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“Sure,” Paul said, and the coldness in his voice seemed to falter a little.
I waited for the jug to be half full before I pulled it out and poured the hot liquid into two mugs. I took them over to the table and placed Paul’s in front of him before I made my way around to the other side and took a seat.
“It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen you,” I said, because I couldn’t stand the silence that we were sitting in.
“I guess it’s been a while,” Paul said with a small shrug that told me that he wasn’t bothered.
“You know, I came home for the first couple of years at the holidays because I was hoping to see you, but you never came back,” I said because it was clear that Paul didn’t want to carry the conversation forward himself.
“Well, I thought I was better staying away. You’d always made it so clear that you didn’t want me here and, to be honest, I had no interest in being in a place that I wasn’t welcome.”
“I’m sorry I made you feel like that when we were growing up,” I said honestly. “I know you might not believe me, but I’ve used these years to grow up and I feel awful about how much I used to push you away. I used to blame you and your mom for my mom not being here, and that was never fair or just of me.”
“Well, that’s only ten years too late,” Paul said dryly.
I flinched under his tone and I noticed him watching me curiously, although his face was still pointing down at the table. “I guess so,” I said without even trying to hide the disappointment in my voice.
The look of curiosity dropped from Paul’s face and, for a moment, there was calm, before his eyes turned into storms and his cheeks started to burn red with annoyance. “What do you want me to say, Isabella? That it’s okay that you treated me like crap most of my life? That it’s okay that when I finally told you how I felt, you just let me walk away? That you’ve left it six years before you bothered to get in touch again, and even then, it was only because my mom had died? What is it you want me to say? Do you want me to tell you that everything is okay and that you’re forgiven? Because I can assure you that you’re not.”
“Paul, please,” I said, and I could hear the begging tone that was playing through the words as they left my mouth.
“Please what, Isabella?” Paul snapped at me.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said with a small shake of my head. “I’m glad to see that you’re doing so well, anyway. Success suits you,” I added as I stood up and poured away the remainder of my coffee before I left the kitchen and Paul behind me.
I could feel hot tears prickling against the corners of my eyes as I walked up the stairs that led to my room. I refused to let them escape, though. I refused to cry over a love that I’d always known that I’d lost. I made it to the top of the stairs with almost dry cheeks before the sobbing in my chest took over and I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
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Chapter Nine
I woke up in a cold sweat the next morning. The sun had barely even graced the skyline yet, and the cold air that filled my room was running its icy fingers over my skin and making me shiver. I quickly pulled my covers down and jumped out of bed before the cold could do any more damage to me than it was already doing.
My long hair was sticking to my back and I pulled it away with my nose wrinkled in disgust. I’d spent my night asleep in the torment of nightmares, and even though I’d slept for a few hours, I still felt as though I needed many more. I pulled on a jumper and walked over to the small bathroom that was joined to my room. I needed a shower. I needed to wash the rank film of cold sweat off my skin and the itchy feeling of overheating from my scalp.
I turned on the shower taps and listened to the sound of the water escaping from the head. It sounded like a waterfall and I could feel the heavy steam from it starting to rise up into the air. I waited until I was sure that it was warm enough and then I pulled off the sticky clothes I’d slept in and stepped into the cascading water.
It felt good after the night I’d had to finally feel some relaxation. I stood in the shower much longer than I had initially anticipated, and when I’d finished I stepped out onto the floor mat feeling much more refreshed and awake. I took my time getting dressed because I wasn’t in a rush to bump into Paul again.
It had seemed that, although the last six years had made my heart grow fondly for him, his heart had done the opposite. It felt almost as though he hated me, and I wondered whether that’s how I’d made him feel as we had grown up. None of that really mattered, though, I reminded myself as I walked down the stairs and towards the kitchen. The only thing that mattered was that both my father and Paul knew I was there for them, even if they didn’t want me to be.
I had to be truthful about my stepmom’s passing. I wasn’t really affected by it. I’d never really cared for the woman who replaced my own mom, and I’d certainly never grown an emotional attachment to her. I mean, I was sad, sure, but it was the kind of sadness you feel when a celebrity passes away, or a friend’s grandparent. I was sadder for the loss felt by Paul and my father than I was by any loss that might have directly affected me.
I walked into the kitchen and found my father sitting at the table with Paul. They both looked as though they had been deep in conversation and I could tell from the streaks down my father’s cheeks and the red tinge to Paul’s eyes that they had been crying. I didn’t know what to say at first as my father slowly looked up towards me and smiled in such a way that I could feel all the broken pieces of his heart.
“Are either of you hungry? I could make some breakfast if you are?” I suggested just so that I could feel useful.
“It’s a bit late to be playing happy families, don’t you think?” Paul said in the same tone that he’d used with me the night before.
