Forever Mine

Carrie Noble

Published by Carrie Noble
at Smashwords.

Copyright 2016 Carrie
Noble

Smashwords
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‘John, love,
I’m just popping out.’ Silence.

‘I’m just going to meet a
friend.’ Silence.

‘I won’t be
long.’

‘That’s a
shame. Do us a favour love, take your time.’

Well that was
something, at least I got a response this time I thought, as I
closed the door to our house, knowing that another day of the same
old, same old had begun
.

I arrived at
the coffee shop first and found a table, hidden away in a corner. I
can’t believe how nervous I am. But I have to do it, I can’t
pretend anymore. I need to talk to someone.

The last time we met here
things had been different. We had been close, best friends, and I
had just met John, the man of my dreams.

Back then we
had been meeting to discuss my date. Me and John, it had been
perfect. We had met at another coffee shop when a rude, impatient
youth had pushed past me and knocked my coffee all over me. John
had come to my rescue and made sure I was ok. We had started
chatting and before he left he had asked me if I would like to go
for dinner.

We had
enjoyed a beautiful meal. He had been funny, attentive and
charming. After the meal he had walked me to his car because he had
a present that he wanted to give to me. When we got to the car I
couldn’t believe it. It was a BMW and a brand new one at that. Just
when I thought things couldn’t get any better, he produced a
beautiful, large basket from the back of his car. Oh my word, he
had really been listening. The basket was a beautiful hamper full
of Green and Blacks chocolate. He had remembered that I was
boycotting other brands of chocolate due to my opposition to their
reliance on palm oil. I knew then, at that exact moment that he was
perfect and I was going to make sure that he was mine, forever
mine.

I wait for
her to walk in, nervously watching people coming and going. Before
long I have wandered off to my own little world, wrapped up in my
own thoughts, so when the barista bangs a tray of cups on the
counter top I jump and bang my leg on the table. It is only as I
come back to reality that I realise I have been biting my lip and
it feels like it is starting to bleed.

‘Hello stranger, how are
you?’

She’s here. I can feel
the nerves in my stomach starting to fizz. I can’t do it. I feel
sick.

‘I was so
pleased to get your phone call. Since you met your Prince Charming
I’ve hardly seen you.’

I still haven’t spoken. I
can’t find the words. Whilst I am thinking of how to respond she
asks me what I want to drink and dutifully goes off to
order.

When Louise
comes back I know that she has sat down and is in the process of
telling me all about her journey and what a nightmare it was.
Although I think that I am nodding in all the right places, I am
not really paying attention. All I can think about is that I need
to talk to somebody. All I need to figure out now is where to
start.

‘So, tell me
then. What’s married life like then. When I think of you and John I
imagine it is like a fairy tale. I bet you two are still really in
love and making everybody sick. I know that I am still well
jealous. I want to find my John.’

‘Oh Louise, be careful
what you wish for?’

Oh Michelle, you are such
a kidder. So come on then tell me all about your perfect
life.’

Life was
perfect. Those first few weeks after we met flew by and I couldn’t
believe how happy I was and how well things were progressing. We
saw each other all the time and never got fed up of each other’s
company. Maybe if we could have stayed in that bubble things would
be different now, but John’s life was different to mine and it
wasn’t long before I was forced to share him with his
family.

‘So, tell me
then, what are his family like? What is it like being a stepmother,
and oh yeah, a step-grandmother?’

‘Oh you know, these
things are never straightforward, are they?’

I came from a
small family and was happy with that. John though, had 4 sisters,
and a close family friend called Jennifer, whom he was very close
to. He also had a son Patrick, who with his wife Cara had given
John two grandchildren, a three-year-old son, Charlie and a
one-year-old daughter, Emily. It was not what I considered ideal.
We loved each other and I wanted him to spend all his time with me.
He was worth it though. He was perfect.

However, before I had to
undergo the horror of meeting the real life ‘Walton’s’ I first had
to deal with the ordeal of meeting the other important person in
his life. Jennifer.

After two
months of just being with each other, John had broached the subject
of meeting the woman he loved like a sister. I knew this was
important to him so I summoned up as much enthusiasm as I could and
went along to meet Jennifer.

Until he met
me, Jennifer had probably been the person closest to John. She had
been the person he had turned to when his second wife had left him
for a man she had met at the gym. As John struggled to cope with
the separation from Rachel, Jennifer had been there night after
night, either going to his house or listening on the phone as he
poured his heart out and confided his worst fears. There was
probably very little that Jennifer didn’t know about my
John.

When he introduced me to
Jennifer she made all the right noises and smiled in all the right
places, but I could just tell. She didn’t like me. She was jealous
of me. Until now she had had John all to herself and now here I
was. No, I knew straight away that she was going to try to come
between us. I was going to have to do something to show John
exactly what she was like.

