The Runaway Ex

by Shani Struthers

  “It’s been days because she couldn’t bring herself to tell her parents straightaway. I thought she would, but she couldn’t. But then, I suppose it’s not easy to do, tell your mum and dad you’re going to die. It’s—” he seemed to struggle for the word, settling after a moment for “—unnatural. She wanted to enjoy a few days with them first, the way it used to be between them, before she went ahead and shattered their world.” Shaking his head, almost in quiet contemplation, he added, “And I don’t blame her.”

  “I don’t either,” Layla acquiesced. “I can understand that.”

  “You understand something at least.” His scathing tone cut her to the quick. “When Penny let slip Tara had been sick yesterday, I was worried. There’s every chance she might go downhill quickly. It’s imperative she tell her parents sooner rather than later—not put it off anymore. I went over today to discuss that with her, but I didn’t want to just come out with it. I wanted to build up to it, and I think she did too. We visited places she loved, places we used to visit together. We talked, not about her illness initially but about the way things used to be when life was so much simpler. At the beach, our last port of call, she brought the subject up before I could. She was ready at last. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know earlier where I was. I’ll admit that was a mistake on my part. And I hadn’t forgotten we were supposed to spend the day together. But time just seemed to disappear, and to be honest, I probably wasn’t thinking straight either. Tara and me, we’re not in love with each other. It’s not like that at all, but, yeah, we love each other. We’ve got history—more history than you and I, ironically. The fact that she’s dying, I’m upset about it too.”

  Layla choked back a sob. He didn’t just look upset; he looked devastated, grief, not deceit, clouding his eyes. Why hadn’t she noticed that before? Standing up, she reached out to him, wanting to comfort him, but he backed away.

  “How did you know about Aiden?” he asked.

  “I…I met him in a coffee shop, Gail’s coffee shop. He’d been to Tara’s parents’ this morning, but there was no one home. He didn’t know if she was here or not, in England, I mean, but he thought they might know where she was. He thought by showing them how dedicated he was to finding her, traveling thousands of miles across continents and oceans in pursuit of her, they might take pity on him. Give him a contact number, at least. To be honest, I don’t think he was thinking straight either.”

  “Why didn’t you just wait, Layla, for me to come back?” His disappointment broke her further.

  “I was going to,” she hurried on, praying he’d believe her. “But then I…I found your phone, and I just reacted, I guess.”

  “Yeah, in the wrong way.” She noticed a vein in his neck pulsating, evidence his anger had in no way abated. “Aiden’s over there now. Her parents don’t know what’s going on, he doesn’t know what’s going on, that whole breaking the news to them gently, minimizing the stress involved, it’s gone up in smoke, thanks to you.”

  Penny stepped forward then. “The pregnancy thing, that wasn’t Layla, that was me,” she admitted, her chin trembling. “I planted that stupid idea in her head. It’s my fault entirely. I’m sorry.”

  Joseph looked from Penny to Layla. “You’re both as bad as each other, then.”

  Layla grabbed at him, determined to make him hear her, to understand how sorry she was. But he threw her off, as though her touch seared him.

  “Joseph…” she pleaded.

  “Tell me,” he said, staring at her, right through her, it felt. “As far as Tara was concerned, did you ever trust me?”

  Layla bit down on her lip.

  “Layla!” he shouted, making her jump.

  She shook her head.

  “So, you’re the liar.”

  The truth of which pierced her.

  He looked at her for a few seconds more, during which she could feel his contempt building.

  “I can’t stay here anymore,” he said eventually.

  “Where are you going?” Would he tell her? Did she even have a right to ask?

  “I don’t know. Somewhere. Mick’s probably. I need space, some time to think.”

  “Joseph,” she said again, no pleading in her voice this time, just absolute terror—not of him, but at the realization she was losing him.

  He continued backing away from her. “Sorry, Layla. I don’t trust you either, not now.”

