Page 16 of Connie
I like to think I’m a strong person. I don’t rely on others, I make my own way in the world. I have my own business, I make my own money and answer only to myself. So why do I have to be so bloody weak when it comes to him?
I hate myself for being so pathetic over a man but I’m helpless to it. He has made it so very clear over the years that he doesn’t want me but then he so much as winks at me and I’m falling at his feet. I guess he doesn’t have to take it further but he is just a man after all, and Fin doesn’t say no to many willing women.
It breaks my heart every time he kicks me to the curb, like he did when I was sixteen, when he disappeared after my twenty-first birthday and then the night before he left for Australia. Yet I still went back for more at the first chance I got. Pathetic.
I promised myself that I would move on when he left, that I would find someone else and get over him. I might have found Elliot to keep me busy but I never forgot about Fin. Everything Elliot did I compared to Fin, every time I was with him I imagined I was with Fin. I hated myself for it because Elliot was amazing. He was kind, caring, seriously sexy and talented in the bedroom but no matter what he did I still wanted Fin.
I thought it was it this time, I thought he’d got the other women out of his system, so to speak, and he was ready for something serious with me. I knew that Ruben would come around to the idea eventually, after all, all he really wants for me is to be happy and Fin made me happy.
Well that was until he dropped me again.
I really didn’t think history was going to repeat itself again, he’d been saying all the right things, sounding like he was in it for the long haul. Clearly I was very wrong.
I almost laugh out loud when the next song starts. I always put on the radio station that plays the songs I grew up listening to with my parents seeing as most of my customers are their age or older. The songs are relaxing and easy going, although it does mean I know all the words, something that Ruben finds hilarious because I’m twenty-six not fifty-five. Phil Collins, Against All Odds continues playing in the background as I feel a tear drip down on to my cheek. It’s only been a day and I miss him already. I hate myself for it. I rest my hand down on my belly and tell myself that we are going to be okay. We’ve got each other.
I eventually decide that I need to get up and get the place cleaned ready for tomorrow before I fall asleep here.
I shouldn’t have been surprised to find Ruben at the front of my queue sometime after the lunchtime rush earlier. I didn’t think he’d stay away for so long though. I managed to hold him off by telling him to come round tonight. I need to be at home, dressed in my pjs and comfortable to that conversation!
I get home sometime after seven and can’t believe that he’s not here waiting for me. Thankfully it gives me a chance to shower, change and make some dinner. I’m just sitting down to this evenings beige plateful of food when I hear the front door shut. God I miss brightly coloured, tasty food I think as my stomach growls loudly reminding me it had been all of two hours since I last ate. Bloody pregnancy hormones.
I take a deep breath to try to give myself some strength to get through this.
“Hey,” he says sheepishly when he sees me sat on the sofa.
“Hey,” there’s macaroni and cauliflower cheese in the kitchen if you want some.
“I’m good, thanks. Emma cooked.”
He shuffles around a bit looking awkward before perching his arse of the edge of the opposite sofa.
“I’m sorry,” he says then waits. I guess for me to say something by I haven’t really got anything I want to say to him. Eventually he looks up at me. “You look rough,” he comments before instantly apologising again.
“It’s fine. I know how I look, it reflects how I feel,” I’m not sure whether I mean the morning sickness or the pain I feel from yesterday’s events.
“Why him, Con? I know he’s my best mate but he isn’t the type of man you should be with. And why were you stupid enough to get pregnant?”
“I didn’t mean to get pregnant, I’m still not entirely sure how that happened. I was on the pill, okay so I could have been a little more strict with taking it but I didn't expect…” I trail off knowing he knows where I’m going.
“You never should have gone there, especially unprotected. You know where he’s been!”
“Ru,” I warn, I’m well aware of Fin’s reputation and past activities, he doesn’t need to remind me. “I’m the only one he’s ever gone without…” I stop talking when I see a grimace pass over Ruben’s face. As much as I want to torture him with the details I can’t bring myself to do it.
I change tact. “I’m in love with him, Ru. I always have been.”
“What do you mean always have been?”
“I mean I’ve been in love with him for as long as I can remember, long before we were together when I was sixteen. He told me he loved me too but then you happened and it’s all gone down the shitter.”
“Emma told me what he said to you yesterday. I’m sorry but if that’s how he’s going to treat you then he deserves you less than I already thought he did. You deserve to have someone that’ll treat you like his queen, like you’re his reason for living, not someone that’ll run at the first sight of trouble. He should be fighting for you and his baby more than ever now.”
“He doesn’t know about the baby. I never got round to telling him,” I admit quietly.
“You never got round to it? Didn’t he notice something was up?”
“Yeah but he thought I was ill and although I pretty much knew I was, I didn’t take the test until yesterday. I was going to tell him after the party when we were alone but as I said before…”
“How long’s it been going on?”
