Page 23 of Plight
“Oh never mind that. You can drink it later. Come on. Let’s leave these two to have a chat, yeah?”
Mum laced her arm with Jeanette’s and led her up the path to her car, and when they were out of sight, I copped a punch-slap-shove sequence to my arm.
“What the fuck, Lots? Yesterday we were getting married and today we are expecting a child?” She shoved me again. “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”
“Hey! Wait a minute!” I tried to secure her hands, mainly because they looked like icy poles, but also to stop any further abuse. “That wasn’t my fault.”
“THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT,” she growled.
“Okay. Well, technically, it—”
“Don’t say that.”
I paused. “Say what?”
“Technically.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Just don’t say it. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear any of this.” Danielle slapped her hands to her cheeks and pushed them together, and my heart all but spasmed. Every fibre in my being wanted to pull her to me and kiss those pouted lips again, to feel her in my arms again, to—
“What did you say to Helen? This is getting way out of hand,” she snapped.
I diverted my sight from her lips and cheeks. “Nothing. I promise. In fact, I was about to tell her the truth when she started talking about babies, and that’s when you and Jeanette turned up.”
“This has all gone way too far.”
“I agree.”
“Pfft.”
My eyebrow rose at her sarcastic reply. “What was that for?”
“Because I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t believe me?”
She nodded. “That’s what I said.”
“How about I don’t believe you.”
“In what way? I haven’t done anything?”
“Chris ring any bells?”
Danielle shifted on the spot. “What about him?”
“He’s not your boyfriend.”
“Ha! You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Remembering my new tactic for discovery, I, too, lied and deliberately held back information. “Whether he’s your boyfriend or not doesn’t matter to me. What matters is you lying. We’ve never lied to each other, so why now?”
She took a step back as if I’d slapped her across the face. “I’m … I’m not lying.”
