Love Reflection (Entwined Hearts #1) (6 page)

We get to my door and suddenly I feel uncomfortable. He must sense this as he backs away.

“Pea, it’s been a lovely night. I really enjoy your company. Can we go out again? Maybe make it a weekly night thing?”

I consider this for a moment. You wouldn’t arrange a weekly night out if you were dating someone, would you? No! You would take one date at a time.

Maybe this is just a friendship.

That I can do.

Hell, I need that type of friendship right now.

I look up at him. “I would love that Dane. Next week I pick?”

He salutes me and winks. “You’re on, see you next week.”

As I enter my house I can hear his footsteps slowly drifting away.

For the first time in ages, I feel calm. I don’t feel hollow. I talked about Saul. I felt like I had someone looking out for me, in the way Saul and Con used too.

As I walk up the stairs to bed I realise for the first time in ages I feel peace.

After flipping the channel on the television over for the hundredth time I throw the remote onto the sofa. I realise I get annoyed with inanimate objects a lot. I huff as though someone is there to hear me and ask me what’s wrong. I can feel the tightness across my eyebrows indicating I’m frowning. I’m frowning because I know that there is nobody here. It’s been two weeks now since Con left.

He hasn’t called!

He hasn’t texted!

He hasn’t emailed!

Con hasn’t even passed on a message to Soph for me.

Dane has called and we’ve decided to do something this week. He’s checking his schedule and getting back to me. It’s supposed to be my choice, but I seem to have lost my imagination because I can’t think of a single thing.

My doorbell signals a visitor and seeing as my already intimate circle of friends is now in a skeletal status, I know it can only be Soph. When I answer to door she looks at me and smiles a sad smile pulling me in for a hug.

“What’s that for?” I ask.

“No reason. You just look sad, Pea. I mean you’ve looked sad for years, but now you look kind of lost.”

I step back to let her in and wonder when everyone started reading me so well. We go into the lounge room and sit at opposite ends of my corner sofa and turn to face each other ready for a nag.

“Have you heard from Con?” I cut to the chase. If she knows what I’m thinking then she won’t be surprised.

“Yeah, he called last night. Late, last night. He said he was enjoying the work he’s been assigned. He said the pace of life over there is something else entirely. It sounds like he’s happy.” She eyes me, checking to see if I’m ready to break.

I laugh. “Good! I want happiness for him, above all else. I just wish he would talk to me. Two weeks without chatting isn’t something I’m used to. The last time that happened was…” I stop realising I’m the one to blame this time.

“You know, when all that shit happened before, Saul was the one to make me come out to you.”

I look at Soph. “What? You didn’t want to come out to see me?” I realise I’m a little hurt.

Soph winces. “It’s not that I didn’t want to come. I just thought that you needed space. I thought you’d tell me when you needed me. I’ve since learned that you need a kick up the backside to do anything. Let alone sort your head out.”

“I needed you. I needed you all. More than I ever had before. I was afraid to tell you. To ask for help. I was afraid that if I asked for help it meant it was real and that I’d done something wrong.”

Soph frowns and tilts her head slightly. “We are just talking about what happened with you and Con aren’t we?”

“Well, yeah, I mean, that and other stuff.” I grab a pillow and pick imaginary lint off of it.

“Pea?” I can hear so much more than just my name in what she’s asking. I remember that sad tone in Saul’s voice, and another flicks into my mind...

“Pea?” I heard along with a soft knock on my hotel door. I took a deep breath and let it out counting down from ten.

“Pea?” a little louder accompanied by a second knock.

I shuffled to the door and opened it widely letting Saul know non-verbally to come in.

He made his way inside and sat on my bed. “So are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Straight to the point, Saul, you didn’t want to ease into it?” I asked with a sad smile.

“Look Pea, I love you, but you keep your shit to your chest and I know there’s something else going on. I just know. So tell me already so I can fix it. Fix you.”

A hollow laugh came from my mouth. “I think I’m past the point of fixing, Saul.”

“So what? The Con thing? You know that wasn’t how it looked. Seriously, I found out the whole story. I’ve been wanting to tell you, but at first Con wanted to be the one to explain, then you wouldn’t see him or speak to him. Now, he’s okay with me explaining, you know, on his behalf. He’s just broken Pea. He’s a broken man. I’ve never seen him like this. I need to tell you so you two can sort your shit out. You keep closing me down, but I’m not letting you anymore.”

“I was pregnant,” I let it slip out in between his last rant and the next one, which I knew was about to happen.

He just stared at me, eyes wide. I could see the pain in them. For me maybe. For Con? I didn’t know. He didn’t say anything and so neither did I. After a few minutes it appeared he wasn’t going to say anything. So I tried.

“When I started on my first leg of this trip, I was in Spain as you know. About a week after I left I kept feeling sick. Nothing major. I wasn’t worried, I never saw it coming. After throwing up for three days in a row, I went to the doctor. Luckily he spoke very good English, because, let’s be honest I wasn’t going to have any idea of what he was saying otherwise. He asked me when my last, you know, period was? I counted back and realised what he was saying. He asked me to pee and tested it, and that was that.” I stopped and realised maybe the peeing thing was too much information for him. I smiled internally, grateful that I could still find things that amuse me.

“What? Why? How? Why didn’t you tell us? Wait, hold up it was Con who got you preggers, right?”

“Of course! What are you trying to say, Saul?” I was annoyed, he was just looking out for his best friend, but Saul had known me for years. He knew I was not a cheat.

“It wasn’t me who cheated, remember!” I snapped.

“He didn’t cheat either, Pea, but you need to listen so I can sort this mess out. Then you can get back together and be—”

“Stop, Saul,” I interrupted him and his head snapped back from the door where he had been staring.

