Page 116 of Never Too Late
‘It means that yes, my mother was incredibly rude and disrespectful to you that day and I was too weak to stand up for either you or myself. And I should have come after you. Gabby told me to, of course.’
‘She always did have more balls than you.’
The briefest flicker of a smile flared and faded, just as the shooting star had earlier.
‘True. But you didn’t fight either.’
‘What? So now it’s my fault?’ I shook my head. ‘You’re unbelievable.’
He caught my arm as I moved to stride off. ‘That’s not what I said. But neither of us fought for “us”, did we? And no, I didn’t come to you because as I said, I was weak. And because I knew you weren’t.’ He paused. ‘I thought you would come to me.’
‘You thought I’d come and crawl back after that?’
‘No, no. Of course not! The opposite. I thought you’d come over to yell at me. Justifiably. But I thought it would give me the opportunity of at least trying to explain…’
‘And that explanation was?’
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t have one. I hadn’t got that far. The only thing I knew was that I loved you.’
The silence of the house settled around us, interspersed with the odd creak as it made itself comfortable for the night.
‘Tomas… what am I doing here?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What are we doing? Why are we trying to recapture something that was dead and buried a long time ago?’
‘Don’t say that.’ He stepped closer, the sadness in his voice piercing my already fracturing heart.
‘Why not? It’s true! It’s too late, Tomas.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s never too late. Just because it didn’t happen then doesn’t mean we can’t have something now! You know that!’
‘Do I? Or am I just pretending? Pretending to be someone I’m not. The carefree divorcee living life to the full!’
‘I thought you were happy here.’
I huffed out a sad laugh. ‘So did I.’
‘Then why?’
I rounded on him. ‘Because you lied. Because youalllied.’
‘I didn’t think you’d give it a chance if I told you and I was right.’
‘So you decided to make the decisions for me? Just like your mother did for you in your life?’
He stepped back.
‘Low blow, Kitty.’
I squared my shoulders. He was right but I was hurting.
‘You blindsided me, Tomas. You should have told me. Perhaps, with all the information, with warning, you might have even convinced me to come. But this way?’ I gestured back towards the room. ‘Have you any idea how I felt when she walked in?’
The unsure expression on his face told me he hadn’t a clue.
‘Like I was back in that restaurant, in borrowed clothes, feeling entirely out of place and not good enough. Not good enough for her and not good enough for you.’