I bit my tongue to stop myself from snapping at him. I knew that I’d made his life hard and I knew that he hated me, but I was just trying to do the right thing. I was just trying to make sure that the people I loved were okay. “It was just an offer,” I said as footsteps drew my attention away from them and over to the kitchen door.
I watched as a woman I had never met before walked into the room as though she owned it. She was about my age, at a guess, maybe a few years older, with jet black hair that seemed to draw your eyes into its endless depths. I scanned her face as I tried to find her in my memory, but her bright green eyes and small, ski-jump nose did nothing for my recollection. She looked over at me with an odd look, as though I was the intruder in my own home, and she turned her attention to Paul, who had turned around to watch her arrival.
“Who is this?” the woman asked in a heavy French accent that immediately got on my nerves.
“This is Isabella, she’s the daughter of my stepfather,” Paul answered her without the faintest flicker of familiarity towards me in his voice.
“Oh, I see. Well, you did not tell me she would be here,” the French accent continued. I grimaced at the way she made the letter S sound like Z every time she let it slip off of her snobbish tongue.
“Well, I guess since it’s my home, I don’t have to be announced to visitors,” I snapped at her.
She looked at me with a surprised look in her eyes. It was almost like she hadn’t expected to ever be spoken to directly by me. I could see her thin lips starting to purse in distaste as though she was sucking on something sour and her green eyes held mine with a kind of dangerous severity that told me that I shouldn’t look away. “I suppose you are right. My name is Adaline, in case you were wondering,” she said, a smirk playing across her lips.
I let go of her gaze and followed her arm down to where her hand was resting on Paul’s neck. I could feel a tidal wave of emotions hit me as jealousy and understanding collided in my body and caused a shock force worthy of breaking my bones. I tried to take a breath when I noticed that my lungs had started to burn intensely, but even though the air was flowing down my throat, it didn’t seem able to reach them.
I felt my hand reac
hing back, as I tried to steady myself on the cabinet behind me. I could feel the color rushing away from my face as I kept my eyes firmly on her slowly moving fingers, which were tracing delicate circles on the man I loved.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Adaline,” I lied, a forced smile on my face. “I see that you’re obviously with Paul. You’re a lucky girl; he’s a great guy,” I said and I could feel the words almost choking me as they came roughly up my throat.
“I am, indeed. Do you not have someone here with you?” she asked in a concerned voice that directly conflicted with the joyful look in her eyes and the ever-growing smirk on her lips.
“I don’t need to have someone here to rely on,” I said as I took my eyes back to hers and sent the same warning over that she had to me. “I can look after myself, unlike some.”
I could see the small dig I made hit her, as her eyebrows raised a little from their resting position. “I’m only here to look after my Paul,” she said, and she grinned at me wickedly.
*******
Chapter Ten
I’d been back at home for nearly a week and I hadn’t seen Paul by himself once. I’d wanted to talk to him honestly about how I felt for years, and seeing Adaline standing in my kitchen only made it all the more obvious that I’d waited too long. I’d always kind of known that I’d blown my chances the day we had gone to the beach, but that hadn’t diminished the hope that I’d get another chance at some point.
I mean, it wasn’t like I’d stayed single in the six years since I’d seen him. I’d had a couple of boyfriends, but it had never worked out. It would never work out with someone else and I was sure of that, because every man I had been with wasn’t Paul. The problem wasn’t with them. It wasn’t because they had been bad guys. In fact, they’d been really great. They’d been handsome, and one of them had been pretty rich too, but none of it was enough. The roses they brought and the romantic meals they planned weren’t enough, because they weren’t from Paul.
I’d spent so much of my life pushing him away, and I regretted every moment of it. It had taken me a while after the day at the beach to fully realize what he meant to me and everything he had done for me as we had grown up, but I did realize. Paul had always been there for me, even though I’d never offered the service back. He’d always been in my corner, even though all I ever aimed for was besting him. He’d always seen past the hurt I harbored over my mom and he’d always been willing to give me one more day to show him that I wasn’t just a horrible person, but I’d left it too late.
I couldn’t be sure whether my heart was breaking or not, because I felt completely numb. It was strange. It was like I was watching my life through somebody else’s eyes. It was like I’d taken a step back and I was watching it all as though it was happening through a television screen. I’d spent most of the week helping my father arrange the funeral, but all my spare moments had been dedicated to trying to talk to Paul on his own, and Adaline was making it impossible.
I knew that she knew that I had been harboring feelings for Paul. That had been clear from the moment that we had met, and she’d made sure that I knew they were together. She’d been getting worse during the week, though. Every time I found Paul alone, she would appear within seconds and wrap herself around him, so that there was no way of telling where she ended and Paul began. I could tell from the way that she held my eyes whenever she kissed him that she was enjoying the discomfort she was causing me.
