Damaged Goods_A Small Town Romance

by Talia Hibbert

  Laura sighed. “Hi, Hayley.”

  “I’m serious. What’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing’s going on with me.” Laura put her phone on speaker, set it on the counter, and picked up a hairbrush. She was certain she’d need to keep her hands occupied during this conversation.

  “So why are you ignoring me?”

  “Hayley. We spoke this morning. Like, eight hours ago. What more could I possibly have to tell you?”

  Her sister gave a derisive snort. “I know you texted Trevor today. You’re always texting him. It’s weird.”

  “He’s my father-in-law.”

  “Not for long.”

  “He’s my baby’s grandpa. And what do you mean not for long?” Her heart leapt. “Has Daniel changed his mind? Is he signing the Acknowledgement?”

  She would’ve been divorced months ago, if her husband would accept the fucking petition. But even though he despised her, even though he didn’t want her baby, even though he’d hissed the words at her a thousand times, he refused to sign. Because of him, they had to do things the hard way.

  He claimed he didn’t want her taking half of his money. Which was ridiculous, since the money was his father’s anyway.

  Hayley’s voice was heavy as a baby’s thrust-out bottom lip, and twice as petulant. “How am I supposed to know?”

  Laura sighed. “I don’t know. Sorry. It was just the way you said it—”

  “Oh, whatever. Look, babe, I think you should come home.”

  The hairbrush caught on a particularly tight tangle in Laura’s hair. She winced as it dragged at her scalp. Bump chose that moment to wake up and dance about, which made her feel slightly nauseated, desperate to wee, and kind of comforted, too. “Home?”

  “Yeah. Back to Ravenswood.”

  Funny, but the word home didn’t command images of the town she’d spent most of her life in. For some reason, when Laura thought of home, she thought of here. The beach house. The kitchen. The table. With Samir sitting—

  Okay, that was enough of that.

  “I told you,” Laura murmured, easing the brush through her tangled hair. “I’m staying here. It’s relaxing. Anyway, you and Mum will be here in September, right?”

  “Well, that’s the thing,” Hayley sighed. “I spoke to Mum, and she doesn’t think it’s a good idea. She doesn’t want to come.”

  Laura blinked. In the mirror, her reflection’s flat gaze lit up. Her lips spread into a genuine smile. The Laura in the mirror looked happy. Relieved, actually. Laura knew how she felt.

  “That’s fine,” she said, trying to sound bravely disappointed as opposed to bloody ecstatic. “I don’t mind. It’ll be just the two of us.” She put down her hairbrush and picked up the phone, taking it off speaker. Presumably, her sister didn’t want to hear the sound of an incredibly long pregnancy-wee. “Actually, I was thinking maybe—and I don’t know if she’d even be okay with this, but maybe—Ruth could come too?”

  Silence. Silence that stretched out for so long, Laura started to wonder if the line had gone dead. So long that she’d actually finished on the toilet by the time Hayley spoke in a voice charred and crackling. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. What do you think?”

  “What do I think?” Hayley hissed.

  Ah. So she wasn’t on board, then.

  “You want that bitch to be there when Daniel’s baby is born?”

  Laura’s brows shot up. A sick sort of dread began to coalesce low in her gut, like storm clouds forming over the sea. She recognised that dread, the one that sent her skin crawling in fearful anticipation, but she didn’t understand why it was coming now.

  This was her sister, after all. Just her sister. Hayley might be a brat sometimes, but she wouldn’t hurt Laura. She couldn’t hurt Laura.

  “First of all,” she replied, trying to keep her voice calm, “this is not Daniel’s baby. He’s made it very clear that he wants zero involvement. This is my baby.”

  Hayley snorted.

  Laura talked right over that snort for the sake of her temper. The dismissal made her blood boil. “Secondly,” she said, her voice firmer now, “don’t call Ruth a bitch. Don’t call any woman a bitch.”

  “Oh, you’re a feminist now? That’s cute.”

  Laura’s jaw dropped. “What the fuck?”

