Chapter 25 Edith
EDITH
The next morning, Edith woke to find herself in Wyatt’s arms. He was sleeping soundly, his eyelids flickering as he dreamt.
In that moment, she knew she still loved him and that she had never stopped.
Being with him again last night was incredible, better than she remembered, and all the emotions she’d tried for so long to suppress had come rushing back.
They had kissed for hours and talked through the night, finally falling asleep as dawn broke on the horizon, the sky shifting from indigo to apricot.
They spoke of their past together, of the happiness they had once shared. They talked about the years since they’d met again, filling in the gaps in her knowledge. It had been good to learn more about him, even though it hurt to hear that there had been other women.
He hadn’t elaborated, but she had asked anyway, driven by a strange masochism. She wanted to know who he’d been with, to see if what she’d glimpsed on social media was true. Some of it had been real but some of it conjecture, rumours and her own imagination.
He had asked the same, and she had told him the truth.
There had been a few brief dalliances, but nothing that had ever shaken her, nothing that had made her feel that what she’d had with Wyatt was anything less than extraordinary.
Nothing and no one had ever compared to him — or to what they had shared.
She saw the relief on his face and felt her own as he finally spoke. ‘Edith,’ he said simply, ‘it was always you.’
Now, she pressed a kiss to his jaw, feeling the stubble beneath her lips, aware that she had tender skin along her collarbones from where that stubble had rubbed against her.
The thought sent shivers of delight through her, and she wished she could lose herself in that passion again right now.
But Wyatt was sleeping, and she needed coffee.
Sliding out of his arms, she covered his body with the duvet and then reached for her dressing gown. Leaving him was hard, even just for a bathroom visit and to make a drink, but she couldn’t lie there all day. With the wedding a week today, she had a lot to do.
Downstairs, she made coffee and toast then added a small dish of butter to a tray along with a pot of jam.
The butter was from a local farm, and the jam was homemade following a strawberry picking session the previous summer.
She’d learnt how to make jam and had ended up with so much of it she’d ended up giving some of it away.
Funny, the things she did when she had time on her hands.
The year before that, she’d learnt how to crochet and had made scarves and hats for all her friends.
And before that, she’d made paper flowers from scrap paper and had filled her house with them only to find that they got dusty and sometimes damp and that she had no room for more.
These hobbies were ways of spending her downtime.
Hobbies were enjoyable, but having a partner, and possibly a family would be a life she’d barely allowed herself to imagine.
These thoughts in her head, she carried the tray upstairs, her stomach flipping over at the thought that Wyatt was, after all these years, back in her bed.
She found him lying with his arms stretched above him on the pillow, a lazy smile on his face.
‘Morning,’ she said as she set the tray down on the bedside cabinet next to him.
‘Morning.’ He reached for her and pulled her on top of him, kissing her passionately in a way that made her weak. But then he tickled her, and she wriggled on the bed, giggling as he got the ticklish spots underneath her arms and on her sides.
‘St-stop!’ She laughed again and Wyatt stopped. He looked at her with one eyebrow cocked.
‘St-stop?’ He grinned. ‘You sure?’
She nodded, her arms at her sides like planks to stop him tickling her again. ‘No more, please.’
‘OK then.’ He stroked her hair back from her forehead and kissed her there so tenderly that her arms relaxed and she wrapped them around his neck.
‘Oh Wyatt… It’s so lovely to be with you like this again.’ Her voice shook with vulnerability, and she felt a dart of fear pierce her chest. What if he didn’t think the same and had already decided it had been a mistake?
But he moved closer, pressing his body along hers, and tilted her chin, so she was facing him.
Running a finger down her cheek, he gazed at her like she was the most precious thing he had ever seen.
Intense emotion filled his eyes, and she felt her heart race as she knew he was feeling it too.
The depth of emotion was still there. They had lifted the lid off the box containing their hearts and would struggle to close it again.
‘I’ve thought about this for so long, Edith. Last night was just…’ He bit his lower lip with his straight white teeth and closed his eyes. ‘How… How can two people fit together so perfectly? I mean, I knew we had chemistry, but I’d forgotten how incredible it could be when we’re together.’
‘I know. I’ve missed this.’ Her throat ached with sadness at the thought of all the time they’d lost. Why had they been such idiots?
Why hadn’t Wyatt contacted her or come back for her?
They could have avoided all that pain. And yet…
perhaps it was meant to be this way so they could fully appreciate what they had.
She moved closer and kissed him, her heart opening to him like the petals of a flower open to the sun. He kissed her back. His arms wrapped tightly around her as if he never wanted to let her go again.
This time… The words echoed around her mind and heart as they kissed and her fears fell away like autumn leaves falling from the branches of a tree.
