he’s not allowed to share it with me is good enough reason to condemn her? I can’t wait for this holiday to be over, to get away from here.”

  Hannah stood firm. “No, I don’t. There’s no good reason, not yet.” She also looked hurt. “And don’t wish the holiday over. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you for ages.”

  Layla slumped. “I’m sorry, Hannah, I didn’t mean that. I love being here again, you know that. It’s just Tara…She’s changed everything somehow.”

  “She’s changed nothing,” Hannah said. “Not yet. And don’t think you’re alone, either. I’ve got your back. Whatever happens, I’m here.”

  Layla forced herself to calm down. She didn’t want to argue further with Hannah, a voice of reason in the wilderness. A lone voice, it seemed. But she was wrong; Tara had changed everything. She had taken her bubble and burst it. Nothing was ever going to be the same again. Deep down, Layla knew that.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ALL TARA WANTED was a quiet night to sit with her parents as she had done since her arrival, peacefully, contentedly, reveling in their silent nearness. Sweetly they had lit the fire for her, even though the clement evenings hadn’t warranted it, knowing how much she and Leo had loved to sit by the fireside when they were kids, toasting marshmallows or just staring as orange and yellow flames danced around each other. It was obvious, however, that Joe and Jim had gone to quite a bit of effort for her. A fair few people were coming to welcome her back. It was sweet, but it was also nerve-racking. She wasn’t the party girl of old. She was different now.

  As for Layla, she doubted Joseph’s girlfriend would want to see her again. The coolness emanating from her on the plane journey from Florence to Exeter was enough to give an Eskimo chill blains. She’d just have to avoid her tonight, that’s all. Or maybe she shouldn’t. Maybe she should try to get to know her better, show her she had nothing to worry about. That she wasn’t here to tread on anyone’s toes.

  The other blight on the horizon was that she was tired—bone tired. All she wanted to do lately was sit and doze. But this Tara did rail against. Tiredness was not going to get the better of her. Joe had suggested they meet in The Admiral, Port Levine’s only pub, but Tara had said no. Although the Trecastle Inn wasn’t a pub she was familiar with, she knew it was one hell of a lot livelier than her local. Bill and Grace, who ran The Admiral, would probably keel over with shock if the cozy, quiet confines of their pub were suddenly invaded by the marauding hordes. She smiled as she imagined the looks on their faces at such an assault. They’d be horrified. No, she couldn’t do that to them. The Trecastle Inn it was.

  “I’ll come and get you,” Joseph had offered.

  “No, it’s okay. Dad will do the honors.”

  And so he had, leaning across to kiss her on the cheek just before she got out of his Vauxhall, alighting not right outside the pub but a little farther up the high street. She needed to steel herself before coming face to face with everyone, before becoming the center of attention, when all she wanted to do was hide. But she’d hide soon enough; maybe she should just relax, give herself a night off.

  She could tell the pub was heaving. Music rang out, some old rock tune she recognized but couldn’t quite put a name to, over which was layered the lively sound of chatter and laughter. Were they all here for her? Surely not. Her mouth felt dry. She couldn’t go in. She just couldn’t. Anxiety flared in her stomach, sent a pain shooting from one side to the other. This was all wrong. She shouldn’t be here with the intent of enjoying herself. Not without Aiden. Not after what she’d done to him.

  “Tara? Is that you?” She heard a voice behind her. “Tara! It is you!”

  She was swung round. A man stood before her with shaggy blond hair, stubble on his chin, and a gleaming white grin.

  “Murray?” Tara said, squinting. “Murray, I can’t believe it. How are you?”

  “All the better for seeing you.” He held her at arm’s length before enfolding her in a big, friendly hug. “You look fantastic. Still a babe.”

  Still a babe? She didn’t think so. She felt older than the landscape that surrou
nded them.

  “How did you know…?”

  “Jim texted me. He said you were back. There was no way I was going to miss out on a get-together with you.” He motioned to the door. “Come on, let’s get inside. Quite a few of the old crowd are in there. What are you drinking?”

  Tara breathed deeply. There was to be no escape.

  “Tara! How are you?”

  “Tara. Great to see you.”

  “Tara, you look amazing.”

  “Tara, you’ve come back to us.”