“Fuck Pea! You stop!” A look of annoyance crossed his face. “I’m sick of you shutting us all out. I thought you needed space, needed to get your head clear. I thought you’d been with Con long enough to at least give him a chance to defend himself. Shit!” he was shouting at me now.

I just stared at him. I was numb and I couldn’t feel anything. I felt like all my emotions seeped out when everything else did. Left my useless body. My shell.

“Pea, aren’t you going to say something? I mean Con doesn’t know. I know he doesn’t or he would have told me.”

“No, you’re right. I haven’t told Con and I don’t intend to. It’s not his business anymore.” I realised how cold I must’ve sounded.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Pea?” Saul shouted.

I didn’t think about the hotel, the neighbouring rooms, occupants, Soph or anything else, something just snapped.

“I LOST A FUCKING BABY, SAUL, THAT’S WHATS WRONG WITH ME!” I bellowed. I literally screamed in his face. I didn’t know that kind of noise was even possible coming from me. I got up to leave the room. I needed to get away. I needed to not talk to him, not drag things up, past or present. As I stormed to the door I spun around. “Actually, there is a correction to make to that statement,” I said through clenched teeth. Saul just stared at me with his mouth agape.

I lost two babies, not one!”

Saul’s eyes widened and I felt a single tear slide down my face. I turned and ran through the door before he said anything else. I felt like I was always running.

Snapping back I hear… click, click. It’s Soph snapping her fingers.

“Where were you? You do that so often that sometimes it scares me. I wonder whether one day you might not come back from your dream world,” Soph says softly to me.

I look over at her, sadness mars her beautiful face.

“You can’t get rid of me that easily.” I try to make a joke, but there’s no humour in my voice.

“I’ll tell you what, how about I cook for you tonight?” Soph tilts her head sideways waiting for my answer.

“How about we do it together?” I counter, not sure I want to eat her signature dish, Salmon and vegetables yet again. I mean, I understand as a model she needs to keep her figure trim, but I’m not a model and I like chocolate cake and real food.

She smiles and we move to the kitchen.

When my grandma passed I kept the house. Lucky really, that the mortgage was paid for or I’d never have been able to stay. This house is a three-bedroomed detached house on the outskirts of London. If my grandma hadn’t lived here her whole life it would never have been affordable. I have a constant stream of letters from estate agents wanting me to sell, telling me they have clients lined up to buy my home.
Well, they can sit and swivel.
I’ll get five hundred cats and live here till I die, just to aggravate them all.
God, I’m in such a petulant mood!

I look around the kitchen. It’s farm-style, with a deep white basin. Above it sits a sash window and white curtains with pretty pink and green dragonflies. It’s an unusually big room, enough space for an AGA cooker, a wooden dining table that sits eight people and a wooden dresser which still houses all the china pieces that she loved.
I wonder if the other houses in the street had kitchen’s this big, or if they’d all been modelled and remodelled until they were no longer recognisable as what they once were?

I realise these days people need more space for families, but it’d only really ever been Gran and me, so there had never been a need for any remodelling.

I couldn’t imagine changing it. She loved this room and was always in here baking. That’s probably why I’ll always love chocolate cake, nobody can make it like she did.

No one.

She loved me enough to give me something to treasure, something that she gave me in droves, and enveloped me in.

Love and safety.

That’s what she gave me when she left this place to me.

Her… that’s what I felt when I was home.

“Okay, what do you say we cook Shepherd’s Pie?” I ask already knowing her answer.

She wrinkles her nose. “Yeah. Erm… I’m going to go with a no.”

“Have you got a counter-offer, Miss Rawlings?” I arch my eyebrow waiting to see what she’ll say. It was a common thing for us when we ate at each other’s homes that we would negotiate until we agreed on food.

“How about barbecue chicken and salad?”

“How about barbecue chicken and rice?”

“Well, what about barbecue chicken and rice salad?” Soph gave me a hopeful look.

“Okay Soph, I can live with that. Anyway I have some chocolate muffins I baked earlier for after dinner.” I know I have an evil grin on my face when I say it. Soph can’t resist my chocolate muffins and I made them exactly for that reason. I had a feeling she would be around tonight.

It’s October 14
th
, which is the date Con and I got together… our anniversary. I’m not sure if it’s strange that I still think of it that way after all these years, is it? It would’ve been ten years today, had we stayed together. We probably would’ve been married, maybe even had kids.

Kids.
The thought slams into my chest like a truck.

I close my eyes and take a couple of deep breaths. In through my nose and out through my mouth. Repeat. And again. When I open my eyes, Soph is staring at me.

“Just had a moment. I’m over it,” I say with a watery smile.

“Call him,” Soph urges.

“No,” I shoot back.

“Why not?”

“I don’t even have his number.” I realise I sound petulant again.

“For fuck’s sake Pea, you have his mobile.” Soph was getting stressed with me now. I can’t blame her, I know when it came to my hang-ups I’m tough to take.

“If he’d wanted to speak to me he would’ve called me, Soph. He hasn’t. So he doesn’t.”

Silence ensues and I turn to make a start on the chicken. Soph harrumphs and starts on the rice salad.

I knew we’d be fine by the time dinner was ready to eat. But I understand her annoyance. Not speaking to Con was killing me, if I was honest. Every day I hurt. Every day I felt a little more lost and alone. Every day I wondered if I’d done the right thing shutting him out for all these years. At least romantically.

I knew he hadn’t cheated. I’ve known that fact for six years. My mind wonders as I remember what had happened…

Walking into the hotel bar in the early afternoon was not unusual while on holiday, so nobody batted an eyelid. Even when I ordered a vodka tonic, I looked around and saw the happy faces. Everyone having a whale of a time whilst on their holidays. Not suffering because they felt like their world had been ripped out from under them. No.