  “That’s not fair.” It was Penny again, defending her when she didn’t deserve defending. But still Penny persisted. “Joseph, Layla didn’t know Tara was ill. You can’t blame her for being suspicious. Anyone would have been.”

  Hannah stepped forward too. “Penny’s right. You know what, Joseph? If you mess with minds, minds get messy.”

  “It wasn’t my intention to mess with anyone,” Joseph exploded again, “but Tara’s secret, it wasn’t mine to tell. She wanted her parents to be the ones to know next, not some—” he looked at Layla, sparks firing from his eyes, as terrifying to Layla as lightning “—some stranger. And I told you that too, that I had no choice. I had to keep quiet, at least for a short while. But still you wouldn’t believe me—trust me. And if two people aren’t prepared to trust each other, what’s the point in carrying on?”

  This time, Layla’s legs did give way. She sank down onto the kitchen chair and let her head fall forward into her hands. He was right. She had taken what they had—something good, something honest and true—and she had turned it to dust.

  Penny rushed to her side. So did Hannah. Joseph turned on his heel and walked away.

  “Mate,” Jim said, and Layla knew he’d try to make his friend stay.

  “Leave it, Jim. Just leave it,” Joseph replied before he disappeared down the hallway, leaving her to drown in shame and despair.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “AIDEN,” TARA CALLED OUT. “Please, don’t go in there.”

  At the gate to her parents’ cottage, Aiden swung round, an array of emotions fighting for dominion on his face. There was surprise, definitely, a touch of delight, but mainly pain and confusion. Tara was sure such emotions were playing out on her face too, in among them disbelief. Aiden was here, in Cornwall. He’d found her, and although he was standing just a few feet from her, she found it hard to trust her eyes.

  “Tara.” Aiden stepped forward but stopped, as though sensing how overwrought she was. Staring after the retreating car, he asked, “Is that Joseph?”

  “Yes,” she replied simply.

  “Your ex Joseph?” he continued.

  “My friend Joseph,” she corrected.

  The suspicion that darkened Aiden’s face refused to retreat. What had Layla said to him, she wondered? How come he knew her, anyway? He knew nobody in England. She didn’t think he was the type to cause a scene, but she didn’t want to chance it, not here on her parents’ doorstep. They’d been out for coffee this morning, but they’d definitely be home now, preparations underway for a late lunch.

  “Do you have a car?”

  Stupid question. How else would he have got here?

  Aiden merely nodded in reply—too stricken to speak, she wondered? He motioned to a dark-green Ford parked a short distance away.

  “Let’s go, then,” she said, turning from him and walking away. “Down the road, to World’s End. It’s not far.” World’s End—it had sounded so romantic once, but now it seemed…well, apt. What she was about to tell him would end both their worlds.

  Sitting beside him in the car, she noticed how his hands, sturdy and strong, gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles practically white against the tan of his skin. She could also sense he was trembling, and her heart broke for the umpteenth time.

  She couldn’t control her dreams, but when awake, she had allowed herself only once or twice to imagine seeing him again—how they would hurl themselves into each other’s arms, declare their love, and promise each other that nothing, absolutely nothing, could come between them again, that what they had could repel eve
ry damn hurdle life insisted on throwing at them. But reality was very different. And what they had, although powerful, was nowhere near powerful enough.

  Tears blinded her vision as she motioned for him to stop in the same spot she had stopped with Joseph not even a couple of hours before.

  “This is it,” she said, amazed to find anger building up in her too. Why? She had nothing to be angry with Aiden for. Only herself—and this stupid illness that had struck from nowhere to seize her in its vice-like grip.

  “Is it okay to leave the car here?” he asked.

  “It’s fine. Everyone does it.”

  “Are you sure? The road’s quite narrow.”

  “Just leave it,” she said, practically hissing at him.

  Practicalities? Why the hell were they talking about practicalities? Who cared about the bloody car, where it was parked, or who it was blocking? No one came down here anyway. They wouldn’t be inconveniencing anyone.