  So many people had come to see her, to welcome her home, the one that had gotten away. Familiar faces lit up before her. Murray, Del, Gray, Crazy-Boy AKA Dean—who wasn’t crazy at all, just full of mischief—Nico and Alice, to name just a few. She had to hand it to them; Joe and Jim had really pulled it out of the bag. Despite her earlier misgivings, a little flicker of excitement caught alight inside her. It was great to see them, all these people she hadn’t seen for so long. Friends she had grown up with, had made regular visits back from London to party with, two weeks in the summer usually, a week in the autumn, and most Christmases. The one exception had been the holiday she’d shared with Joseph three months after they’d met, wanting to be alone with him at such a special time of year, wanting to be alone with him full stop, if she remembered correctly. But her mum had been so disappointed she hadn’t come home that Christmas, although she had tried hard not to show it. Nonetheless, Tara hadn’t done it again. The following Christmas, she’d taken Joseph back with her.

  Thinking of Joseph, where was he? As lovely as it was to be among her oldest friends, she needed an anchor, someone to lean on, a bit of reassurance.

  Her eyes leaving the crowd before her, all eager to hear tales of Oz—what the surf was like in that part of the world, had she ridden any killer waves, how the beaches compared with the beaches around here—she scanned the room for Joseph. It took a while to see through the throng of people, some standing shoulder to shoulder in places, blocking her view, but then she saw him. Leaning up against the bar, talking to someone she didn’t know, a redheaded man, quite ruddy in appearance. Immediately he met her gaze. And smiled, a lovely smile—a smile that used to make her melt once upon a time, that still made her tingle, even now. It was a slow, deep smile, different than Aiden’s often-cheeky grin, a smile that made you feel special, like you were the only person in the world who mattered to him, which was nonsense. It wasn’t her who mattered to him. She didn’t matter at all, not really, not anymore. It was Layla who mattered.

  Having located Joe, she looked for Layla too. She was just a few feet away from him, engrossed in conversation with her friends, Hannah and a blond woman, the latter with her hair piled rather haphazardly on top of her head while Hannah’s fell loosely around her shoulders. They stood on either side of Layla, as though forming a shield around her. Protecting her from whom? The stranger in their midst? Tara shook her head. She mustn’t get paranoid…or flatter herself.

  Suddenly, Joseph was by her side. “Hey,” he whispered into her ear, smiling too at the crowds around them. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” she mouthed back, but actually, she was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. The heat coming off so many bodies was like a furnace.

  “Do you want another drink?” he asked, eyeing her nearly empty glass.

  “No, not yet,” she answered, preferring to keep him by her side.

  Together they chatted to those nearest them. Joseph had visited Port Levine frequently with her; there weren’t many of her friends he didn’t know.

  Crazy-Boy regaled them all with memories of a party they’d had on the beach one night, back in pre-Joseph days. They had all been around seventeen at the time, or on the edge of. A group of them had taken food, what few bottles of beer they had been able to smuggle from their parents’ houses, and a portable barbecue to their favorite beach, World’s End—a bay they had nicknamed as such because it really did seem, as the sun slowly sunk into the ocean and enfolded it in moonlight instead, that nothing else existed beyond what the eye could see. And perhaps nothing did, despite what geographers and atlases would have you believe.

  The tide had been out, receding farther and farther, tipping itself into the void. As the sun sank into that same void too, Crazy-Boy had thrown down the gauntlet.

  “Who’s up for a swim?” he had asked.

  “A swim?” one of them had protested—Nico, she thought. “The water’s freezing.”

  “Yeah,” another protester had shouted, “and it’s getting dark, Crazy-Boy. I’m not going in now.”

  A bit more cajoling, a few dares thrown in for good measure, and they had all, without exception, stripped down to their underwear and run into the sea, running for ages, it seemed, before they were deep enough to swim. As Nico had predicted, the water had been freezing, but it had also enlivened them. Cue much hollering and whooping, frightening off the seabirds that hovered curiously above them.

  Quickly, she had found her own space, had lain there, on her back, bobbing gently in the surf, loving the way she felt connected to nature, the night sky above her. After a while, Crazy-Boy had swum up beside her.

  “Everyone should swim by moonlight at least once in their lives,” he had said.

