Page 61 of Rewrite the Stars
‘It’s what?’
‘Mine and Tom Farley’s,’ I continue, ‘and I’ve been living with the guilt ever since. I stayed here for Matt and I let Tom go, but I never wanted to, Jack. He didn’t want to leave me and I didn’t want to leave him. And, ever since that day, I’ve wondered if letting him go was the right decision.’
Chapter Twenty
Jack sits with his head in his hands. The clock ticks on the wall behind him, making a poignant yet eerie sound to break the silence as I wait for him to speak.
‘You know, at first I wasn’t even upset about this,’ he says, every word already sounding like glass breaking on my ears. ‘There’s no big issue at all that you’ve a past with this man, or even that he wrote you a song – because let’s face it, he’s pretty darn good at that. It’s his job.’
I know there’s a ‘but’ coming.
I’m right.
‘But what reallyiseating at me right now is how you went along with us going there last night knowing you had this pretty big history with him and you didn’t even say. It’s like you’ve something else to hide?’
For a split second I thought that Jack was going to just shake this all off, but of course he isn’t. I’ve made a fool out of him and a liar out of me.
‘How did you put up such a front, Charlotte?’ he asks me. ‘How did you not say when you first heard that song on the radio that you knew him so well, when we danced and sang along to it here in our own kitchen, when Sophie suggested going to hear him sing in a massive arena? There were so many times when you could have told me about his big love story with you and the link to Matthew’s accident but you didn’t! Have you something to tell me about the two of you? Is there something you don’t want to admit still going on in your head with him? I don’t get it. I just don’t get it, Charlotte. You’re a really good actor, I’ll give you that.’
And I’m also a liar and a cheat with my sneaky ways of staying silent.
I knew I didn’t deserve someone like Jack. I hear my mother again reminding me how I earn so much and then throw it all away.
‘I mean, who evenisthis guy?’ he asks, his eyes widening now as a million thoughts go through his head. ‘How did you get ready here last night, all dressed up for our night out, knowing all along that the singer in the band “broke your heart” and was a catalyst in your brother’s accident and you didn’t even mention it? I can’t understand it and I don’t know if I ever will! That’s messed-up shit, Charlotte! Why didn’t you just tell me? Do you still have feelings for him? Do you?’
I feel tears coming, but there’s no point crying now. In my silence over Tom I managed to create this big web of lies and now I’ve hurt my husband, the person I love more than anyone else in the world.
‘I didn’t know where to start,’ I say to him.
‘How about just with the truth?!’ he says, his voice rising up a few notches, louder than I’ve ever heard him speak to me before. ‘How about telling me that the lead singer in the band we spent all of last night listening to was in fact your ex-boyfriend and that his history with your family is so complicated that he had to flee Dublin and make a new start rather than hang around and mop up the mess he helped to make here?’
He paces the floor now while I stand here feeling dumb and stupid in my dressing gown.
‘He didn’t flee,’ I tell him, in a monotone voice, like a school kid caught playing truant who has given up and pleaded guilty as charged. ‘He got an audition in London. He wanted me to go with him but I didn’t want to leave Matthew. We drifted apart … and then I met you.’
Jack’s face shifts from an expression of deep wonder to sheer frustration as he tries to make sense of this all. He keeps pacing the floor. I am jumpy and nervous but I need to feel what he is going through. I need to feel what I am putting him through.
‘But why not justtellme at the time?’ he asks me. ‘Why the big secret? All you said about that row in Loughisland was that it was over a mutual friend and that Matthew stormed off. Why didn’t you tell me the rest? It’s because you still have feelings for him, isn’t it? You just said it yourself that you’ve always wondered if you made the right decision by letting him go. Did you make the right decision?’
I can’t answer that. And I can’t say I’ve feelings for Tom because I don’t know that for sure. I don’t know what to think any more – only that I wish we hadn’t gone to the concert.
‘Matthew was in love with him,’ I try to explain, shouting a bit myself now. ‘I didn’t know it and it’s why they broke up. I mean, it’s why the band broke up. But Tom was in love with me and … I was going to tell you all this, Jack. I should have, but—’
‘But nothing!’ he interrupts me. ‘We weren’t even together at the time so why complicate it all and leave it till now when we’re married, when I’m about to fly off to Canada to do something that means the world to me and my family, and when I’m just after sitting through two hours of music including a song that I’d no idea was about my wife!’
Ouch.
‘Can you imagine how that makes me feel?’ he says, looking right into my eyes now. ‘It’s like I don’t know you right now, Charlotte! I’ve no idea what is going on in that head of yours any more! No one does! Do you still talk to him? Or do you still love him, Charlotte? Answer me! Do you?’
I purse my lips tight as tears burst out of my eyes and I shake my head quickly.
‘I love you, Jack,’ I whimper, but his eyes tell me I haven’t answered his question.
He storms out of the kitchen and I try to catch my breath. Deep, uncontrollable gasps come from the pit of my stomach and I make my way into the living room where I crawl into a ball, wondering how the hell I managed to create such a mess. Jack is an educated, intelligent, understanding, beautiful man and yet I couldn’t bring myself to tell him one of the most life-changing moments that ever came my way. And I can’t even think of a reason why.
Instead I tangled everything up and went to a concert looking for some stupid closure on an issue that should be long dead and buried in my head. Why am I still haunted by Tom Farley? Why can’t I just let him go forever? Why can’t I be straightforward and live in the present instead of wondering about the past? I can’t stand myself right now. I can’t interpret my own feelings, never mind explain them to my husband. I’m such an idiot. I’m about to ruin the best thing I’ve ever had and I’ve no idea how to stop myself.
I’m so utterly confused and twisted up inside from my head to my toes. I’ve no clue what to do or what to say to my husband who is upstairs getting ready to leave me for the first time since our wedding day. The thought of him being so far away is enough to spring more tears in my eyes but I can’t go on feeling sorry for myself.