  “You can’t lecture me!” Hayley snapped. The walls of the bathroom, with their old-fashioned, hand-painted tiles; the expensive skincare products Daniel had paid for lined up on the counter—they all seemed to grow larger. And all the while, Laura grew smaller. Her surroundings closed in as she shrank in response to the hate dripping from her sister’s voice. “You despised Ruth. And you should! She slept with your husband—”

  “That is not what happened,” Laura managed, but her voice came out thin and reedy.

  “Oh, now you believe her bullshit? She’s a fat, desperate, attention-seeking slut—”

  “Hayley! Ruth was your friend.”

  “When I was, like, five. I grew up. You should too. Daniel is an amazing man, and you know what? I am officially sick of how you’re treating him.”

  “What?” The word was a disbelieving whisper, a shattered breath that Hayley probably didn’t even hear. She was too busy bulldozing over Laura’s heart.

  “He’s given you everything, and you throw a tantrum over a fucking baby? And take Ruth’s side just to spite him? Where is your loyalty, Laura?”

  “Are you serious? Hayley, I told you how he—”

  “I know what you told me,” Hayley snapped. “I don’t believe you.”

  The words were like a fist to the face. They were the punch Laura had dreamt of that very morning, the one she’d barely escaped by waking up.

  She was wide awake now. There was no way to evade this particular pain.

  Still, she leant against the bathroom wall, as though the touch of cool, hard tiles to her feverish cheek might ease the sting of that betrayal.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Daniel had told her. He’d told her countless times, with open glee, that no-one would believe her. But—but Trevor believed her. Daniel’s own father. Surely Hayley… Hayley, who Laura had practically raised, who she’d given up her teenage years for, who she’d grown up too fast for, who she’d cooked for and scrimped and saved for and smiled for when she felt like crying…

  Surely Hayley believed her? Surely Hayley had to believe her? That’s what sisters did.

  And yet, a little voice whispered in Laura’s ear, Why didn’t you tell her first, then? Why didn’t you tell her years ago, when it all began? Why didn’t she ever seem to hear you, when you tried to say the words?

  The hot, sick, sticky feeling in Laura’s gut swelled. She didn’t want to face the answer, but it forced its way into her head and it felt like Daniel used to. Like contamination.

  She was never going to protect you.

  “I don’t believe you,” Hayley repeated, sounding calmer now, more sure of herself. Almost proud, as if she’d overcome something by saying those words out loud. “You’re a liar. You just want Daniel’s money. He’s a good man, and he loved you. You’ve broken his heart, doing all this. Lying like this. Turning his own father against him, running off with his baby—”

  “Hayley.” The tears running down Laura’s cheeks threatened to choke her, reducing her voice to a wiry whisper, but she had to get the words out. “Hayley, don’t trust him. Don’t fall for him. He’ll hurt you.”

  “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hayley stammered, her sharp-edged confidence faltering for the first time.

  Laura didn’t have the patience for her sister’s tired denials. All she had now was pain and disbelief and fear. “Please don’t trust him. You don’t know what he’s like. He doesn’t love you—”

  “Shut up,” Hayley said, voice a jagged blade.

  “He doesn’t. He just needs someone to hurt—”

  “SHUT UP!” The roar was so loud, so violent, Laura almost
dropped the phone. “You’re a liar,” Hayley spat. “You’re a manipulative, jealous bitch. You don’t care about me. You don’t care about anyone but yourself. You don’t want him to be happy.”

  “Hayley, I am your sister.”

  “You’re an ungrateful gold digger,” her little sister hissed down the phone, “and I’m done talking to you.”

  A spark of white-hot fury cut through Laura’s disbelief. “Well, you know what?” she managed. “I am done with you too. Done, Hayley.”

  The line went dead. And her beautiful, buoyant anger died with it, leaving behind nothing but pain.

  All of a sudden, even the icy kiss of the bathroom tiles was too much. Everything was sweaty and heavy and burning, burning-hot—too direct and too painful and…

  Fuck, she was suffocating. She couldn’t breathe.

  Laura fumbled with the lock on the door, clumsy hands forcing it open. She practically fell out of the room, and as she stumbled, a familiar pair of arms caught her.