What she was doing to me, though, couldn’t matter. I couldn’t allow it to matter when my father was falling apart. I’d spent most of my life trying to make him proud, but I’d never thought that my real moment to shine would be at my stepmother’s funeral and in the preparations before. My father was so thankful for everything that I was doing. I could tell from the way that he’d actually started to listen when I spoke, and how he would thank me genuinely whenever I brought him a hot drink and a fresh box of tissues.
Everything had been arranged in the first week after my stepmom’s death, but the funeral was still another day away and I could feel it looming over the house with its impending heavy atmosphere and unshed tears. The house seemed silent, even though there were four people walking around in its rooms, and the gray weather from outside of the windows did nothing to brighten the mood.
I could feel a strange sense of urgency spreading throughout my body when I woke up on the day of the funeral. It was as though my body was screaming at me to do something about the situation before it was truly too late, but what could I do? It was the day of his mom’s funeral and he would be leaving the day after.
*******
Chapter Eleven
I’d never spent much time in churches when I was younger. There was something about the old gray bricks and stained-glass windows that gave me the creeps, but I had no choice on the day of the funeral. As I walked into the huge building, I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck starting to stand on end. I could feel this overwhelming sense of being out of place, and my feet kept itching to change direction and walk back out into the freely flowing fresh air and sunshine that had finally decided to make an appearance.
I knew I couldn’t walk out, though. I knew that I had to push myself further into the dark rooms, until I got to the hall. When I walked through the old wooden doors into the hall, I scanned the room quickly. Red velvet chairs had been placed in two rows of five, and at the front sat the light wood coffin that held the woman who had created the man I loved.
I walked in slowly and took my place on the front row. I could hear my father’s footsteps walking behind me, but I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t seem to pull my eyes away from the coffin. It was like, for the first time in my life, I realized that the moments that would follow would be my last with her, and I couldn’t take my eyes away. I sat perfectly still and listened to the service with my eyes unmoving, until finally I felt my father’s hand wrap around mine and he gave me a gentle tug to stand up.
I stood without thinking and finally managed to pull my eyes away. I shifted my gaze over to my father and could see that his eyes had not been dry since he had left the house. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a tissue for him. I could feel my heart starting to break slightly over the image of my father. He’d always been somebody that I looked up to and I’d always strived to make him proud, but in that moment, I could feel the roles reversing, as suddenly he became somebody that I would need to take care of.
I glanced over to Paul, who was standing with the aid of Adaline. She glanced over her shoulder and caught my eyes before she started to slowly walk him out of the church. I followed her lead with my father and, after a short while, we found ourselves climbing into the cars that would take us back to the house.
I had arranged for everybody to meet there and, with the help of Paul’s bank account, we had hired some of the best silver service staff to cater and host the wake, so that we wouldn’t need to worry about it. The drive back to the house had its silence broken only by broken sobs from my father and the small sniffles that seemed to be coming from Paul. I thought on a couple of instances that perhaps it might be better if I spoke and broke the awful atmosphere that was surrounding us, but I knew in my gut that there were no words that could be spoken that would make anything feel okay.
When we got back to the house, I went straight to the kitchen. I felt sad for the pain of the people I loved, but I didn’t feel any real sadness for the passing of my stepmom, and that kind of made me feel like a fraud. People kept coming up to me and hugging me; they would ask if I was alright and they’d give me this pitying look because of the pain they were sure that I felt, but I didn’t, and all my responses were the act I assumed they wanted more than I wanted to give.
The kitchen was busy with the staff getting ready to take food into the dining room where everybody was gathering. I didn’t mind that, though. None of them expected me to pretend to be sad. None of them were expecting me to break down into tears or to remember my stepmom with
fond stories that I just simply didn’t have. They didn’t even bother looking at me as I took a seat at the table that was overflowing with food trays. It felt good to get away from the morbidity of it all for a moment, even though I knew deep down that it was selfish of me to do so.
I watched as the serving staff started to load their arms up with trays and then head out the door. The room was much quieter when the last one had left the door to swing shut behind them. I watched it without paying any real attention to what my eyes were showing me. My brain had taken me back to the problem of Paul and what I could do about it before he left.
I knew that it seemed crazy, but I had to tell him how I felt. I couldn’t let another six years pass without speaking to him. I couldn’t wait until someone else died before I finally got to see him. Too much had changed already, and even if he shot me down, at least I could say that I’d tried and not choked like the day at the beach.
The door opened and its creaking brought me back to reality. I didn’t move as Paul walked into the room and, for a moment, I wondered whether he had even noticed that I was there, but then it became clear that he hadn’t when he pulled open the sliding doors that led into the back garden and started to walk away from the house.
I sat watching him until he dipped out of eyesight, and then I stood up and started to follow in his direction. I knew in my heart that this would be the only chance I would have to speak to him alone. I knew that if I was ever going to do what needed to be done, then that was the moment. I walked quickly through the backyard and out to the small sidewalk that it led out onto. I couldn’t see Paul, but I had a feeling in my gut that I knew where he was going and, unbeknown to him, I had a quicker route there.
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