Page 47 of The Meaning Of You

It wasn’t true. It wasn’t fucking true.

I can’t have been wrong about him all those years? Believing he wasn’tthatguy? That he would never do that to me. Davis hated cheaters, at least that’s what he’d said. He’d been furious when a friend of ours had cheated on his boyfriend and I’d believed that indignance with all my heart.

I still wanted to believe it. None of this fit the man I knew. None of it.

But my desperation to believe did nothing to explain away the gut-wrenching facts. Davishadbeen spending a lot of time at the caravan without telling me. Meeting up with men I knew nothing about. He’d bought a new laptop under a different account. He’d exchanged emails with the same guy from an address I didn’t know. And it seemed they exchanged texts on a phone I had no idea existed.

All in all, it was pretty fucking hard not to read between the lines and draw a conclusion that smacked me right between the eyes. The life I’d loved and believed in so much was unravelling at the edges. All of it potentially a lie.

Goddammit. I pressed my palms to my eyes and told myself to calm the fuck down. Epic fail. Twenty months of grieving and fear and plain fucking misery, and then I discover he’d been seeing someone?

I’d been a fool.

And suddenly, I needed to get the hell out of there. I needed to think somewhere that didn’t reek of Davis and... whatever.

I headed back into the caravan and returned with a load of Davis’s clothes, toiletries and a few bits and pieces I recognised as ours which I threw onto the back seat. Then I swept all of his work stuff into the box and closed all the windows and curtains. Samuel would have to deal with the fridge. I didn’t have the stomach for it, and I had no intention of returning to the caravan, ever. Whoever the hell this Lachlan guy was, I didn’t want to ever be reminded of him again.

If Davis had truly fucked up, the details would stay buried from Lizzie. She’d lived through enough. Samuel too, if I could manage it.

I’d carry that pain for all of us.

What was done was done.

Davis was dead.

There was no point fucking everything else up.

I took a final look around the van and growled into the hot dank air, “What the hell were you thinking? If you weren’t happy, we could’ve talked about it. We could’ve worked through it. We could’ve at least fucking tried. Jesus, Davis, it wasn’t like I didn’t know how damn lucky I was to have you love me in the first place. I would’ve let you go if that’s what you’d wanted. I only ever wanted you to be happy. You didn’t have to be an arsehole. And then you went and fucking died.” The last came out a broken whisper and I slumped against the countertop wishing I’d never fucking found that receipt.

Thunderous silence slammed through my heart—the only answer I’d ever know. I took a shuddering breath, secured the box under one arm, and stepped outside.

The blow came from my left, the force of it snapping my head back against the open door, white heat arcing through my jaw. I flew sideways off the step, the box tumbling to the ground as my shoulder hit the baked earth, pain lancing through the joint and spearing upwards into my neck. My head followed, landing with a brain-juddering crack, kicking dust around my face. A guttural cry split the humid air, and in the fuzzy recesses of my brain, I knew it as mine.

I rolled sluggishly to my knees, but my legs wouldn’t take any weight to get me upright. Dust choked my throat and bile dribbled from the corner of my mouth. A pair of heavy boots was all I could see. One lashed out and caught me on the shoulder, flattening me back on the ground.

“Don’t move,” a thick male voice ordered.

“Who the hell are—” I rolled just in time to empty another surge of bile onto the ground.

“Hey!” a second man’s voice called from the direction of the beach. “What’s going on here?”

The boots whirled and took off for the road.

I tried to get a look but I could barely focus, my head spinning like a top. A car door slammed in the distance, followed by the roar of an engine, and then everything fell quiet.

“Are you okay?” Gentle hands helped me to my feet.

I coughed up more phlegm and spat it sideways to the ground before lifting my gaze.

My rescuer was a thirty-something man who was watching me with concern. “Did you know that guy?”

I shook my head, still coughing. “I have no fucking idea who it was.”

The man looked in the direction my attacker had fled. “Lucky for you I came along when I did. Whoever it was looked like he meant business.”

I glanced toward the open gate and nodded. “Felt like it too.”

The man stepped back to study me. “You sure you’re okay? You want me to call the police?”

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