The Aisle and Skye (The Skye Series Book 2)

by Fox Brison

  “Tell me to mind my own business and I will, only…” she shrugged. “From a casual observer it looks like you’ve called it quits on her. No judgement, but is something going on between you and Tess?”

  I snorted. Jesus, why did everyone jump to the conclusion I was cheating? Was I wearing some sort of adultery deodorant? One spray and your friends and family will assume the worst. “The only thing between me and Tess at the moment is the Venerable Bede. Brooke, I love Nat more than life itself which is half the problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I swallowed hard. The last thing I wanted was pity, which was the reason I chose not to tell anyone except Sara (although to be fair I’d had little choice in that regard) but I needed a release and it was easier, somehow, to confide in Brooke; I’d liken it to talking to a counsellor, something I did in the past when pushed into a corner by my own overwhelming mind. “I found a lump on my breast.” The words were stark and brutal. I’d sought ways to soften them in moments of weakness when I contemplated telling Natalie, but it was an impossible task.

  Brooke flinched although she recovered quickly. “Oh Skye,” she took my hand in hers.

  “It’s okay.” Even though it patently wasn’t.

  “You got the all clear?”

  “No, not yet. I’m waiting for an appointment for a mammogram.” I sipped my wine and waited for the awkward silence to descend, another reason I kept it to myself. However, it never came.

  “And you haven’t told Natalie?”

  “No and I’m not going to.” And now for the judgement.

  That didn’t come either.

  “I totally understand. There’s breast cancer in my family, so a few years ago I underwent the genetic test. I was terrified waiting for the results and didn’t want to put Abby through the worry, but I couldn’t hide it from her. And do you know what? In the end I’m glad I shared my fears with her. I’m not going to tell you what to do, Skye, because we’re all different. What I will say, however, is think about why you’re keeping it from Nat, and don’t let cowardice and dread be a determining factor.”

  “My father died of cancer last year,” I said as if this would explain everything.

  “I’m so sorry, Skye,” Brooke immediately offered her condolences.

  “It’s okay, we were never close. Ever. In fact, he was an abusive shit. Everyone says how brave people are when they start going for treatment, how they fight for every second of life. My father didn’t, not really. He ran my brother and his wife into the ground. And when I saw him lying in his hospital bed, gasping for life yet losing the fight… what if I’m like him, Brooke? What if I turn into this… this cowardly beast demanding and tormenting my family through? I made a promise to myself that I’d never let Nat watch me go that way.”

  “Don’t you think that should be Nat’s decision to make?” Brooke said gently.

  It probably was but I couldn’t admit my real fear.

  What if she chose to walk away?

  Chapter 27

  Natalie

  I loathe the dark, always have. When I was little I imagined bogeymen lurking outside the window or under the bed. Thankfully, I shared a room with my big sister who assured me, in her own indomitable manner, that everything was going to be alright. Are you awake? I wonder if she’ll protect me from my grown up bogeywoman?

  It’s five in the morning, what do you think?

  Her reply oozed sarcasm. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, but when you haven’t shut your eyes all night, good ideas rarely pop into your head. Sorry. I’ll let you get back to sleep.

  Jesus, Nat, you always do this. I’m awake now, what’s up?

  It’s Skye.

  Oh my god! What’s happened? Is she sick? Is she in the hospital?

  In hospital? I read the message again and shook my head. My sister really was Miss Drama Queen 2017 a title she’d retained for the last ten years. WTF? No of course not. Bloody hell, Sara, what’s wrong with you and your morbid fascination. What are you going to be like when Sally and Jack get older and start going out on their own?

  I’m half asleep that’s what’s wrong with me. And as far as the kids are concerned, I’m taking a leaf out of Beverly Goldberg’s book and I’m going to be a complete smother.

  I could imagine her knowing smirk and immediately felt sorry for my niece and nephew. Poor kids! But what I meant is that I’m missing Skye is all.

  Well I suggest you text and wake her, muppet.