  Her head jerked up. Samir was looking down at her with this heart-breaking concern in his deep, dark eyes, white teeth worrying his lower lip, her NTU T-shirt straining over his chest. Laura realized that she felt like she was suffocating because she was sobbing so hard, crying so much, heaving in gasping, desperate breaths as tears and snot and pure hysteria teamed up to steal her oxygen.

  Also, she’d been wrong to think her clothes would fit Samir. He made her T-shirt look like body-con.

  She laughed mid-sob and almost choked to death on her own snot bubble.

  “Fuck,” he said, not in a Good God, how disgusting sort of way, but more of an Oh no, this baby bird has been run over, how sad and disgusting sort of way. It was a crucial difference.

  Then he picked her up. Like, picked her up. She didn’t have the energy to complain, or worry, or feel self-conscious, or even enjoy it.

  She felt like she’d never enjoy anything again.

  I don’t believe you.

  Laura closed her eyes as if doing so could block out the memory of those poisonous words. She felt Samir put her down on the bed, and then she rolled over, sinking into a pile of soft pillows. Maybe, if she kept her eyes shut and stayed very still forever, she could turn to stone.

  Only she’d definitely need the toilet before that happened. Like, a thousand times.

  And, wait—she couldn’t turn to stone, because then Bump would never be born. She couldn’t even turn to stone after Bump was born, because who would look after them?

  No-one. Bump only had Laura.

  The thought was sobering enough to calm her gulping sobs.

  “Hey,” Samir said. He’d left a moment ago, she thought, but now here he was, coming back. Being back. Or something.

  Her brain was fuzzy.

  He pulled her onto her back, and she flopped over like a doll. Kept her eyes closed, too. Overwhelming despair was starting to fade, which allowed room for other emotions, like embarrassment, to creep in.

  But as long as she closed her eyes, and couldn’t see him, she could pretend that he couldn’t see her. Right? Wasn’t that how things worked?

  She heard Ruth’s dry voice in her head, saying simply, “Nope”.

  Then she felt tissue pressed against her nose, which was a surprise.

  “Blow,” Samir said.

  Laura’s eyes flew open.

  He was sitting beside her on the edge of the bed, looking at her as if she might detonate at any moment, holding an enormous wedge of fluffy white tissue against her face. There was a roll of toilet paper in his free hand. Clearly, he had come prepared.

  She tried to say, I’m not letting you wipe up my bloody snot, but when she opened her mouth all she got was a gob full of tissue.

  “Blow,” he repeated sternly.

  She blew. She glared at him something fierce, but, well—she still blew.

  Absolutely mortifying.

  He looked satisfied. Meanwhile, Laura was so embarrassed by the trumpeting sound her nose emitted, she would’ve happily crawled into a black hole right then and there.

  He replaced the snotty tissue with another clump, moving with the speed and efficiency of those mothers on TV—you know, the ones who actually give a shit about their kids, enough to develop Mary Poppins-esque superpowers.

  The kind of mother Laura secretly wanted to be, and not-so-secretly doubted she ever could be.

  But the sight of Samir right now, the grim determination on his face mingled with tender concern, was making her think that perhaps the superpowers were simply a matter of trying.

  She blew again, and he gave her a pleased sort of nod. Then he produced more tissue and began dabbing gently at her cheeks, her eyes, her chin, her neck—Jesus, those tears got around.

  But by the time he finished, she felt much drier and less, well, hysterical. Her devastation was more flat and empty, now, rather than an all-consuming, drowning sort of wave.

  Laura wasn’t sure which of the two states she preferred.

  Samir disposed of the tissue and disappeared without a word. She meant to do something useful while he was gone, like pull herself together, but those words snatched up her thoughts again—I don’t believe you.

  And then all of a sudden, she’d replayed them a thousand times while staring at the polka dots on her pyjama bottoms, and Samir was back with two glasses of water and a bowl, all balanced on one tray.

  He put the tray down on the bedside table, handed her one of the glasses, and said, “Drink.”

  She drank.

  He took the empty glass and gave her the bowl. Laura looked down to find a mountain of dry Rice Crispies staring up at her.

