Page 1 of Sorry, Not Sorry
PROLOGUE
THREE YEARS EARLIER…
Delilah tramped through the thick grass in the cemetery, her cheeks wet with tears. The sticky heat and scorching midday sun added to her misery as she struggled to keep a grip on the wilting bouquet in one hand and the voluminous skirt of her wedding dress in the other. She blinked hard, clearing her blurred vision just in time to clumsily sidestep a clump of vicious-looking stinging nettles, wincing as the straps of the ivory bridal shoes dug into her feet. She raised the layers of tulle clear of the stalks of yellow dandelions scattered across the field and tripped when the unfamiliar heels caught in a tangle of weeds, only just managing to keep her balance.
Gulping down the tearing sobs ripping at her chest, forcing her breath to emerge in ragged, shallow bursts, she limped over to the relative safety of a gravel path running outside the cemetery chapel. Sweat ran down her back, and her arm ached from the weight of the heavy skirt, but still she ploughed on, head down and eyes trained to the ground, her long, freshly plaited braids falling into her face. When she passed the chapel, she skirted a path round a roped-off section of old, neglected graves marked by headstones sunken crookedly into the ground, their worn inscriptions obscured by dried moss and winding ivy.
Hang in there, Del! She knew it was only her imagination, but her mother’s voice sounded so reassuringly clear that it was hard to believe she hadn’t heard it in, what… fifteen years and… eight months?
Almost there.
She staggered towards a clump of trees on the far side of the cemetery, hobbling past a weathered stone statue of a cherub with a missing arm, before finally stumbling to a halt in front of a grave sheltered by a towering oak tree.
Calm down, Del. You’re okay now. I’m here. Her mother’s soothing voice seemed to do the trick. Delilah clasped the drooping bouquet to her chest and released her grip on the dress, slumping to the ground and letting the voluminous skirt puff up into a soft cloud around her. Her gaze fell onto a brass vase holding a display of white roses, their long stems partially obscuring the white marble headstone. She and her sister had made it a tradition to bring Mum flowers so she could celebrate the big events in their lives and, judging from the perfect floral arrangement, the super-efficient Salome had got there first. Well, you were too quick this time, Sal.
Delilah ripped away the crumpled cellophane and laid her bouquet next to the roses, starting to cry again when the flowers flopped listlessly onto the marble. They wouldn’t survive in the punishing heat, but she hadn’t noticed she was still holding the freshly delivered bouquet until after she’d raced out of her sister’s house. Breaking up with her fiancé in a blind panic a day before their wedding and bolting from her sister’s house without stopping to change out of her wedding outfit hadn’t been the plan when she’d woken up this morning. The plan was that she and Noah would bring her bouquet here tomorrow, after?—
Delilah’s heart clenched with a pain so intense she couldn’t finish the thought.
Never mind the flowers, Del. What’s going on? This time, her mother’s voice sounded grim rather than soothing.
‘Hi Mum.’ Delilah’s voice emerged as little more than a whisper, and she cleared her throat. Her eyes were puffy, and her head hurt from crying, but when she tried to take a breath, it felt like someone had reached into her chest and tied her lungs into a painful knot. Get on with it, Del. Confession time.
‘I know I’ve let you down, Mum, but I can’t go through with it. I just can’t! You’d be furious with me if you were here. Sal probably thinks I’ve lost the plot?—’
She broke off in despair, remembering how she’d abruptly ended her call with Noah before pushing past an open-mouthed Salome without a word.
As the enormity of her actions hit her afresh, hot tears flooded Delilah’s eyes. ‘Mum, this time I’ve really fuc— I mean, messed up.’ She caught herself just in time. Swearing was a no-no as far as Mum was concerned.
Delilah swiped her wet cheeks with the back of her hand and sniffed hard, plucking at the grass with trembling fingers while silently berating herself. Maybe if Salome hadn’t insisted on a final try-on of the dress before the big day tomorrow, she wouldn’t have panicked and called the whole thing off. Maybe if Noah hadn’t picked that exact moment to ring her… maybe if Noah hadn’t said?—
Delilah raked her fingers through her hair, clutching the braids tightly as if that would stop the unruly thoughts tumbling around her mind.
‘He’s perfect, Mum. You’d have loved him,’ she said in a low voice, feeling a fresh tear trickle down her cheek.
Her words hung in the stillness of the deserted cemetery, a murmur in a silence broken only by the sound of birds chirping in the branches overhead.
But if he’s perfect, Del, why did you run? Relieved that her mother now sounded concerned rather than angry, Delilah closed her eyes and sighed.
‘Because he said… because he – he scared me.’
1
It was safe to say the counselling session wasn’t going well.
Janine Henderson appeared every inch ready for battle. Glaring at her husband, she tapped out a rapid tattoo on the polished parquet flooring with the metal-tipped heel of her new stilettos. Brian was seated across from her, his gaze firmly fixed on the scuffed toes of his boots, and looking less like a gladiator than a visibly upset middle-aged man.
With half an hour of the session still to go, Delilah was floundering. Any hope that she could shift the couple in her office from outright hostility to some form of mutual understanding was rapidly draining away. The few minutes for reflection she had suggested while she mentally flipped through her communication skills toolkit had made no discernible difference. Janine’s expression hadn’t budged, and Brian was clearly fuming.
Delilah flicked her gaze from husband to wife with mounting frustration. The Hendersons’ fragile relationship was unravelling faster than she could have predicted, and while Brian would easily have won an award for exasperating husband of the year, Delilah simply couldn’t afford to have another client walk out on her. She had slogged her way through a gruelling two-year course to make it as a trainee relationship counsellor, and since starting the all-important final year of practical training and supervised practice with a roster of clients, two of her couples had requested a change of counsellor while another three had quietly quit the programme. Having stubbornly refused to admit to Polly, her supervisor, that she was struggling with the Hendersons, Delilah had exhausted every tool in her counselling repertoire and was bitterly regretting not asking for help.
The sound of Janine’s heel tapping was growing increasingly more irritating, and Delilah fought the urge to snap at her. It wasn’t the woman’s fault that her relationship was wedged on the rocks. After twenty-two years with a man whose marital expectations were better suited to the 1950s than the 2020s, Janine had finally reached the end of her tether, and it was hard not to feel a sneaking sympathy for her. If Delilah had been forced to live with Brian’s long list of requirements – not least expecting his dinner to be on the table at six-thirty sharp with no exceptions – she would be doing a lot worse than boring a hole in the flooring.
Your personal opinions have no place in relationship counselling, Del. Polly’s frequent admonition popped into Delilah’s head, and she refocused her attention on the couple. After her recent run of bad luck with clients, it was time to calm the troubled waters.
‘Now, Brian, refusing to compromise doesn’t sound like a very helpful way of thinking,’ Delilah said gently. ‘What other way do you think you could show Janine you understand her perspective?’
‘But I – I don’t understand, do I?’ Brian broke his silence, sounding so outraged that his words emerged in staccato bursts. ‘We’ve been doing alright for more than twenty bloomin’ years. Now she’s gone and got all these ideas from God knows where. Does she just expect me to roll over and accept it? How’s that fair?’