  Ouch? Not quite the comfort I was hoping for. I tried. Well I’ve tried calling her. Shit, Sis, I really have fucked up this time.

  It felt good to get that off my chest and into the open. Everyone always thinks of me as being confident and assured when the truth is I owned as many insecurities as the next person.

  And considering the next person was Skye…

  Sure I hid it better than most; I guess as an athlete that was part of the job, to portray an air of invincibility and bravado even if you felt the total opposite. I often wondered if that’s why I’d focussed on my career to the detriment of relationships in the past.

  Until Skye came along that is.

  I’d give up everything to be with her, not that you’d know it from my actions recently, and her behaviour was possibly indicative of this.

  It won’t be long until you’re back together.

  I shouldn’t have been expecting anything more than insipid platitudes at five am, but I was sick of hearing those same words and even sicker of feeling so damned alone. Phone calls truly didn’t cut it, not when Skye was spending so much time with another woman.

  A woman who had a hell of a lot more in common with her than I did.

  By then she’ll have moved onto pastures new. I imagined Sara’s curiosity being piqued by this message and she didn’t disappoint.

  What do you mean?

  Tess.

  Nat, get your head out of your arse. Tess is Skye’s teaching assistant and her father is a bigwig at Yale. This presentation is important for Skye’s career.

  Sara’s chastisement did the trick much quicker than her appeasement. I started to breathe easier. Actually, I started to breathe. If anyone would know if Skye was playing away from home, it would be Sara. I despised feeling jealousy roar through my body like an infectious parasite, my blood turning to a green pus oozing out whenever I thought about Tess standing next to Skye and whispering sweet nothings into her ear, when I thought about Tess touching my girlfriend’s arm as they discussed Vulnerable Beans or whatever he was called.

  Fuck this was killing me, slowly, insidiously. The thing is, Sara might have known Skye, but I understood Tess. There was something there, something I recognised in the younger woman, something that I saw every time I looked in the mirror.

  A desire, an adoration, a love - for Skye.

  And like for a long time with me, Skye was totally oblivious.

  I love her, Sara. I’m just scared I’m going to lose her.

  I have more chance of swimming the Atlantic Ocean naked than you have of losing Skye. Talk to her, Nat, she loves you. Never doubt that.

  And deep inside I didn’t doubt that. I just wasn’t sure if she was ‘in love’ with me anymore.

  Chapter 28

  Skye

  The drive down to Connecticut was peaceful.

  Not.

  The drive to Connecticut was abysmal. The traffic was a ribbon of slow moving molten metal which was in constant flux. The weather didn’t help; we’d gone from a mild autumn into winter’s fierce grip with little warning. I prayed it would improve before my flight to England the following week. Being held prisoner in Boston would be the last straw for me. I still didn’t know what to do for the best, but was sure being at home with Natalie would make things a lot clearer. As if my thoughts could conjure her, Natalie’s voice greeted me through Tess’s car speakers.

  “Hey, sweetie,” I answered quickly adding, “you’re on loud speaker.”

  “What? Where are you?”
/>
  “In Tess’s car heading to Yale. Her Bluetooth must have picked up my phone by mistake.” There was silence on the other end of the line. “Nat? Shit. I think we’ve been cut off.”

  “No, I’m still here,” she said quietly. Too quietly.

  “Natalie, is everything alright?” I suddenly panicked. Until that point, it had never occurred to me that in my obstinate refusal to give Natalie the opportunity to support me, I’d withdrawn my support of her.

  “Not really, but I’ll call later when we haven’t got an audience.” She hung up brusquely. Giving Tess an embarrassed shrug, I focussed my attention on the passing scenery, even though due to the rain visibility was poor. I was getting exactly what I wanted.

  I was King Canute ordering the Natalie waves to recede, but unlike that ancient monarch I was actually succeeding in my demands.

  ***

  “So in my opinion we should lessen the emphasis of Bede’s connection to the religious orders of the eighth century,” Tess said. She was only trying to help but I was getting sick of her ‘suggestions.’

