Page 12 of Forever Not Yours

This wasn’t fun.

Nothing was.

How we made it to the airport was a mystery. He had the tickets. I had my bag and an enormous lump of lead in my chest. An overwhelming need to cry.

I could still feel him, everywhere. Bruises, and not just those from the bathtub or the lamppost that had left a shiny kiss under my eye.

His stubble had scratched invisible blistering sores on my skin. His kisses burned where I remembered them.

“You said this wasn’t your first time,” he suddenly said as we sat at our gate, our flight number blinking reassuringly from a screen. London Heathrow. Home.

I needed to be home.

“Bastien?”

I shook my head. Enough of an answer. All I could muster. All the earlier bravado of telling him everything? Now gone. I couldn't say a word.

I could feel his breathing, his disappointment like a heavy cloak on my shoulders. He needed answers. He no doubt had more questions—ones I couldn’t answer because I honestly struggled to explain it myself. Now more than ever, I needed Juliet. I needed her to talk me down from the panic that was building. I needed her to calm me, because right now Jakewas nothing but a loud, white, buzzing noise that I couldn’t silence.

It was called guilt. And guilt was a fucking beast.

So I kept my mouth shut, boarded the plane and took the window seat. Leaning my head against the window, I pulled my hood over my head and pretended to sleep.

We didn’t make eye contact again until we were outside arrivals at Heathrow, and he muttered something about a taxi. I shook my head, desperate to escape this awful tension between us. I needed space, and I got it, as he walked away before I could get my mouth working and left me standing there, shivering despite the warm June evening.

I was getting married in two weeks.

I should have been blissfully happy. Instead, I threw up in a corner next to a lift and wiped my mouth, tears stinging my cheeks as I set off for the Tube and home. Wherever the hell that was.

By the time I got my key in the door, I had fully lost my marbles. Now this was why I was marrying Juliet, because she didn’t behave like other women. She didn’t do the wholekiss and hugand how was your day?thing. No. She took one look at me and crossed her arms.

Curls everywhere. Long gorgeous red hair and a tracksuit that hugged every curve, she was a stunning woman, and impressive. She ran marathons, did Judo at a national level…and ran a major financial company. She also crocheted and read books and somehow slept at night.

I needed to learn how to crochet. She said it calmed the soul. Sadly, my soul had buggered off years ago and been replaced by a bubbling cocktail of something that ran on insulin and chaos.

Mostly chaos.

“Sit down,” she commanded in a voice that meant business. She nodded towards the living room yet disappeared into the kitchen. Seconds later, she returned with a plate of sliced peppers, a pot of hummus and a glass of water. I drank it in one go.

“Don’t lie to me, because I’ll get the truth out of Jake anyway, although I’m a bit concerned, given I haven’t heard from him since last night. I’ll ring him later, but anyway, you have mischief and thunder written all over your face alongside that bruise. Andguilt. So make it good. Your fuck-up this time had better be worthwhile.”

She was expecting fun stories. Light-hearted banter and laughter. I had none of those to give.

“We should have gone to Paris,” I said quietly.

“Told you so,” she agreed. “But you were adamant you wanted a lads’ weekend and not a fancy cultural experience.”

“You had a very cultural experience last time we were in Paris, I recall.”

Juliet smirked at that. The French wine and losing her fancy handbag on the Metro were still sore points. But Edinburgh or Paris, the outcome would still have been the same. I would still have… Ugh. Fuck.

“It’s bad, isn’t it? You look awful.”

She could always read me. So could our dog Flossie. Yeah. Laugh all you want, I’d bought her for Juliet’s birthday and named her in front of all of our friends, who agreed it was apt because she was a small mongrel and looked like a rag of used dental floss. White, brown and messy. A bit like me. I suppose that’s why I’d chosen her. Juliet had threatened to kill me. Thelast thing she’d wanted was a pet. Who the fuck was going to walk that thing?

I walked her. I fed her. On occasion, Juliet patted her on the head, for show, rolling her eyes at my stupidity, but she’d kept her, because she loved me. Because she cared. Because she was a good and decent human being. A woman who loved me.

I made a weird noise like I was choking.

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