  She followed the same path she had walked earlier, toward the ocean, the sun low in the sky now, the warmth of the day fading. Although they were side by side, there was a chasm between them, a void that could never be traversed. She wondered if he would reach out and take her hand, her arm, her shoulder. He didn’t.

  Still a distance from the waves lapping at the shore, she picked up pace, forcing him to hurry if he wanted to match her. Kicking off her shoes, she began to run as she had run with Joseph. But this was different. She wasn’t running with someone; she was running away, again, not strong enough in the end to stand her ground.

  Tears streamed down her face, and she made no effort to blink them back. She didn’t think she’d be successful anyway; they were as relentless as the tumor growing in her head. Whereas before the coldness of the water had made her shriek, now she welcomed it. It numbed her, and that’s what she wanted.

  Plunging farther forward, she was suddenly pulled back.

  “Tara,” she heard someone shout. Aiden? Yes, of course, it was Aiden. There was no one else on the beach with them. “What are you doing?”

  She struggled against him, tried to break free, but he held fast. She could hear loud screams and moans, terrible sounds, as though someone was being tortured. Wildly her head whipped from side to side. Who was making such a racket? Maybe they weren’t alone after all.

  “Tara,” the man in front of her shouted again. “Tara, stop.”

  Stop what? What was he talking about?

  “Tara, please.”

  That noise, was it coming from him?

  Tara managed to focus on him, stared deep into his eyes. He was crying too, she could see that, but silently so. Realization hit her—the sounds she’d heard, they’d been coming from her. She’d been the one howling like a bear caught in a trap.

  “Aiden.” His name seemed to erupt from her as she collapsed against him.

  Immediately, his arms came round her and held her tight. She clung to him too, as though he were a piece of salvage and she the drowning victim. She knew she had missed him, but she hadn’t realized just how much until now. How agonizing it had been not to breathe the same air as him, to be so far apart.

  Eventually, he released her, held her only slightly from him. “Tara, I’ve found you,” he said, a kind of wonder in his eyes. Wonder that was again replaced with grief as he continued to speak. “Why did you leave me?”

  She had wanted to save him from such grief, but she had failed. He seemed so much older than his thirty-one years when once he had seemed so young, so vital.

  “I’m so sorry,” she started.

  “It is because of Joseph? Is that why? You love him, not me?”

  “It’s not because of Joseph.” Again she shook her head. “It has nothing to do with Joseph. You’re the one that I love. Being away from you, it’s been torture.”

  “If you love me, why did you leave me?”

  “Because…because I had to.”

  “Why did you have to?” He looked so confused. “Tara, I don’t understand.”

  She reached a hand up to his face, her fingertips running over the bristles on his chin. Usually he was clean-shaven; rarely had she seen him this way. For a few precious moments, she allowed herself to bask in the shape of his mouth, his jaw line, his cheekbones, losing herself in a face that to her was the epitome of perfect.

  “Come with me,” she said, turning away. She had wanted to tell her parents next, but the best-laid plans didn’t always work out—something she was acutely aware of. Somehow, though, she didn’t think her parents would mind.

  Leading him to a sheltered spot, she sat him down, clung onto both his hands, and told him everything.

  Silence reigned, her last few words hanging like physical objects in the space between them. Aiden wasn’t looking at her; he was looking beyond her, at the ocean, she presumed. Soon it would be glimmering in the moonlight instead of the sun. No matter. It would look just as beautiful. In contrast, Tara stared at him.

  As if he had stopped breathing but was now gulping for air, words burst from him. “Why you? Why us? Why is life so fucking unfair?”

  It was nothing she hadn’t asked herself a million times already. So happy she had been, so blessed. She had lived a charmed existence: a wonderful mum and dad, wonderful friends, wonderful lovers, and wonderful places to live. Sometimes she had felt guilty about that. At least that was one thing; she didn’t have to feel guilty anymore.

