Page 142 of Never Tell Secrets
She stared up at me, lost and confused. “Alfie? What is it?”
“I can’t.” I choked on the words, wishing I could swallow them back down but knowing they needed to come out. “I can’t, Lo. I’m sorry.”
I pulled away, standing in the middle of the room. Wanting to run before I let the truth come out but needing to stay.
I feltthemwatching me through those fucking screens, laughing at me. They wouldn’t stop, I just wanted peace, I just wanted them to leave me alone.
My Lo screamed my name and it wasn’t until then I saw the blood on my hand, the shattered screen. Had I done that?
She ran to me but I pulled away from her.
“Don’t!” My voice cracked, straining with secrets. She stared at me, eyes round and large. Was I crying? I ran a clean hand over my cheeks finding them hot and wet.
What was wrong with me?
“What is going on? Please tell me, you’re scaring me.”
No, no, no. That was the last thing I wanted.
I wanted to scream, to bash my brains out on the wall. I’d done this again. Two and a half years, countless hours in therapy and I was right back where I’d started.
“You said you didn’t want to know.” I didn’t know where the words came from, my tongue felt like a puppet. The last remaining piece of me that wanted to keep the truth from her. But it was time. It just wasn’t time to move on like the cameras didn’t exist. It was time to really become that good man.
‘It’s time to work without the net, Alfie.’
Yeah baby, it is.
I can do this.
I tried to steady my breaths. I would be calm. If I was about to shatter her into a thousand pieces, I would be calm. Let her shatter around me, let me ground her as I yanked the earth out from under her. That’s what she would need.
I looked at my girl, soaking in the affection in her eyes, it might be the last time she ever looked at me like that. I had to jump and trust she would catch me. I had no choice.
“I have to show you something.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and swiped the screen, my palms sweating as I opened the app and the screens came to life around us.
I stiffened my spine, forcing myself to look at her, forcing myself to watch as she broke. I wouldn’t shy away from the damage I’d done.
I stood there, feeling myself morph into something stronger, someone new. I stood there and shed the last remnants of a broken man.
Forty-Four
Icouldn’t process what I was seeing.
Me at work.
Me eating breakfast in my kitchen.
Me brushing my hair.
Me sleeping.
Me at the supermarket.
Me. Me. Me. Me.
The screens changed, presenting new images. A never ending slideshow of…me.
