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CHAPTER1
Catherine Richardson paused, her eyes glued to the show-jumping footage of the Olympic hopefuls showing on the telly, her spoonful of ice cream halfway to her mouth.Jason!Even without his name in big, bold letters printed across the bottom of the screen, she would recognise him anywhere. His face was etched so indelibly into her brain, she could never forget him. He’d been everything to her, once. Back when they were young and carefree, with the whole world at their fingertips, they’d been inseparable.
She sucked the salted caramel decadence off the back of the spoon and shook her head sadly. Sure, they’d been inseparable once, but that was a long time ago. A lot had happened since then: his Olympic dream. Her life in the city, marriage, and subsequent divorce. Water under the bridge; a lot of it.
The camera zoomed in on his face as he rode flawlessly over the jumps and her heart skipped a beat. He still looked exactly the same. Older now, but still just as handsome. The crows’ feet at the edges of his eyes and lines where his mouth crinkled up at the corners when he smiled made him look distinguished. The focus in his eyes, the determination written all over his face as he looked ahead to the next jump was just the same. The camera panned out and he reached forward to rub the sleek neck of his chestnut horse, shiny with sweat. His lips were moving, presumably talking to his horse, and she heard his voice in her head, whispering her name just as he used to do, the deep timbre of his voice a gentle caress.
“So you’re off to the Olympics again, huh?” she said to the telly, dipping her spoon back into the ice cream tub again. “Living the dream. Just as you always wanted.” She tried to smile. She wanted to be happy for him, she really did, but it was impossible. While he was living his dream, her life was falling apart.
A lone tear trickled down her face and she reached up and brushed it away. She’d never felt more alone. Or more worthless. She felt like a failure. Jason was about to compete in the Olympics again, representing New Zealand in what he did best and what was she doing? Sitting on her couch in her dingy rented flat wearing ice cream-stained pyjamas that she hadn’t changed in days, with her stringy, unwashed hair tangled over her shoulders. Empty wine bottles, dirty glasses, McDonald’s wrappers, and empty ice cream tubs littered the table and floor near where she sat. She was a mess. A total mess. Was this what all women did on the other side of divorce? Fall apart?
Without thinking, she picked up her phone and googled his name. His Olympics profile, sponsor list, and media contacts was the first page to come up, and then further down was his horse training business and riding school website, which she instantly clicked on. Browsing through it brought back so many memories. Good ones, mostly. For years, the riding school had been her second home. It had been her escape. She’d learned to ride there, spent much of her teens there, fallen in love there.
She smiled sadly and kept scrolling, flicking through the photos, the reviews, the endorsements. Under the ‘contact us’ section was a phone number and an email address. She ran her fingers over the thumbnail photo beside his name, remembering the way he used to look at her. Jason@… She didn’t know what the rest of it was, but it lodged itself right there in her email app that had opened automatically when she’d touched the screen.
Should I or shouldn’t I?Common sense and curiosity warred within her.Why would you even want to contact him? He’s already broken your heart once, why you would want to contact him again? And it’s not like he’s even going to remember you.
“Screw it,” she said out loud to her empty apartment. “It’s not like I’ve got anything to lose. I can’t fall much further.” Typing quickly, her thumbs flying over the little keypad, she rattled off an email.
To: Jason Oliver
From: Catherine Richardson
Date: 8 January 2020 8.20 p.m.
Subject:Hello!
Hi, Jason,
I’m going to hazard a guess that you don’t remember me… You were my first love, fourteen years ago.
I just saw you on TV—congratulations! I know representing NZ in the Olympics was always your dream. So cool to see you achieving it yet again!
If you remember me, feel free to write back :)
From Catherine Richardson
Catherine Richardson… It felt strange to call herself that again after so many years of using her husband’s name. Another bolt of emotion ripped through her. Divorce had stolen so much—even her identity. The name she’d used for a decade was no longer hers. The home she’d lived in, the restaurant she’d run… all of it. She’d devoted her entire being to it, and divorce had cruelly snatched it away.
She dug her spoon back into the tub of ice cream and shovelled it into her mouth absently, settling back on the couch to watch the telly, trying to push thoughts of Jason from her mind. He was unlikely to reply to her email, so it was pointless to get her hopes up. She was better off to just forget about him. Reaching forward, she refilled her glass with cheap plonk—a chardonnay that had been on clearance at the supermarket. It tasted revolting, but it numbed her enough that she didn’t burst into tears thinking of what might have been. So many wasted years…Don’t think about that, she told herself sternly. Instead, she took a sip of the cheap wine, pulling a face at the pungent aftertaste but swallowing more anyway. Cheap and nasty or not, alcohol was alcohol, and it dulled her senses. Right now, that was what she needed.
The news segment where they’d shown Jason in the show-jumping ring—along with the other contenders for the Olympics—had finished, and her favourite gameshow was just about to start. She liked gameshows. Trying to answer the questions before the contestants did was a welcome distraction from the self-destructive thoughts that usually plagued her, and getting the answers right always gave her a little thrill. Proof that she wasn’t the stupid, crazy idiot her ex had constantly told her she was.
The shrill beep of her phone on the coffee table in front of her made her jump. For a second she didn’t know what it was. It made the same sound as an incoming text, but she knew it wouldn’t be. Nobody texted her these days. She had no friends left from her single days; she’d lost touch with them all. And all the friends she’d had as half of a couple with Steve had sided with Steve. Or distanced themselves from her, at any rate. “Some friends they were,”she mumbled bitterly.
But still, she reached out and picked up her phone. “May as well see who it is,” she told the telly.
She touched the screen, the blackness lighting up, showing not a text message, but an email. Jason? She didn’t dare hope… Crossing her fingers for luck, she held her breath and tapped the screen, opening the email app.
To: Catherine Richardson
From: Jason Oliver
Date: 8 January 2020 8.46 p.m.
Subject: Re: Hello!
Hi, Catherine,
