Marshmallows for Breakfast (47 page)

In the car's side mirror, I saw Ashlyn appear again. She seemed more fragile now. Shaken, weak, scared. For a moment what I'd said to her flashed through my mind. Was I responsible for how she looked? No, I realized. Ashlyn's problems had begun long before I entered her life. An eon before Kyle had entered her life, even.

I hope you get help,
I sent a silent message to her.
Your children need you to, you need you to.

From somewhere inside her, Ashlyn conjured a smile on her face and raised her arm to wave. The kids waved out of the back window, Kyle beeped his horn, lifted a hand and then eased the car out of the gravel driveway.

The last time I saw her, Ashlyn was framed in the side
mirror as Kyle turned left at the end of the driveway: she stood on the doorstep, her slender arms folded across her body, one sock pulled up, the other lounging around her ankle. She crumpled. Obviously she couldn't keep it together long enough for us to get out of range. She crumpled forwards and probably started to scream her heart out.

HOMEMADE MUESLI &
NATURAL YOGURT

CHAPTER 43

I
want to take Summer and Jaxon up to central London in December to do this,” I said to Gabrielle. “But I don't think Kyle would let them out of his sight for more than three minutes, let alone a whole day. He's become incredibly paranoid about them. I understand it, even though Jaxon and Summer just give him this, ‘what is your childhood trauma?’ look whenever he does it.”

My gorgeous boss held onto the edge of the ice rink, her chest heaving and her breath escaping in small, dense white clouds from the exertion of the six laps she'd done in quick succession.

I loved ice- skating. I loved being out on the ice, gliding through the world with nothing to stop me. Nothing to hold me back. I had balance issues in most things, I couldn't roller skate for toffee, but on the ice … The chill pulling at my face, the exhilaration, the freedom—I was unchained and comfortable. Relaxed and at peace.

It was a passion Gabrielle and I shared, and for our “hook up” after my return from Cornwall she'd suggested ice-skating. After work we'd gone because the rink was open late for serious skaters and only a couple of other people were moving across the ice. They both had coaches and had staked out their little patch and were practicing jumps and turns and other moves. We had one end of the rink virtually to ourselves.

“How is the delectable Kyle?” Gabrielle asked.

“Paranoid, but fine. They're all fine now that they're back together.”

“That's fantastic,” Gabrielle said. “I'm so glad your family's back together.”

I arched an eyebrow at her but ignored her comment.

She launched herself away from the side of the rink, and glided backwards across the ice, graceful and beautiful, her long, dark ringlets flowing in her face. Once on the other side, she paused there, then came back towards me. She stopped, rather clumsily, by throwing herself against the side, almost tipping herself over the barrier in the process.

“I know we're moving on, but Kennie,” she began as she righted herself, “I have to say this one thing; you should have told me what Janene said to you.”

“I couldn't,” I said simply. “There's already too much vile-ness in the world, I couldn't repeat it.”

“But don't you see, she gets away with it. When we keep silent about these kinds of things the perpetrator gets away with it.”

“I didn't keep quiet, I… well, you heard most of it.”

“You should have told me. When people do those sort of hurtful things, even if it's saying something, if we say nothing, we protect them. It's not easy, speaking up, but you know what? It's one of the most important things. For ourselves. Silence helps the people who hurt us.”

“What is this, some kind of public- information movie? I thought it was only me who used her soapbox,” I said. She'd once told me that I was probably the only person on earth who'd be given more than one soapbox in her lifetime because her first one had been worn out.

Gabrielle's smile illuminated her face, brought out the black in her blue eyes, the strands of pure black in her hair. “I can't help myself sometimes.” She let go of the side, did a little turn and then grabbed the side again. “I get so caught
up … You know, after…” She paused, looked me over, working out whether she could say the word in front of me. I don't know why she thought she had to censor herself now. “After I was
assaulted.”
She went for the safer word, the less emotive one, the one that didn't sound as brutal and violent. “It was taken out of my hands, reporting it, but I don't regret it. Not for one minute. I sometimes wish people didn't know, I wish sometimes I wasn't ‘the one who was …
assaulted’
in my family, but I don't regret going through with it. Not out of revenge, but because it meant I stood up to him. It was after the fact, it was after he'd hurt me, but I still stood up to him. I'll never regret that.”

“People believed you; some people aren't that lucky.”

Gabrielle's face clouded over. “Not everyone believed me. You'd be surprised how many people didn't believe me—so many people refused to even consider the idea that such a ‘good bloke’ could do something like that. Others said I was a liar and had mental issues. Some said I was so repressed I couldn't just admit it was sex, but that doesn't matter. None of that mattered in the end because I know the truth. He knows the truth. And he knows that I told everyone I could, that his attempt to silence me didn't work.”

“Fair enough.”

“Evil grows when good people do and say nothing.”

“Public service announcement.”

“Sorry,” she giggled, hunching her shoulders and wrinkling her nose, looking like the little girl she had been all those years ago. “So, changing the subject, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure. Doesn't mean I'll answer.”

“Is Kyle paying for what some bastard did to you?” she asked. “Are you not giving him a chance because of something that happened to you?” I could feel her eyes studying me, watching my reaction carefully.

My reaction was to roll my eyes. I leaned over the wall, let the blood rush to my head—my blue hat didn't fall off but my hair came up to expose my neck. Once I was upright again I could look at Gabrielle to face this head on. “Even if I knew what you were talking about, they'd be two separate issues. Kyle's not paying for anything because Kyle's nothing more than a friend. I wish you'd understand that.”

“I do.”

