Page 193 of Take My Hand

“And you thought that maybe we’d get back together, did you?” Zak’s voice was light, with a hint of laughter as he tried to coax Connie’s motivation out of her. “Thought we’d go back to how we were?”

“Well, I hoped.”

That fucking laugh of hers was driving me mad. I had no idea how Zak had put up with it.

“I mean I know you’re going to Edinburgh, but Newcastle isn’t a million miles away.”

My heart stuttered and suddenly, I wanted Zak to end the call. I was desperate to talk to him about what came next for us. I dropped my gaze from his, over thinking about things that hadn’t even happened, but when he placed a finger under my chin, forcing me to look at him, my heart thudded. He gave me the most beautiful smile and nodded, like he knew what was going on in my head.

With his eyes still on me, he spoke again. “So, tell me your full plan.”

“Post a picky of us, get the Northerner to dump you, and leave you free to come back to me, then we see each other at weekends while we’re at uni and then maybe…” Connie trailed off and more tinkling laughter echoed down the line, filling in the gaps for Zak presumably.

Zak licked his lips and took a deep breath before pulling me closer and wrapping an arm around my shoulder.

“Connie,” he said in a deep authoritative tone, “there’s many things that are going to happen in our futures, but I can assure you, you and I getting back together is not one of them.”

“What?” She sounded genuinely shocked, like her actions were a perfectly acceptable way of getting your ex-boyfriend back.

“I think you heard. I’m not getting back with you. If this fucking dick trick of yours had worked, I still wouldn’t be getting back with you. We ended things because our relationship was toxic.”

I blinked and straightened my spine, he’d never told me that, only that they’d grown apart.

“We werenottoxic,” she cried.

“You sleeping with some random boy on our school ski trip, and then telling me about every detail, wasn’t toxic? You telling me that my friends hated me, wasn’t toxic? You telling my parents I was stalking you, wasn’t toxic?”

“She’sthe toxic one,” I cried, no longer caring if Connie heard me. “What a bitch.”

“Is she there?” she demanded with a screech.

“Of course she is.” Zak grinned. “As if you could split us up.”

If I’d know exactly what she was like, known the things that Zak had just mentioned, I would never for one minute have believed he’d cheated on me with her. She was truly vile, and I couldn’t understand why he’d never told me everything.

“But she’s just… just… nothing,” Connie screamed.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Zak said with a sigh and a smile for me. “She’s everything.”

“Zak ple?—”

“No, Connie,” he snapped, his smile gone. “I don’t want to hear it. Just stay out of my life and don’t ever contact me again.”

Then he looked at me and I took great pleasure in leaning forward and ending the call.

“Why didn’t you tell me about her?” I asked, finally feeling the knot in my chest unravel. “I would never have believed it if I’d known what a cow she was.”

Zak shrugged as he sat back against the cushions of the sofa. “She wasn’t always that bad. She was lovely at the start, but when that initial excitement of getting together wore off, she started her antics. She did whatever she could to humiliate me. Luckily I have a good relationship with my mates, so I asked them if it was true that they hated me. Of course, they laughed their arses off. As for my parents instead of believing her, they told me that I should distance myself from her. My dad called her troubled.”

“And what about the boy she slept with? You didn’t just take that did you?”

“Fuck no. I ended it there and then. I was already thinking of doing it, but it doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. I felt embarrassed and I was glad that we moved here not long after.”

“God, what an absolute bitch, and you were so nice to her at the party. I would have taken great pleasure in ignoring her.”

“I was never going to act like best friends with her, but she doesn’t mean enough to me for me to go to the effort of being nasty to her.” He leaned in and kissed me softly. “Let’s forget about her, she’s not going to bother us again. Tell me about you deciding to go to Edinburgh instead.”

I gasped and slapped playfully at his chest. “How did you know? I didn’t even tell my dad just in case I wasn’t accepted. I didn’t think I had, but I got the letter yesterday offering me a place, they said it was an administrative error. And it all depends on my grades.”

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