  “Aiden,” she said gently. “There is no ‘us’ anymore. No, don’t look like that. Hear me out. It’s not because I don’t want there to be; it’s because there can’t be.”

  “What do you mean, there can’t be? That’s rubbish.”

  “Aiden—”

  “No.” He thrust her hands away from him. “Do you think I won’t want you because of this? Do you think it’s going to make me love you any less? It won’t, Tara. In fact, do you know something? I’ve never loved you more than I do at this moment.”

  “Aiden.” Tara stood firm. “I don’t want you with me when I get worse, and I will get worse. Don’t think I won’t. I want you to remember me the way I was.”

  He stood, walked a couple of paces from her, and then swung back around. “And how come I didn’t know you were ill? Before you left Australia? I would have known, surely? You seemed fine.”

  “I was getting headaches, more and more. It was odd because I’ve never been the type to suffer from headaches before, but suddenly my head hurt all the time. My vision suffered too, not greatly, but a bit. Things were blurry at times. I started feeling nauseous, even did a pregnancy test just to make sure that wasn’t the reason. Ruling that out, I thought I’d caught a virus of some sort. I went to the doctor; he booked me in for a scan. I thought he was overreacting. He wasn’t.”

  “Those headaches, I knew you were getting them, but I didn’t think they were serious.”

  “Nor did I, but, Aiden, they are. They’re as serious as it gets.”

  “How long?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “I don’t know. They’re getting worse, though, much worse.”

  He breathed deeply, as though trying to suck in her words, to bury them. “Have you seen a doctor? In England, I mean?”

  “I’m due to, very soon.”

  “I’ll come with you.” He looked so determined, Tara thought, but desperate too. “And if he says there’s nothing to be done, well, we’ll go to another doctor and then another, until we find one who says, you know what, there’s a ton of stuff we can do. I’ll sell my café, Tara, my flat. We’ll find the very best doctor there is.”

  She was torn between believing him and disbelieving. “Money can’t solve this.”

  “No, but we can, Tara, if we believe. You read about it all the time. People beat disease and illness every day. And we’re going to beat it too, Tara, I’m telling you. You’re not dying. Not on my watch. I won’t let you.”

  “Don’t, please,” she pleaded, seeing that he, like her, was torn too. That he believed a
nd yet a part of him didn’t.

  Lunging forward, Aiden grabbed her roughly by the shoulders. “You are not leaving me, Tara,” he repeated. “I’ve flown halfway round the world to find you. And I did, I found you. I’m not letting you go again. You’re mine, do you hear? Mine!” Tears sprang from his eyes, chasing each other in mad rivulets down his cheeks. Stepping away, he wiped at his nose roughly with the back of his hand. “We belong together—you know that as well as me. Death will just have to wait.”

  Abruptly he stepped away.

  “Aiden…” She flung herself forward, trying to reach him, the chasm she never thought they’d bridge starting to widen again. But it was no use; for the moment he was beyond reach.

  Turning from her, he punched the air, not once, but over and over again, beating at the world with his bare fists.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” he screamed.

  “Aiden,” she tried again, daring to get close to him, despite the danger that one of his blows might graze her, knock her out cold. “Aiden, stop. Please.”

  He wouldn’t listen; he carried on fighting, and then suddenly, as though he were a balloon someone had stuck a needle in, all fight left him. He fell to his knees, bending forward, his head in cupped hands, his body heaving with silent sobs.

  Tara knelt beside him, covering his body with hers as best she could. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  He turned himself over to sit on the sand opposite her. She had seen pictures of him as a little boy, a cheeky little boy with a shock of black hair. He looked like that now, despite the fact his hair was short. He looked like he needed taking care of.

  She sat down too, and moments passed between them. As they stared, that little boy began to fade, matured, not needing the span of years to do so. In his place was the strong young man she knew him to be, the man who would take care of her.

  He shunted toward her, closing the gap once more. “Tara,” he said, not in despair this time; his voice sounded remarkably steady. “Whatever happens, we’ll face it together.”