The Half Sister(79)

‘Does he treat you badly?’

She nods. ‘He’s not happy and he takes it out on me.’

‘Physically?’

‘Sometimes, but the emotional abuse is just as hard to take. But I won’t let him break me because I have the children to think about – they’re my world.’

‘Would you leave him?’ asks Justin earnestly.

She falls back onto the pillow and sighs. ‘If I was brave enough, but it would break the kids’ hearts and I don’t think I could ever do that to them.’

‘I thought that staying with my wife until my youngest left high school was the best thing to do,’ says Justin. ‘But in reality, it just prolonged the agony for all of us. The boys have both since told me that they wished we’d called it a day well before we did, to spare them all the arguments and uncomfortable silences.’

‘They sound like sensible kids,’ says Lauren.

‘They are,’ smiles Justin. ‘I’m very lucky.’

Lauren sits up and swings her legs onto the floor. ‘I should go. I need to get home before Simon does.’

Justin trails a finger down her spine, making her whole body tingle. ‘Where does he think you are?’

‘He doesn’t know I’ve gone anywhere. He’s working in town tonight on a shop fit and I’m hoping that he’ll be none the wiser when he comes in.’

‘Maybe he’s not where he says he is either,’ says Justin with raised eyebrows.

Lauren quickly steps into her jumpsuit, not wanting Justin to see any more of her than he has already.

‘Do you not think I’ve seen it all?’ he asks, as if reading her mind.

Lauren laughs nervously. ‘Of me or women in general?’

‘Of you,’ he says, smiling. ‘Do you think I don’t know every inch of your body?’

‘That was a long time ago,’ she says.

‘And yet it’s still exactly the same.’

She’s about to give a self-deprecating retort but stops and smiles instead. Maybe Kate’s finally getting through to her. The thought of her sister brings with it a fresh surge of hurt and regret, that seems to settle in her chest. She pads barefoot into the living room to find her handbag, aware of Justin watching her every move.

‘When can I see you again?’ he calls out after her.

She looks at her phone and sees six missed calls from Kate and two from Simon. ‘Oh my God!’ she exclaims, feeling as if the air’s being sucked out of her. ‘Something’s happened.’

‘What’s wrong?’ asks Justin.

‘I need to go,’ she says, in a blind panic to get her shoes on. ‘I shouldn’t be here.’

Justin jumps up out of bed and takes hold of her, pleading with her to look at him. She shakes her head. ‘I shouldn’t have come. What the hell was I thinking?’

‘Hey, it’ll be okay,’ he says.

An impending sense of doom bears down on her, and she can’t see straight. ‘That’s easy for you to say,’ she says, turning away from him.

Justin looks hurt – the bubble they were so happily cocooned in well and truly burst. ‘Don’t leave like this,’ he says, as she pulls away.

She needs to get away from him. She needs to get away from here, back to her babies – where she belongs.

‘This was a mistake,’ she says brusquely. ‘A terrible mistake.’

‘That’s not how it felt to me,’ says Justin, pulling on a pair of sweatpants.

‘That’s because you’re not married, with children who depend on you,’ she snaps, close to tears. ‘Who right now need their mum.’

‘Calm down,’ he says. ‘You’re jumping to conclusions.’

‘Look!’ she shrieks, showing her phone to him. ‘Something’s happened and I’m not there, because I’m here fucking you.’

He looks as if he’s been slapped.

‘What kind of mother does that make me?’

‘This isn’t about you and me,’ he says. ‘You’ve got to try and keep the two things separate.’

‘It’s one and the same thing,’ she says, moving towards the front door. ‘If Simon finds out about this, he’ll kill me, just before he kills you.’

‘Don’t let other people tear us apart again,’ he pleads. ‘We’ve let them do it once and look at what we’ve missed out on.’

She stops at the door and slowly turns around with tears in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry for what my father did,’ she cries. ‘I will never forgive him for lying to you and telling you that I’d had an abortion, but we’re deluding ourselves if we believe that we’d still be together today if he hadn’t.’

Justin looks at her with a vexed brow.

‘We were young,’ she goes on, oblivious to his bemusement. ‘You were my first love and I will always love you, but it was a mistake to think we could recapture what we had.’

‘Take whatever time you need to get this all straight in your head,’ he says. ‘But know that I’ll be here, waiting for you.’

She looks at him, knowing that he means it, and if it were possible for a heart to literally break, she’s sure she’s just felt the first crack. She kisses him long and deep, as if it is the last time she’ll ever see him, before opening the door and running down the corridor.