Authors: Mila Gray
up on my shoulder when I’m burping him.
‘I’m going to take him upstairs to change him and put
him down for a nap,’ I tell Todd, who’s sitting at the table
in the dining room working on a term paper.
Just as I get to the stairs the doorbell buzzes.
‘Let’s get that, shall we?’ I murmur, shifting Riley onto
my clean shoulder. I answer the door and my heart skips
a beat at the sight of Kit standing on the doorstep.
For several seconds I can’t speak. My whole body goes
rigid with shock. I can’t even breathe. He’s leaner, older
looking, tanned and healthy looking – that’s all I notice.
That and the fact he’s wearing the same pair of jeans he
wore the night we first made love. My heart has wedged
into my throat like a chicken bone and a storm of emo-
tions whips up in my stomach, making me feel instantly
sick. I’m torn between wanting to throw myself at him,
hurl myself into his arms, and wanting to slam the door
in his face.
‘You cut your hair,’ he says to me.
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I stare at him. That’s all he has to say? That’s the first
thing he’s going to say to me after nearly nine months of
silence and dozens of unanswered emails?
Eventually I nod because I don’t know what else to do.
‘You look like Mia Farrow in
Rosemary’s Baby
,’ he adds.
I can feel my face getting warm as he stares at me, and
I look away. I cut my hair short on a whim, shortly after I
started dating Todd. I couldn’t stand the way he’d brush
it behind my ear because every time he did I’d be
reminded of Kit doing the same thing, and now that Kit’s
standing in front of me that’s all I can think of and I’m
suddenly regretting cutting my hair.
In my arms Riley suddenly gurgles. I see Kit’s eyes fall
on him, the bright glare of tears before he hastily blinks
them away. Those eyes – the blue of a summer’s day –
how could I have forgotten just how blue they are? ‘Can
I . . . ?’ he asks, swallowing hard.
I turn Riley to face him and see the wave of emotion
wash over Kit’s face as he meets his godson for the first
time. He reaches out a hand, tentatively, and rests it on
Riley’s head, stroking the dark thatch of hair before
chucking him softly under the chin. I watch Kit’s face
transform, just as everyone’s does when they see Riley for
the first time, at the shock of seeing this mini-version of
Riley and the wonder of it.
As momentous as this moment might be, though, I’m
just not ready for it, so I swap Riley into my other arm
and take a step backwards, suddenly aware that I have
baby vomit on my clothes.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask, finally finding my
voice.
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‘I’m back on leave,’ Kit answers.
‘I can see that.’
‘And I wanted to see you.’
I press my lips together. My stomach keeps rolling
over. Whether it’s the sight of him after so long, or the
shock, or the fact that I’ve just remembered Todd is in
the house, I don’t know. But anger has started to flow
through my veins. He can’t just show up like this. What is
he expecting?
‘Why?’ I ask. My voice has a sharp edge to it, and I see
him flinch a little. He studies his feet for a moment before
looking up at me again.
‘Because I need to talk to you.’
I shake my head, almost laughing. ‘
Now
you need to
talk to me?’ I ask. ‘It’s a little late, Kit.’
He frowns and bows his head, and for a moment I’m
thrown back to that last day – the day of the funeral when
he refused to look at me after we had sex. Does he
remember that? The memory hits me as hard as a punch
to the gut − it’s something I’ve worked hard to forget. I
tried to erase it just like I erased the pictures of him on
my phone. But then Kit looks up and I see, in that brief
moment of eye contact, all his regrets, all his pain, all he’s
suffered written clear as chalk on a board. I see how hard
it’s been for him to get to this point, the awful journey
he’s been on, and how much it’s taken for him to come
here today to face me. Even so, I quickly squash my
sympathy.
‘It’s too late,’ I say again.
‘I thought you might say that,’ Kit says, nodding. ‘But
I needed to try anyway.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘I’m
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staying at my dad’s. If you change your mind—’ He stops
abruptly and I see he’s staring over my shoulder.
I whip around. Todd’s standing behind me. He’s wear-
ing the formal expression I often see him wear around my
father. He curls his fingers around my neck in a way that
always makes me tense and stiffen my back, but doubly
so now. Shit. I don’t want to rub anything in Kit’s face,
but I guess, like everything else, it’s too late for that.
‘You OK, babe?’ Todd asks me.
I wince but force myself to smile. ‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Kit
was just leaving.’
I turn back to look at Kit, feeling my cheeks burning,
barely able to look at him. But Kit’s expression is blank,
his eyes arctic cold. He’s staring between us with his lips
pressed together and his focus seems to rest on Todd’s
hand gripping the back of my neck. After a moment he
glances at me and gives me a look that feels like a knife
being slashed across my heart, then he nods and starts to
walk away.
Flustered, I shake off Todd’s hand and walk back
inside the house, kicking the door shut behind me with
my heel. My heart is beating so fast and I’m shaking so
hard that Riley starts to fuss in my arms, obviously pick-
ing up on my mood.
‘What did he want?’ Todd asks me with an unmistak-
ably irritated tone.
‘I don’t know,’ I say.
Just then the doorbell goes again. I look at Todd, seeing
the annoyance flare in his eyes. Oh God. Todd opens the
door before I can get to it. Over his shoulder I see Kit
standing on the doorstep. He looks out of breath, his
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cheeks are flushed. He frowns at the sight of Todd and
tries to peer past him.
‘What do you want?’ Todd asks, edging sideways to
block his view.
‘I want to talk to Jessa,’ Kit answers.
‘She doesn’t want to talk to you,’ Todd says.