Oh yes, she was clever
that one. John thought she was being kind and friendly, but I knew.
Oh yes, I knew alright. She was a two faced little madam if there
ever was one. As clever as she was though, Jennifer had not counted
on me. I was on to her and two of us could play that game, and play
that game I did. I spent the next couple of months getting closer
to her. I listened to her ‘funny stories’, I gave my sympathetic
opinions on the latest family feud or rivalry, and all the time I
was looking for little nuggets that I could store up and use when
the time was right to show John what his precious Jennifer was
really like.

Before long, myself,
John, Jennifer and her husband Ben looked to the outside world as
the best of friends. We went on nights out together, we had dinner
a couple of times a week at each other’s houses and we sat together
at all of the tedious family gatherings we were forced to
endure.

My act must have been
convincing because John would keep on telling me how pleased he was
that I got on with Jennifer and Ben and that he loved me all the
more because of the way that I embraced the important people in his
life.

All this time
together confirmed what I already knew. Jennifer didn’t like me and
given half the chance she would do whatever she could to come
between us. Oh, she would be subtle about it, of that I had
absolutely no doubt. Nothing overt, nothing to suggest to John that
she didn’t like me. Just the odd comment, and then another, letting
them build. Whenever we went out she would always order something
cheap off the menu. So that’s it I thought. She is going to make me
look like some kind of gold digger. She would bide her time and
wait for John to confide the slightest doubt about our
relationship, then she would be in there. She wouldn’t waste a
minute, she would, purely out of concern for his happiness
obviously, try to convince him that he would be happier without me,
that he could do better than me.

It didn’t
take me long to realise the weak spot that I could use to my
advantage. Although John loved Jennifer, he was not a big fan of
Ben. He found Ben to be obnoxious, belligerent and arrogant. Three
traits that he hated in other people. I had thought that people
were exaggerating when they talked about Ben, but even I couldn’t
believe how quickly he could rub a room full of people up the wrong
way and not even seem to care. I knew it would only be a matter of
time before he provided me with the ammunition I needed.

By mid-June I
had been spent two months feeding back everything that Ben had said
about John or his family to John, and put my own, unique spin on
them. ‘Oh John, I couldn’t believe the way that Ben spoke to
Charlie and Emily on Sunday,’ or ‘Did you hear what Ben said to
Patrick about Charlie’s hair.’ John always made the same excuses,
‘You know what Ben is like,’ but I could see the constant highlight
on Ben’s criticisms were wearing John down and the time was right
to sort this out once and for all.

After an afternoon in the
pub I went back to Jennifer’s with her whilst Ben and John stayed
to watch the football. Jennifer had been drinking and let down her
guard more than usual. We started talking about
holidays,

‘Oh me and Ben haven’t
decided if we will be able to go away this year, you know, with
things the way they are.’

‘Why, what’s
wrong love?’

‘Oh, it’s nothing, don’t
worry about it. I mean, I’m sure that John will sort
it.’

‘John, what’s John got to
do with your holiday. Your worrying me now Jen. Tell me what the
bloody hell is going on.’

‘Calm down Michelle, it’s
fine. It’s just that we can’t book anything until John gives us the
money back.’

‘What money?’

‘Oh sorry Mich, I thought
you knew. I think it was around the time that he met you actually.
John was having some financial problems and so he asked if we could
help him out. We only had our holiday money so we lent him that. So
we just don’t want to book anything until we know we have the
money, that’s all.’

Bingo. This should do the
trick.

Later that
night John was worried about me. ‘Your quiet babe, anything
wrong.’

‘Oh no just ignore me,
it’s probably nothing, you know me, just a bit
sensitive.’

‘Don’t be
silly, tell me what’s on your mind.’ Got him. Hook, Line,
Sinker.

I told John that Jennifer
had been really nasty and had been blaming us for the fact that
they could not go on holiday. I made out that she had called John
for everything and accused us of robbing them.

I suspected
this would be enough to cause a problem but I didn’t expect the
explosive response that came from my loving John. I have never seen
anybody so angry, so abusive and so nasty. This was not the person
I knew. Within minutes he had phoned Jennifer and Ben. The rest of
the night was spent emailing increasingly abusive text messages to
each other. I was sure now that I had solved the problem of
Jennifer, once and for all. I couldn’t believe that the damage
caused by the numerous messages could easily be resolved,
especially with me advising and ’supporting’ John. But what price
had I paid. That night I couldn’t sleep. Was this the person I
loved? Was this the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life
with? By morning I had convinced myself that no, this wasn’t my
John. It was them. It was what they had driven him to. I was right
all along. These people were no good for John. He needed to be away
from them. All he needed was me. Forever, just me.

The next day John was
back to the perfect, thoughtful man I knew. Nothing was going to
come between us. Nothing was going to spoil my
happiness.

‘So you see Louise, she
was just awful. She never liked me and then the way they treated
John. I just couldn’t take it.’

‘Oh Michelle,
she sounds awful. Poor you. I’m so proud of you though babes, you
know, for trying so hard to make things work for John’s sake.’
‘What about Patrick? What’s he like. You know, in my head, he is
just like John, just a younger version. Tell me all about
him.’