Page 25 of Heal You
“I’ll come with you.”Gillian pushed her seat back, but Jan held up her hands.“What?”
“I’m going alone.I’ll be okay.”
“Why won’t you let me help you through this, Jan?Is it because you called, and I wasn’t available?”
“God, no.Not at all.”Jan rose to her feet and held out her arms.Once they were hugging one another, the weight of the morning falling from Jan’s shoulders, she sighed.“But you won’t always be around for me, and I need to stand on my own two feet.Just…do something for me?”
“Anything.”Gillian drew back and searched Jan’s eyes.
“Go home and tell Finn how much you love her.Be with one another and just love, okay?What you two have is rare.”Jan had thought her love with Phil had been rare at one time, but seeing Gillian and Finn together…Thatwas true love.Would Jan ever find that again?Probably not.She’d always been a firm believer in finding the one meant for you.Unfortunately, she had a feeling Phil had been her one.What a depressing thought.
“When Finn finds out about this, she’s going to hit the roof.She always thought so highly of Phil, especially when he helped us out with the cameras.”Gillian’s face suddenly fell.“Then there was the wedding and the first-class tickets.”
“Well, he was always generous.He just chose to be generous with his dick, too.”Jan brushed a thumb under Gillian’s eye.“Please don’t cry for me.It’s not worth the tears.Even my own seem to have dried up suddenly.”
Gillian cupped Jan’s face and regarded her with a look of ultimate sadness.“I’m so sorry for what he’s done to you.”
“Me, too.”
* * *
Rummagingaround in her handbag for her keys, Jan took a deep breath when she felt the cool metal reach her fingertips.She was glad she’d spoken to Gillian about the affair, and now she wanted to get a few more belongings and go.Quite frankly, she didn’t feel anything when she looked up at the light blue front door that had once held so much love behind it.In this moment, as she pressed her hand to the wood and pushed it open, she felt that emptiness all over again.
You don’t feel that way when you’re with Morgan.
It was true.Jan knew she couldn’t use Morgan as some kind of crutch, but when she was with Morgan, she barely thought about Phil and what he had done to her.Perhaps that was just Morgan’s personality, Jan didn’t quite know yet, but whenever she could have her mind taken off the dreadful days about to commence, she would.
She lowered her handbag to the floor in the hallway and threw her keys onto the side table.As with the last time, everything sat in place immaculately.It smelled like home.It looked like home.It just…didn’t feel like home anymore.Jan had the chance here to see if that feeling ever came back, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to take it.The one thing she had always promised herself before she married Phil was that she would walk if he ever hurt her in any way.Physically, emotionally, it didn’t matter.This, what he’d done, was the ultimate betrayal.Friends could tell her to work it out, but Jan didn’t want to.She would never trust Phil again, no matter how much grovelling took place.
Pulling her shoulders back, Jan walked down the hallway and pushed the back living room door open.She heard voices, and as she peered into the kitchen, Phil and Anais sat at the dining table.Phil’s eyes immediately landed on Jan; the shock evident as he stared back at her.
“J-Jan.Hi.”
“It’s not enough that you fuck her everywhere else…now you have to bring her here, to the home I still own with you?”
Anais shot to her feet and turned to Jan.“Jan, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not me you need to apologise to.I couldn’t care less about your conscience.It’s your poor, distraught husband who couldn’t even look me in the eye as he told me about the affair.That’s who you should be speaking to and apologising to.”
Anais sunk back down into the seat she’d been occupying when Jan arrived.
“But by all means, you have a seat atmydining table inmyhome.”
Phil cleared his throat and crossed the kitchen.When he landed in front of Jan, the scent of his aftershave making her feel queasy, she took a step back.“Jan, we need to talk.I know you don’t want to, but we should.It’s important.”
“No, no.It’s not important.”Jan backed further away.She placed a hand on the doorframe to steady herself and looked Phil square in the eye.“It’s over, Phil.It doesn’t matterwhatyou say to me, we’re over.Completely.Do you understand that?”
Phil shook his head.“I’ll reject the divorce.”
“You do that.Make it harder than it already is for me.You know, like the good husband that you are.”
“For fuck’s sake, Jan.I made a mistake.We both did.Anais is going back to her husband, andI’mcoming back to you.”
“I couldn’t care if Anais took a long walk off a short pier—that’s her decision and hers alone.But you?Oh, no.You’re not coming back to me.I don’twantyou.”
“But we have the house and the business.We’ve been together for so long, love.Give me a chance.Please?”Phil dipped his head and found Jan’s eyes, but all she saw staring back at her was deceit.That…and a man she couldn’t trust.“Jan, I know you still love me deep down.”
“You know, if you’d come to me all those months ago and told me you were unhappy, I would have tried to work it out with you.That’s what I thought we were already doing by going to counselling.But you didn’t.You found what you needed with someone else, and now I’m done with you entirely.”