‘Yeah?’ Kit asks tersely. He glances over Todd’s shoul-
der at me. ‘Do you love him?’ he asks me, nodding his
head at Todd.
The directness of the question stuns me. My mouth
falls open. What the . . . ?
‘Do you love him?’ he demands again.
‘Kit, it’s none of your business,’ I stammer, feeling the
weight of Todd’s gaze on me.
‘Fine,’ he says. ‘It’s none of my business. I have no
right to ask you − I get that − but you need to speak to
me. If you send me away, I’m just going to keep coming
back until you do.’
I look at Todd. He’s glaring at me. I look at Kit. His jaw
is pulsing.
‘Fine,’ I say angrily, seeing that otherwise there’s going
to be a scene. ‘I’ll talk to you.’
A look of disappointment crosses Todd’s face, but he
buries it quickly. I hand him Riley with a shrug of apol-
ogy. Once he’s gone upstairs, I step out onto the front
porch, pulling the door shut behind me. I have a feeling
Todd’s going to want to eavesdrop, and I have no idea
what Kit wants to say but I’m sure it’s not going to be
something I want Todd to hear. I’m not sure
I
want to
hear it. I’ve moved on. I’ve made a new life for myself.
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Kit can’t just waltz back in because he’s finally managed
to deal with his issues.
I cross my arms over my chest, partly because my heart
is rattling around like a rogue ball bearing inside me, and
partly because I’m scared of what I might do if I don’t
control my hands.
‘What do you want?’ I hiss.
‘I want you,’ he answers.
I reel backwards.
‘Fuck,’ he murmurs, looking away and running his
hands through his hair. ‘This is not how I planned to do
this. I didn’t mean to say that.’
‘You mean you actually had a plan for this?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, can’t you tell?’ he answers wryly.
I try not to smile. Goddamn him. I refuse to smile.
‘The plan was to come here and say sorry and beg your
forgiveness. That’s all. I didn’t come here to be an asshole.
I didn’t come here to try to get you back. I know it’s too
late for that. But then I saw him,’ he continues, frowning.
‘That guy Todd.’ He looks at me now with an expression
of disbelief, shaking his head. ‘And fuck it . . . I can’t just
walk away. I can’t do it. I tried. I got as far as my bike.’
I stare at him, unsure what the hell he’s trying to say.
He takes a deep breath. ‘Oh man, I’m screwing this
up.’ He shakes his head. ‘Let me do this like I planned.’
He takes another deep breath, as though gathering his
thoughts, and holds my gaze. ‘OK,’ he begins. ‘I’m so
sorry, Jessa. I’m sorry for everything. I can’t tell you how
much I regret everything I did. I wrote to you so many
times and then I’d hit delete because how do you tell the
girl you love that you killed her brother?’
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His words hit me like shrapnel. I draw in a stagger-
ingly painful breath.
‘How do you make up for not being there for her when
she needed you most? I can’t. All I can tell you is I was a
total fuck-up. It’s not an excuse, but for a really long time
I was a total mess and it’s taken me all this time to sort
myself out.’
I close my eyes. He doesn’t know how long I’ve waited
to hear these words.
‘That’s all I planned to say to you. I was going to say it
and then walk away. That’s what I had planned out in my
head. Because I knew I had –
have
– no right to expect
anything, or forgiveness, after everything I’ve done.’
I don’t say anything. I can’t. My brain is still struggling
to process the fact he’s here, let alone the words he’s just
said.
‘But then I see you,’ he says, ‘and I realize that I was an
idiot to think it would ever be that easy.’ He stops and
frowns hard for a moment down at his feet before looking
up suddenly.
‘Do you love him?’ he asks, startling me all over again.
‘If you honestly love him, I’ll walk away. I won’t ever
bother you again,’ he says.
I’m so furious that I could spit. How dare he? It’s too
goddamn late for any of this. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, I love him.’
Kit’s face crumples with disbelief, his lips parting, but
then he steadies himself and straightens up.
I’m breathing hard, trying not to cry. I can feel my face
burning. Why did I just say that? I don’t love Todd − I
just want to hurt Kit. I want to hurt him the way he hurt
me. I want him to feel for just a moment a fraction of the
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pain he’s caused me. I know it’s not fair, I know he’s had
his own fair share of suffering to deal with too, but now
it’s too late to take it back. I remember him saying to me
once that he didn’t ever want there to be any kind of
untruth between us, that he wanted to know everything I
was thinking and feeling, but how can I put any of what
I feel into words? How can I tell him the truth when I’m
not even sure what that is any more?
Kit looks away over his shoulder, chewing his lip as
though pondering his next move. Is he going to leave?
My stomach tenses. Finally he looks back at me. ‘I don’t
believe you,’ he says. He takes a step towards me, fluster-
ing me with his nearness, with his smell, which shouldn’t
be so damn familiar after so much time and which
shouldn’t still affect me the way it does.
‘I think you still love me,’ he says, ‘even though you
don’t want to.’
I glare at him, fury battling my instincts.
‘Because that kind of love, Jessa,’ Kit continues,
‘doesn’t just disappear. It doesn’t just fade. I still love you.
I’ll always love you. And I think you feel the same way
about me. And hell, I know I don’t deserve it. I know all I
deserve is your hatred. But if there’s a chance, a single
chance that you might still love me, then I’m not going to
throw it away. Because I’ve been through hell and you’re
the only reason I’m still standing.’ He pauses. ‘So tell me
the truth. Do you love him?’
I don’t answer.
‘Does he know you like I do? Does he know exactly
how you like your eggs in the morning – just a little bit
runny?’ he asks. ‘Does he know that you’re allergic to