“You don't. For you to ask that question, you don't. I adore Kyle, he's an amazing person, he has a special place in my heart, but he's not a man to me. Not in that way. He's a friend. I love him like I love you. I can't get away from that. He's not… I still love Will. I can't change that. I know it's not going to happen, I know he's in Australia and I know it's not possible, and I know I won't ever be able to forgive myself for the circumstances of our relationship, but I love him. And, yes, everyone thinks I should let it go. But how? Don't get in touch with him? Tried that. Don't live near him? Couldn't get much farther away from him than England. Don't think about him? I don't on purpose. He just hijacks me. I love Will. And I won't be able to give anyone a real chance until that's over.”

I looked at Gabrielle, a little embarrassed at how impassioned I'd become. How strongly I felt. I knew I still felt an immense amount for him, but I'd not admitted the depth of those feelings to anyone, myself included. Mainly because I was too scared to think about him. With him came thoughts of the letter and what it might say. When I thought of him I thought of his wife, desperate, so desperate she'd tried to kill herself. Did kill herself as far as I knew. When I thought of him and for a moment I forgot everything else, I felt lit up from the inside out. Like a Christmas tree with the lights flicked on, like the Eiffel Tower illuminated at night. When I
was allowed to think of Will without everything else, my heart came alive.

As I finished talking, I realized Gabrielle was smiling to herself.

“Do I sound like a dickhead?” I asked, feeling embarrassment crawling like a plague over my body.

“No, sweetheart, no. Absolutely no. I'm smiling because you said his name. For the first time you said his name. He stopped being the married man whose life you think you ruined and he became a man. He became Will. A real man who you felt something for. For the first time when you spoke then, you weren't beating yourself up for how you felt. You owned your feelings and you weren't embarrassed about having them.”

I looked down. “Yeah.”

“I'm not saying that it was an ideal situation, but you can't help who you fall in love with. If you could, who'd be single? Who'd be divorced? Who'd have fallings out with their families? Sometimes I think the best way to let things go and to move on is to play them out. See for yourself whether it's going to work out or not. Get hurt if it's not and then learn to get over it.”

“That's not very likely to happen in this case.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Did Will pay for what some bastard did to you?”

“Even if I did know what you were talking about,” I prefaced my reply, “maybe he would have long term. I don't know. I remember feeling incredibly safe with him almost straight away, though. I didn't worry about… about anything. He never pressured me for anything, and never asked me to take on his burdens. Remember how you told me about the intuition? Guilt aside, I never had a moment of uneasiness about him or when I was with him. I found
myself relaxing. I was normal. My body felt normal things, I wasn't…”

Gabrielle rested her hand on my forearm as my words ran out, my explanation disappearing into the air with my white breath. “I hear you, babe,” she reassured. “God, do I hear ya.”

“So,” I said, brightening up, gearing us up for a subject change. “Do you want to race around the rink or are you too chicken to come up against me?”

“Me scared of racing you, yeah right,” she scoffed. “Ted suffered for what happened to me. He suffered so much.” She straightened up, turned on the points of her skates and leaned forwards over the wall, staring down at the darkness that lurked beneath the seats. “It wasn't so much what I did so much as him watching me tear myself apart. He wanted to help me, but he couldn't. I couldn't help me so how could he? Then he wanted us to try for a baby. I couldn't do it.” She shrugged hopelessly as she redirected her gaze towards the ceiling. “I could never bring a child into the world after what had happened. I thought I could, but when it came down to it, I couldn't. That was hard for him to accept, but only at first. He said for better or worse and he meant it. Me, on the other hand, I couldn't let him make that sacrifice. I asked him to leave and he refused. I kept asking him to leave until one day he heard me. He said he'd only do it if I watched him pack. Because if at any point I changed my mind, he'd stay. I sat there crying my eyes out, watching the one man— the only man—I'd trusted since I was twenty-five leave me. I couldn't bear going home for weeks afterwards. I'd sit in the office after work and cry.”

“When did this happen?”

“A few months before you left for Australia.”

I was stunned. I had no idea. No idea at all. She never let on that something so monumental was happening to her.

“Is he with someone else now?”

“Nope.”

“So, you're still in touch?”

“Yeah, we keep in touch.”

“You could get back together?”

She turned on me, her eyes like hard, glittering sapphires in her head, her face wearing a hint of a sneer. “Why would I put him through that again?”

“Isn't that up to him?” I asked. “If Ted wants to come back to you, and you want him back, then why stand in the way?”

“Sometimes, what you want isn't always what's best for you.”

For the first time since I'd known her I wondered about Gabrielle's grip on sanity. If Will was single and here and still into me, nothing would stop me. Nothing. “It's not like you're abusive to each other,” I said to Gabrielle. “And seriously, if you've got even the smallest chance at happiness then why don't you grab onto it with both hands? It's hard enough finding someone who you're attracted to who is single and at the right time in their lives and feels the same way about you. Why would you fight that? I mean, three years later you're both still single, both still into each other. Do you think, possibly, that the universe is trying to tell you something?”

“Oh, I don't know, Kennie. Is it that easy?”

“Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. Sometimes you have to make it that easy. But you'll never know if you don't try. After all, what have you got to lose?”

“My one last hope. Once I know for sure, I know for sure. This way, I can always keep the hope alive that it might have worked out.”

“Hope is only useful if you do something with it. Sitting around and hoping something works out, and hoping something works out while doing everything in your power to make sure it does are two completely different things.”

“Maybe you're right,” she said. “I do know every time we speak I imagine what it'd be like to be his wife again. That's why I never changed my name back, you know? Because I could still pretend … Maybe I just need to do it. Just do it so I know for sure.” She cocked her head to one side as she grinned gently and affectionately at me. “And what about you, eh? What are we going to do about beautiful Kennie?” She reached out, stroked back a lock of my hair.