  She looked up again. “How did you know I—?”

  “I pay attention. Eat it.”

  Her tongue slid out over dry lips. “I… I’m not sure if I can.”

  He sighed. This was the part where he told her what an awful disappointment she was, right? And she didn’t even have the strength to be angry about it, because at that moment, she felt as if it was deserved.

  But he didn’t say anything of the sort. Instead, he put the bowl back on the tray and said, “Later, then.”

  She nodded. Bit her lip. Barely felt the sting. After several heavy seconds passed, she managed to force out the words: “Did you hear?”

  A shadow passed over his face. “Let’s not talk right now. You should sleep. Will you do that for me?”

  “Will I… sleep?” Her brain felt as if it was moving more slowly than usual. Sluggish; that was the word. She didn’t mind. The slower her brain was, the less her sister’s voice could replay in her head.

  In fact, she hadn’t heard her sister’s voice at all, while she was talking to Samir.

  “Yes, angel,” he said. “Sleep. Please?”

  Sleep would be nice. If she could manage it. If her mind would shut up. Laura looked down at her hands, which seemed suddenly small and pathetic. “Will you stay?”

  He shouldn’t have heard her. She was so quiet, she barely heard herself. But the way he stiffened, the way every inch of him became suddenly alert, and yet contained, she knew that he had.

  Still, a taught heartbeat passed before he replied. “Stay here?”

  “With me.” Shame, her closest friend, had suddenly gone missing. The contrary bitch was probably off sunning itself in Martinique while Laura remained here in rainy old Norfolk, acting a fucking fool.

  But then Samir said, “Of course I’ll stay. Whatever you want. I’ll do whatever you want.”

  And that would’ve been good enough, but he did something even better. He pushed her gently back against the pillows, pulled the covers over her and tucked her in. Then he lay beside her, on top of the blankets. He gathered her up against his chest, his arm cradling her belly carefully, her head tucked under his chin. Comfort warmed her aching bones like hot soup on a cold day. He said, “Sleep.”

  Laura decided that shame could stay on its holiday for as long as it liked.

  Then she slept.

&
nbsp; Chapter Thirteen

  For the next three nights, Samir slept in Laura’s bed..

  They didn’t discuss it. He wasn’t even sure how he’d fallen asleep that first night. He hadn’t meant to. He couldn’t leave her—not after the snatches of conversation he’d heard as he came into her room, as he put on the clothes she’d left for him. Not when he’d heard her sob, “Hayley.” As if something inside her had cracked. Smashed. To pieces.

  He still had no idea what, exactly, had happened; he just knew he could never have left her.

  But he really hadn’t meant to fall asleep.

  He hadn’t meant to wake her, either, in the early hours of the following morning, when he’d grabbed his salt-water soaked phone and wallet and pressed a kiss to her sleeping cheek. But she’d woken up anyway. She hadn’t said a word. She’d simply looked at him with eyes like a stormy sky.

  And he’d said without prompting, without a second thought, “I’ll be back tonight.”

  On the fourth day, he locked up the cafe, got in his car, and drove to Laura’s—as was becoming his routine. He’d barely stepped foot in his flat above Bianchi’s, except to pick up clothes and other shit he’d needed.

  She always left the front door unlocked for him, and when he entered the house he was greeted by the scent of oddly familiar spices. “Laura?” He called, kicking off his shoes and hanging up his jacket. The fledgling summer had, to the surprise of no-one, turned sour. Ah, Great Britain.

  “Kitchen,” she called back, sounding almost like her old self. So close to her usual calm, he might’ve thought she was okay.

  If he hadn’t known her so well.

  But she was still cheerful enough to make him smile, to fill his heart with simple happiness. Laura in a good mood put Samir in a good mood. Laura the way she’d been these past few days made Samir want to hunt down and brutally murder everyone who’d ever hurt her.

  Not that he’d actually do such a thing, of course. He couldn’t help Laura sleep every night if he was behind bars, now, could he?

  He found her standing over the oven wearing a huge, fluffy jumper, stirring a pot of something that smelled suspiciously like—