A sudden noise startled them both, and they pulled apart. Wyatt’s brow furrowed; he shook himself and sat up. ‘My phone!’
She slid across the bed, then pointed at the doorway before mouthing Bathroom.
When she returned, she reached for a mug of coffee and carried it around the bed, sitting with her back against the headboard. She sipped slowly, waiting for Wyatt. He’d been quiet since she’d returned, but now he made a few murmurs into the phone. ‘OK, Mum. Speak soon.’
He ended the call and placed his phone face down on the bedside cabinet. He slumped back against the headboard, seeming to deflate. Edith tensed. This didn’t feel good. Where had the happy, relaxed atmosphere gone? The contentment she’d been enjoying before his phone rang?
‘What’s up?’ she said, sounding more upbeat than she felt. ‘Don’t you want your coffee?’
He hesitated, his frown deepening, his eyes flickering with something unreadable.
‘Wyatt?’ She searched his face for a clue, for some reassurance, but found only blankness, suggesting he had already gone far away in his head.
A deep chill settled over her, and she swallowed hard, the coffee turning bitter in her mouth and churning in her stomach.
‘Wyatt?’ Touching his arm, she hoped to bring him back to her, but she knew it was already too late. Something in that phone call changed everything.
He blinked as if snapping out of a trance, then moved to swing his legs over the side of the bed. Now, with his back to her, she saw him sigh, and he leant over, burying his face in his hands. When he sat up again, he tilted his body so she could see his profile. But he didn’t meet her eyes.
‘I’m so sorry, Edith. I need to go.’
Her heart stuttered. ‘W-what?’
‘I need to go. I’m sorry.’ He stood up and started getting dressed.
Edith shuffled under the duvet, pulled it up to her chin and gripped the edge of it tight.
How is this happening again?
Inside, a scream gurgled, low in her belly where it roiled around like the sea in a cave. Right now, it was trapped, and she swallowed hard to keep it there, but she knew it would need to emerge as soon as Wyatt was gone.
When he was dressed, he held out his hands.
‘I really am sorry. I thought I was OK to do this. I thought I could… could make this up to you but…’ He picked up his phone and gestured at it as if it had the answers to why he’d turned cold towards her.
‘But then my mother phoned and just… reminded me why I’m not…
why I can’t…’ He rubbed his forehead with an air of confusion.
‘Please believe me, Edith, I am so very sorry.’
She glanced at him, but seeing him standing there fully dressed, excusing his behaviour made her sadness turn to rage, and she muttered, ‘Go! Please… just… Go!’
Her voice was thick with pain. She saw him falter, but then buried her face in the duvet so she wouldn’t have to look at him.
‘Edith?’ There was distress in his voice too, but she couldn’t be there for him right now because her heart was breaking. If she looked up at him again and saw his pain, it would undo her, so she kept her face buried in the duvet. ‘I… I’ll go.’
She heard him leaving the room and, a while after that, the front door closing.
When the gate outside clinked shut, she dropped the duvet and rolled onto her side. Her hand found the place where his body had been, and she ran her palm over it, felt the imprint of his body and then pressed her face against the sheet.
It smelt of him.
Her pain roared inside and exploded from her in a noise that sounded like a wounded animal.
And then she started to cry — deep, heaving sobs that felt like they would never end.
She didn’t know how long she’d been there, but when she sat up again, the light in her bedroom had changed and she could hear the rattle of a delivery van on the cobbles outside. Her tears had stopped eventually, and now she felt hollow, like she’d emptied out everything she had to give.
She had two choices: surrender to the pain, or get up, get dressed and carry on.
It wasn’t like she couldn’t pull herself together.
After all, she’d done it before, and this time she was older and wiser.
The last word mocked her. Wiser she had not been, letting that man into her heart again, but at least it had ended before it had really begun.
They’d had one last night together, and she would view it as a final farewell rather than a mistake.
There was no time for regrets and no energy to waste. She was a grown woman, and she would damn well act like one.
Standing up, she went to the window and opened the curtains wide then pushed up the sash window. The fresh sea air gushed into the room, and she gulped it down, grateful for its cleansing salty tang.
Returning to the bed, she stripped off the duvet cover, the sheets, and pillowcases, then stomped downstairs with them and stuffed them into the washing machine. She would clean all traces of Wyatt from her home just as she would cleanse all traces of him from her heart and mind.
This time around, Wyatt would be no more than a whisper of a memory.
Just like the trace of a contrail left from a plane, he would soon disappear back to his city life and Edith could get back to normality. She would revel in the security of knowing that no man would ever be able to get close to breaking her heart again.