Heather’s heart stalls.
‘I just don’t think I can go there again. Ever. No matter how much I like the person.’
Heather swallows. ‘Do you want to tell me about your wife?’ she says gently, withdrawing her hands.
They sit down together on the edge of the bed.
He stays quiet for a moment and stares at the window. ‘She was picking Brianna up from ballet practice, in the car, when it happened.’
‘That’s why she doesn’t dance anymore?’
‘Right. I told you it was a young lad from the village, just passed his test. Well, we knew the family. And that’s the thing. He was just a kid, but he’d been so mollycoddled growing up, he had no ability to assess risk. The parents as good as trained him to be incompetent. So that’s why I keep pushing this taking risks, learning from mistakes attitude. It’s also why I won’t let Brianna drive.’
‘I knew there had to be a reason,’ she says carefully. ‘I just wonder if telling a spirited girl like Brianna that something is completely off the table, if it might … I don’t know … cause some resentment … or something.’
Scott shakes his head.
‘I know it makes no sense. It’s just my thing. Brianna accepts it. She understands.’
Heather inhales. What goes on in another family is no business of hers. She pulls him into a hug. This strong, adventurous, tortured man has broken down her barriers, causing her to ignore all her own strategies to self-protect. And the need for these strategies is glaring at her now, no longer the elephant in the room.
‘Scott. It’s okay,’ she says, caressing his face, whilst inside her belly hardens. ‘Last night was fun. So much fun. And this afternoon, too. But in all, honesty … relationships. Neither do I.’ There are tears in both their eyes when they pull apart. ‘So maybe we just don’t do this again?’ she says, hesitantly, despite the tiny voice inside her head which screams injustice.
This is a man she really, really likes. What is she saying? ‘It was a wonderful evening. Amazing. But rash. We’re not teenagers,and our daughters certainly don’t need this right now. So, what say we just …’
She shrugs, her shoulders heavy with the burden ofdoing the right thing.
‘Forget it ever happened?’ he says.
Heather stands and begins to flatten the sheets.
‘Exactly,’ she says, ‘because right now my priority should be checking my finances to make sure I can help Georgia with that higher rent.’
It's only as she's leaving, and her mind begins to settle, that she realises – he still hasn’t told her who Lorraine is.
SCOTT
Her face. It’s etched on his retinas. The way her eyes shifted from sparkling with desire to blank, withdrawn, a kind of flat, depressed grey when he told her. He can still feel the release of pressure when she moved her hand from his chest.
No longer a perfect fit.
The sense of wrongness that accompanied it. She'd said the right things, of course. That she’d also been burnt in the past; that she shared his fear of reliance on another person and that a relationship wasn't an option for her either.
But still … Her face …
Now she’s gone, he can’t help but torture himself with what ifs.
What if he’d just been straight with her and explained that Lorraine is his sister-in-law and she is encouraging – no,pressurisinghim, relentlessly – to sign up to mediation sessions with his wife’s killer?
What if he explained that there’s no way he could do that, because attending any form of mediation will force him to admitthe idea he’s worked like crazy to suppress for seven years – the accident had been his fault.
But no.
Letting the thoughts in, telling Heather, it’s something he just can’t contemplate. Already his underarms are drenched in sweat and his heart rate has doubled as though he’s just done a round of weights at the gym. How can he possibly say those words aloud – even to Heather, someone he has grown to trust and ….
No … he’s not going there.
He’s not letting the ‘L’ word back into his vocabulary.
