Page 36 of Such A Filthy Girl

His breath warmed my lips as he pinned me tight to the wall, his other hand slamming against the panelling.

Three.

‘Tell me you don’t love me, Estella.’

Two.

I couldn’t.

One.

Leo grasped my chin and kissed me as the year ticked from one to another, his tongue sliding against mine with the tart taste of red wine. Heat filled me as I gave myself to him, pouring every aching moment into his mouth. The salt of my tears tainted the kiss with sadness.

‘Start the year as you mean to go on,’ Leo whispered as the kiss broke.

‘I can’t. Leo. I’m going home in the morning.’ The crushed expression on his face broke my heart. ‘I cannot live here confined to these four walls. A relationship wouldn’t survive it. I will always be therefor you. As a sister. But I can’t be more. It would hurt us both.’

In a fit of anger, Leo smashed his knuckles into the wall beside me, the wood splintering with the force of it.

A sob tore from me as his eyes filled with glimmering wet.

‘He’ll never make you happy,’ he snarled, before turning and leaving me, storming up the stairs.

Relief should have swamped me, but the sickness in my stomach felt a lot more like heartbreak.

Although being with Leo was wrong, it had always been him.

It always would be.

If only he could step outside the caged world he’d built.

TWENTY FIVE

LEO

A car door slamming abruptly tore me from sleep. Half tripping as I pulled on some sweatpants, I opened my blinds. The morning light made me hiss like a vampire. I’d consumed far too much booze to be facing the sunlight.

Down below, Graham hugged Grace, my dad placing their bags in the trunk.

No.

Estella hugged my dad, and I tore from my room, throwing myself down the stairs two at a time. The splintered panelling half way up the staircase made me wince as I passed. Lord knew how I’d explain that to Grace.

The front door stood open, the cold January air making the hair on my arms raise as I neared it.

Grace fussed over Estella, adjusting the way her hairlay on her shoulders. They looked like a picture perfect little family. The strapping soon-to-be son-in-law. The happy parents. And the perfect daughter.

I’d never fit.

Graham got into the car, starting the engine and waiting for the windscreen to clear of the thin layer of ice.

I stood on the threshold, the gravelled drive twinkling in the morning light. Estella looked at me, both of us caught in a moment of our own. Locked in a slight hope.

All I had to do was to step outside.

It’d be no different than a single step inside. Just one step.

My pulse quickened as I gripped the doorframe, closing my eyes and lifting a foot. Sweat gathered along my collar.

---