  Especially at eleven o’clock at night.

  “Tess, I appreciate your input, I do. But this is my speech and my subject. I’m going to have to defend every one of my points, so I need to have complete faith in them. Do you understand?”

  “Well. Sure. I guess.”

  Tess translation: no, no I don’t understand and you should be doing it exactly how I want it done. My father will never forgive me if you embarrass him! Tess was obsessed with me performing to Professor James Ford’s high standards. It was one thing being the lead in a partnership (me Tarzan, you Jane as it were) it was quite another when you were forced to collaborate with someone who owned vision of the tunnelled variety.

  “Tess, sweetie, you need to find your own voice within your writing and not replicate what you think either your father would write, or what he would want you to write.”

  “I know, Skye, but what if my voice isn’t worth listening to? My dad can’t say enough about the papers you’ve published and, well, he’s…” she shrugged. “Every call he talks about how he hopes I’m learning from you… I don’t think he has much faith in me. He’s…” she shrugged again, a tear threatening one.

  I mentally inserted he’s an arse. He’s a control freak. He’s an arse.

  “Look it’s late, let’s call it a night. I’ll sleep on it and we’ll reconvene early tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay.” We walked in silence until she asked, “Have you eaten yet?” as we left the campus.

  Jesus, Tess, we’ve been together all day, neither of us has eaten anything, you know this. And I knew this because my fuse was shorter than Britney Spear’s infamous first marriage. When I was hungry I was like a bear with a migraine. “No. I’ll grab a burger on the way back to the hotel.”

  “Can I buy you dinner as a thank you and as an apology. I know I’ve been a little neurotic lately.”

  I wanted to say ‘a little” really sarcastically, but it was magnanimous of her to acknowledge she’d been a royal pain in my rear end today.

  “Anyway, I know this great Indian restaurant around the corner from where you’re staying. I used to eat there all the time when I was a student.”

  Eating out was the last thing I wanted to do, but I was starving and Indian cuisine happened to be my favourite food ever, which I’m sure I told Tess only last week.

  Bless her cottons for remembering!

  ***

  The meal was amazing. You can’t underestimate the power of a good chicken tikka masala to cure your woes. I wouldn’t normally eat something as heavy so late at night, and was starting to feel the effect. Tired and sated.

  If only I could have hooked ‘in a good way’ to the end of those three words, but Nat and I hadn’t engaged in sexcapades of the phone or any variety since I was hit by Jamie’s wrecking ball.

  It had wrecked my libido.

  “That was a great idea, Tess, thank you,” I said. “Brr, it’s bloody cold tonight.” I added, pulling on my woolly hat as we stepped outside the restaurant.

  “I’ll walk you to your hotel,” she said, placing her hand at the small of my back.

  Okay so this is new. And slightly uncomfortable. I subtly stopped and bent, pretending to tie my shoe laces. “Oh I don’t want to keep you out in this weather,” I protested as my mobile chimed. I frowned when I saw it was Natalie. “Hey, sweetie.”

  “Where the hell are you? I’ve been calling for the past hour. I even tried your hotel,” she fumed.

  I took a mental step back from her anger and immediately apologised. “I’m sorry. We worked late, and then grabbed a bite to eat. There mustn’t have been a signal in the restaurant.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, Tess and I-”

  “And you’re still together? It’s touching midnight, Skye.”

  Okay the chill factor the north wind was bringing to the party was nothing to the one my girlfriend was currently sending my way. “I’ll just say goodbye-” I didn’t want to be having this conversation in front of Tess, so I hoped my TA would take the hint that the night was officially over.

  Unfortunately it went straight over Tess’s head and landed on Nat’s.

  “Fine, I’ll let you go.”

  ***

  “Pick up,” I muttered. As soon as Tess and I parted ways I started calling Nat. And calling her. “C’mon, Nat, pick up.” I was about to give up when finally she answered.

  “Hey, Skye. Got time for me now?” she hissed sarcastically.

