Page 87 of A Secret Escape

“Because you have a long and wonderful friendship that is worth hanging on to.”

“Maybe. Or maybe I’m just an idiot.” She took a shuddering breath. “But tonight, finally, I found out why she’d ghosted me. It wasn’t that she was too busy or just wrapped up in her own life. It was all to do with Richard. The moment he saw her he went ballistic.” Milly related what had happened, and Connie listened, trying to mask her own reaction.

“So Nicole overheard his conversation with Avery?”

“Yes, and it’s worse than that.” Milly told her the rest of it, and it took Connie a moment to digest what she was hearing.

Nicole had known about the affair. Nicole had confronted Richard and told him to choose.

Being a good friend, Connie thought. Trying to protect Milly.

“That’s terrible.”

“I know!” Milly’s eyes filled again. “It really is terrible. I still can’t quite believe it. It’s all such a shock.”

Connie was grateful she’d never been in the position Nicole had found herself in. What a dilemma.

“I’ve always thought that must be the very worst situation to find yourself in as a friend. Knowing something big that could hurt someone you love. How do you handle it? Do you tell or do you keep it quiet? She was brave to confront him, but for him to then leave you afterward—just timing, of course, but I can see how that must have made her feel. Presumably that’s why she found it difficult to talk to you. She must have felt awful. Poor Nicole.”

There was a tense silence, and then Milly pulled away from Connie and looked at her with hurt in her eyes.

“Poor Nicole? You think it’s terrible forNicole?”

“Of course.” And only then did Connie realize that Milly didn’t see it the same way.

She looked so wounded by her mother’s unexpected defense of Nicole that Connie almost snatched the words back.

“Milly, honey—”

“You’re feeling sorry forNicole?”

Should she lie? No. Milly was evidently too upset to see things clearly. Her job here was to present a balanced view. Sometimes being the best parent to a child meant helping them accept difficult truths.

She cleared her throat and tried to do that. “I feel bad for both of you. You’ve been through so much, and I hate to see you suffer. But this has to have been hard for Nicole too. She found out information she would much rather not have known and had to make some hard decisions. I think that’s a horrible position to find yourself in, don’t you?”

It was obvious from Milly’s expression that she hadn’t given any real thought to that question.

“I can see it was difficult, but she should have told me. I never would have blamed her for something that was so obviously not her fault. And then she should have been there for me, but she basically dropped me, and I don’t understand how she could have done that because I wouldneverhave done that to her. There were no circumstances in which I wouldn’t have been there for her.”

Connie was hit by a wave of dizziness, and she took a sip of water, hoping it would pass.

She was feeling increasingly unwell.

She would have liked to have suggested they both go to bed and pick up the discussion in the morning, but she could see Milly was too upset, and she didn’t want to worry her daughter by admitting how bad she felt.

“I’m sure she did it because she was afraid, honey. She blamed herself. I expect she thought she’d been a bad friend. She was afraid she was the reason Richard left.”

“Obviously she wasn’t.”

“Nothing is obvious when emotions are heightened, Milly.Thoughts are just that—thoughts—but they’re all too easy to believe when you’re in a spiral.”

Milly sniffed. “So, you’re saying it was fine for her to ghost me?”

“None of this is fine. But I think, sometimes, it’s good to try and understand why a person might have done what they did. The way she saw it, she’d let you down. Been a bad friend.”

“That wasn’t the part that made her a bad friend. It was ignoring me. Not being there for me. She should have known that. We’d been friends for long enough.”

Connie was starting to feel distinctly odd. Everything seemed far away, and objects in the kitchen seemed blurry. “Think about it from Nicole’s point of view. She grew up feeling as if she had to earn affection. She didn’t trust that love could be unconditional because that wasn’t her experience.” And she’d worried about Nicole. Unlike many, she’d always seen Nicole’s fragility and vulnerability. She’d felt it in her hugs and seen the longing in her eyes when she’d talked about her mother.

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