  And he’d been right. It was magical. Something she had never forgotten, nor had the rest of the crowd, it seemed. Everyone looked dewy-eyed at the memory.

  Eventually, they had clambered back to shore, dried off as best they could with what towels anyone had thought to bring, and the party had begun. Music booming from the ghetto blaster, more hollering and whooping—everyone in high spirits, everyone except the old couple who had lived in the house on the cliff-top overlooking World’s End. Incensed, they had rung the police.

  Crazy-Boy was laughing now. “God knows what Mr. Earnshaw must have said, but they sent practically the entire Cornish constabulary out. We had to run for our lives, remember? Scatter every which way. And where did I end up? Back in the bloody ocean. Out there for an age I was before it was safe to come back in.”

  “Yeah,” groaned Del, who had also been listening intently. “And I ran straight into the arms of PC Plod, grounded for a month after that. Especially when my parents realized that beer was involved. I tried telling them I’d barely had a sip, but it was no use. The old don’t listen to the young.” Looking at the pint in his hands, he held it aloft and added, “Cheers, everyone! At least we can drink what we want now.”

  Tara too held up her glass, even though it was empty. She had managed to hide with Nico that night, behind a rock, the two of them walking home when the coast was clear, relieved they’d escaped but sorry for those who hadn’t. But it was the swim by moonlight that characterized that night for her, that had given her a hankering to do it again. Only once with Joseph, who wasn’t a keen swimmer. Mostly with Aiden, the pair of them desperate to find temporary respite from the heat that even the night couldn’t dissipate, immersing themselves in the waters of the Pacific, lying side by side under a white moon, giggling. After a while, they’d swim to shore, lie down at the water’s edge. They’d stop giggling and become more intent. His mouth would find hers; she’d respond in kind. They’d come together, the water lapping at them all the while, sand on her body, on his, the tang of sea salt on skin, on lips, on tongues, her cries rising to match the seabirds, his too.

  Before she could stop it, her face crumpled. She lowered her head, trying to suppress the despair that such memories provoked.

  Don’t, Tara, a voice inside her urged. Not here.

  A hand was on her arm, but whose? Momentarily she was confused. She found herself being steered away.

  “Joseph, I—”

  “Need some fresh air, yeah, I know. Come on.”

  She allowed herself to be guided toward the door, relieved that he had intervened, that he had stopped her from making a fool of herself.

  Outside, Joseph looked around him, as if deciding which way to go. “Over here,” he said, nodding fart
her down the road.

  They stopped outside a shop that looked as though it specialized in honey.

  “This used to be my workshop,” he explained to her. “An alley runs down the side of it. No one will see us here.”

  In their hidey-hole, Tara let the tension that had built up prior to this evening flow from her. Like a Cornish tide, it was ferocious in its intensity. Joseph’s strong arms held her while she sobbed. He hugged her close, some small part of her relishing how familiar he felt, despite her despair. Even after the sobs subsided, she stayed that way, as did he, not moving at all. How many minutes passed, she didn’t know and didn’t care, either. She needed this hug. Eventually, she stepped away; she couldn’t commandeer him all night. It wasn’t fair on Layla. It wasn’t fair on him.

  She said as much to Joseph.

  “Layla’s fine,” he reassured her. “Honestly, don’t worry about her. And certainly don’t worry about me. I’m here because I want to be, because you’re my friend.”

  “Friend.” She repeated the word slowly, as though she were testing it. “We were so much more than that once, weren’t we?”

  “We were. You were the love of my life, until…”

  Where he trailed off, she picked up. “…And you were mine, until…”

  Joseph laughed, but then his face grew serious. “I’m so sorry, Tara. About Aiden.”

  “Me too.” Her reply was heartfelt.

  “You don’t think you should have stayed?”

  “How could I?” Tara was unyielding. “Joseph, we’ve talked about this, back in Florence. There was no way.”

  “There’s always a way.”

  “Not in this case. I’m where I should be, where I have to be.”

  “Your parents, have you told them yet?”

  Tara hung her head, a part of her ashamed she hadn’t been able to do so. “It’s hard, you know? Every time I resolve to say something, I fail. I…I just want everything to be normal. Just for another day or so.”