  What now? Then I coloured. Okay I deserved that. Not for the reason she was thinking, but to be fair I’d hardly been Skye Donaghie, Chatty Woman, of late. “Nat, please, I don’t want to argue,” I said tiredly.

  “Fine.” Which meant it was anything but fine. “Are you alone, or are you going to make another lame excuse so you can get back to Tess?”

  “Jesus, Nat! I know things haven’t been great recently, and that’s down to me in many ways-”

  “Many ways? In every way!” she charged indignantly.

  “Wait a goddamn minute, Natalie Jeffries! Do you know how hard this has been for me? I was floundering and if it wasn’t for this opportunity and Tess’s friendship, I don’t know how I would have managed.”

  “What about Brooke and Abbs? I don’t see why-”

  “Because they are our friends. When I see them without you, it’s unbearable. I keep turning to say something to you and you aren’t there, that’s why,” I said angrily.

  “Skye-”

  “What, Nat? What? Did you think I was going to sit around and mope? Did you? Would that have made you happy? Me being miserable and you being as happy as a lark.”

  “Oh god, Skye, I hate myself right now. I hate feeling so jealous it’s eating me up inside. But it’s been bloody difficult for me too!”

  Oh yes? “Oh yes?” I repeated my inner sarcastic rant. “And tell me how it’s been hard for you, being at home with your friends and family. Tell me how hard it’s been getting back into the England team. Tell me-”

  “It’s not worth it,” she yelled. “I didn’t realise it was going to be this hard, for either of us. I didn’t know I was going to feel so lonely that every night I close my eyes, not to go to sleep, but to stop the tears. I didn’t imagine I’d pray for an injury so I could get on a plane and come home to you. I’m not with my friends and family because you’re my family, you’re my best friend!”

  Then I heard something I’d never heard before; Natalie crying… actually it was worse than mere tears, she was sobbing, heart wrenching gasps that tore at my soul. I hated myself at that moment.

  “Nat, baby, please, oh please don’t cry.”

  “I... don’t know… wha… what I’ve done wrong,” she hiccoughed. “You’re further away than mere distance. It’s like I’ve lost you. I’ve lost my anchor.”

  “Natalie, reach into that bedside drawer of yours and find the last letter I wrote you. Really read it. I know I
’ve been distant and that’s all on me, sweetheart. But read that letter, read those words and know I mean every single one of them. You are my life, Nat, my whole damned life. Never forget that.”

  She sniffled a couple of times and I heard the rustle of paper. A few minutes later she said, “It’s beautiful.”

  “And I mean every single one of those words.” I looked at my watch; it was quarter to two and I had the biggest presentation of my life in nine hours. “Nat, sweetie, I’m so sorry but I have to get some sleep.”

  “I’m a fucking idiot, Skye, I don’t know why-”

  “Because you’re my fucking idiot,” I said with the ghost of a laugh in my voice.

  “And don’t you ever forget it. I’m so proud of you and everything you’ve achieved. You’re going to knock their socks off tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, baby. Sweet dreams.”

  “Sweet dreams,” she replied.

  Hmm… chance would be a fine thing. I was feeling incredibly guilty. I’d cast Nat adrift when she needed me most. What kind of girlfriend, no wait, what kind of person did that make me?

  An abhorrent one, basically.

  Chapter 29

  Skye

  I spent most of the weekend schmoozing with Early Ecclesiastical history professors, and it worked; the conference was a roaring success. My mental twerking rivalled Miley’s. Or not. My twerking, mental or otherwise, would only ever rival a baby rhinos attempts.

  After all the plaudits were handed out at Sunday evening’s reception, Tess and I stepped out of the Davies Auditorium for a breath of fresh air. We had celebrated with several glasses of champagne, and I must admit I was starting to feel the effects. Added to the alcohol was a natural high (one that could never be synthetically manufactured) the buzz from gaining recognition from my fellow educators. It was invigorating; almost as invigorating as the wind which had raised itself since earlier that day.