Page 35 of Fighting for the Forbidden
“No more apologies, okay? Let’s forget all the blame and who did what and just talk.” Nodding, she takes a few seconds to collect her thoughts. “Joe was…my guardian angel. He turned up looking for a job, and I found a best friend. I was drowning. You leaving like that…it fucking broke me, Ben. I can’t even describe how I felt that morning or in the days and weeks that followed. I was like this hollow shell of a person just drifting between work and home, but not really being in either place. My head and my heart were stuck in my memories of us. It was the only way I could get up every morning and function. Dad played the perfect doting father. My first reaction was to accuse him for your disappearance, but he did such a good job of acting like he was concerned and trying to support me that I believed every fucking lie that fell from his lips. He picked out every tiny one of your flaws and used it to show me how untrustworthy you were, how you were never the kind of guy you pretended to be. Without you there, everything he was saying just made sense. I knew my dad wasn’t perfect or even that good a human being, but I really never thought he’d have a hand in something that would cause me so much pain. So the naïve child that I was took everything he said as gospel.
“I honestly didn’t think I’d see daylight the same as I once did ever again. My world was black, and there didn’t seem to be a way out. I almost bailed on my place at uni, and I stopped turning up to work. Your mum tried to do what she could, but every time I looked at her, all I could see was you. It took me a long time to be able to form the kind of relationship we have now, despite the effort she put in. She was the only one who had some kind of understanding of how I felt. She came and laid with me in the dark in my room one night and told me all about your dad. She sobbed the whole way through, as if just telling the story felt like she was losing him all over again. Our relationship changed after that. We’d found some kind of common ground, and we were able to start again.
“It wasn’t until Joe turned up that things started to change. To be honest, I thought Dad was going to take one look at him, see the similarities to you and send him back out where he came from. But he must have seen something in him, because he offered him a job labouring. Erica dragged us all out on her compulsory first day on the job drinks outing, and we became fast friends. He was having issues with his parents—they’d kicked him out and cut him off. We just kind of clicked. He understood what I was going through, and he just knew the right thing to say.”
My stomach knots as I get a front row seat to the pain I caused her six years ago. I can see the shadows lingering in her eyes as she explains it. I’m desperate to make it all go away, to remind her of the good stuff and how incredible we are when we’re together, but I know talking about this stuff has to happen. We can’t put it off by arguing or fucking any longer.
“I think everyone expected us to get together. We were spending more and more time together, but there was always something missing for that to be possible. I love Joe, he means so much to me, but not once has there been anything more than friendship between us. It took him quite a long time to open up to me about his sexuality. It was ultimately what led to the breakdown of his relationship with his parents.”
“With him in my life, I felt like I could actually move on. Uni was…fine. I made the best of it. Work was also okay. I loved working with Erica and Joe, and Dad was as overbearing as ever, but we all made it work. I even went on a few dates.” My entire body tenses with her admission. “What?” she asks with a laugh. “You thought I’d been celibate all this time in the hope you’d come back?”
“I…uh…” Just the thought of her being with other men has my muscles tensing, ready to fight.
“Have you been? Celibate?”
An unamused laugh falls from my lips as the faces of the women I’ve spent time with over the past six years fill my mind. “Something like that,” I mutter eventually.
“I’ll take that as a no then. None of that matters though. I never met anyone who I could imagine spending more than one night with, let alone the rest of my life. You ruined me, Ben. No one else stood a chance after you.”
My heart swells at her honesty. Leaning forward, I thread our fingers together, revelling in the feeling of her smooth skin against mine once again.
“I hadn’t planned to use Joe to lie to you, but all of a sudden here you were, and I panicked. He knew everything about us, and I’d already told him numerous times over the years that, if you were ever to turn up again, he was to do anything in his power to stop me falling back into bed with you.” My eyebrow rises in amusement; she knew that even after six years she wouldn’t be able to resist me even before I turned back up. “You can wipe that smug look from your face,” she warns, but she’s fighting a smile.
“I thought that by pretending we were a couple, you might back off. I clearly didn’t think it through properly.”
“I think you underestimated me. Or us. Everyone else backed you up. I assume they all know you’re not a couple.”
Guilt twists her features. “I asked them all to play along. They weren’t happy. Erica and your mum especially.”
“I guess I should be slightly pleased that they weren’t totally on board with the plan,” I say sadly, thinking how quick everyone was to lie to me.
“You need to remember that it wasn’t just me you hurt by leaving. Your mum and Erica were devastated too, and they had to watch me crumble. You shouldn’t really be surprised that they were willing to back me up.”
“I’m not.” Although what she’s saying hurts, I know it’s true. I hurt a lot of people by disappearing like I did, a lot more than I intended to.
“Dad’s death came out of the blue. He seemed fine in the days before he died. I had enough on my plate looking after your mum and knowing that someone was going to have to take over the business; I knew I wouldn’t be able to cope. The last thing I expected the day I turned back up at work was to find you there, staring at me as if six years hadn’t passed. I’d fought every day since you left to put you behind me, and there you were. I just…I didn’t…”
Moving my chair closer, I put my arm around her shoulder. “It’s okay. I didn’t expect you to be there, either. Chris had asked me to get some paperwork and told me that you’d not been to the office since Nick had passed. I thought it was safe. I thought I had time to prepare for seeing you. I soon realised that nothing I did could have prepared me for that.”
She looks up at me through watery eyes, and my heart aches for her, for everything I’ve put her through.
