Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Amelia stood at the kitchen counter, her arms folded, half-listening as Callum paced the length of the room. His voice had risen steadily since the moment he’d arrived back from wherever the hell he’d been, angry and wounded, but it wasn’t remorse she was hearing. It was entitlement. It always was.
“I don’t understand what she’s playing at,” he snapped, running a hand through his hair. “She won’t even talk to me, Mum. You must have said something. You must have told her not—”
“I told her the truth!” Amelia cut him off without even turning to face him.
Callum scoffed. “What truth?”
“That you made your bed. That you left a good woman with a mess of trauma and scars, and now you think you can come waltzing back into her life like it’s your God given fucking right to do so.”
Callum stopped pacing and threw up his hands. “I just want to make things right.”
Amelia turned and trained her eyes on her son. “The world doesn’t work that way, Callum. You don’t get to break her heart and then expect some kind of redemption because it suits you. Jo has moved on.”
He scoffed. “With you, by any chance?”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, come on. We all know what you’re like. You’ll sleep with anything if it fucking moves!”
Amelia pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to count through the sheer fury she felt at her son’s attitude towards her. He’d been like this for a long time now, often allowing his anger to overtake him whenever he felt like it.
“You make out like you’ve got your shit together and you’d do anything for anyone, but really…you only care about yourself. You’ve always been that way. It’s no wonder Dad behaved the way he did!”
Oh, that hit Amelia harder than anything else she’d ever been through.
Those moments when she cowered in the corner flashed before her eyes…
and then came the absolute heartbreak. She hadn’t just lost Jo, she was losing Callum, too.
She stepped closer and looked him in the eye.
“You may think that it was acceptable for your father to beat me to within an inch of my fucking life, but don’t you dare accuse me of being to blame for it. ”
“Mum, I—” Callum clasped his hands behind his neck, his eyes wide. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. I-I didn’t mean that.”
Amelia stepped closer, fury rising like heat through her chest. “You cheated. You lied. And now that your shiny new romance has worn off, you want to come crawling back? You’re more like your father than I thought. I’d say Jo had a lucky escape.”
Callum flinched. “That’s low.”
“Is it? Or is it finally the truth you’ve spent your life avoiding?” Amelia’s voice cracked, but she didn’t stop. “You think you can do what you want without consequence, that women will always wait around for you to get your act together. But Jo’s not going to wait, Callum. And she shouldn’t.”
“I just—”
Amelia held up a hand. She was done with this. She was done with him. “I think you should find somewhere else to stay. I don’t want to look at you anymore.”
Callum frowned. “Y-you don’t mean that.”
“You know what, Callum? I actually do.” Amelia stood close to the kitchen door, a habit she’d adopted a long time ago when a man raised his voice to her.
“I barely survived what he did to me, I spent months in hospital going through rehab, and you think you have the right to say what he did was okay? That he was justified in his behaviour because he filled your head with shit and accused me of having an affair.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t going to cut it. I lay in a hospital bed unable to open one eye because it was so swollen, and barely managing to open the other…
continuing to work so I could provide for you.
So I could make sure you had everything you needed, knowing he’d been arrested and the one person you looked up to had been taken away.
I felt guilty for that. I felt as though I’d broken your world.
” Amelia wiped tears from her face as she looked back at her son.
“But the truth was…he’d repeatedly tried to kick me, your mother, to fucking death. ”
Silence.
And then her phone buzzed on the counter behind her.
She tore her gaze away from Callum and snatched it up before he could see it, her chest tightening as she saw the name flash across the screen.
God, it was Jo.
I need to see you tonight. Please. I’ll do anything to see you tonight.
Her breath caught in her throat.
“What?” Callum asked, peering over her shoulder.
Amelia’s hands shook slightly as she read the message again just to make sure she hadn’t imagined it.
But Jo’s message was there, clear as day.
Amelia didn’t reply. She didn’t even think.
Instead, she walked to the front door, snatched up her car keys from the hook, and pulled on her coat with trembling fingers.
“Mum?”
She turned to face him with one hand on the door. “I need you to leave. I’m done with you. And me? Well, I’ve got somewhere important that I need to be.”
Callum looked bewildered as he stared back at her. “You’re serious? You’re just gonna—”
“I’m not discussing Jo with you ever again.” Amelia shook her head. “You and I are done, Callum. Get your belongings and get out of my fucking house.”
Amelia was out the door before the conversation could continue.
The air hit her lungs, and she finally felt alive again, but her son’s opinion of her remained firm in her mind.
She hadn’t gone back to that place in a long time, and right now, it couldn’t affect the rest of her day.
Jo needed to see her, and Amelia would always show up, fully present, when that was the case.
She slid into her car with nothing but her phone and keys on her person. No bag, no plan, no defences. Just a woman with her heart in tatters, driving back towards the only person who’d ever made her feel like Amelia and Lia were worth loving at all.
Jo had been pacing the living room for over twenty minutes.
Her phone sat on the coffee table, the screen facing up, but she couldn’t look at it without feeling sick.
She wasn’t even sure why she’d sent that text to Amelia.
It had burst out of her like a reflex—raw, desperate, honest—and now it was just there…
hovering between them like a bomb waiting to go off.
She wrapped her arms around herself, stopping at the window to peer through the blinds for the third time in two minutes. What if Amelia didn’t come? But what if she does?
Jo pressed her forehead to the glass and closed her eyes. She didn’t know what she was doing anymore. One minute, she was furious, heartbroken, and betrayed. The next, she was aching for Amelia like her body only knew her.
She missed her. Not just in bed and not just at Satin.
She missed the woman who, at one time, used to bring wine over and sprawl out on her couch.
The woman who often challenged her to say what she really meant.
The woman who looked at her like Jo wasn’t someone who needed fixing, but someone who had already survived the worst of it.
Jo pulled back from the window and rubbed at her eyes. She was tired of feeling this way. Torn in two. Wishing Lia had never existed, then wishing she could fall back into that dark room just one more time.
“Fuck!”
Her flat still smelled like Amelia. Her perfume lingered in the fabric of the couch where she’d sat and cried the other night, clinging to Jo’s senses as though it didn’t know how to let go either.
Jo sat in the very same spot, staring at her flat door.
Her leg bounced anxiously as one hand tugged the hem of her hoodie down.
God, she needed to pull herself together, whether Amelia showed or not.
“What the hell are you going to say if she does show?”
Thanks for ruining everything?
I miss you so much it physically hurts?
I don’t know how to hate you properly because I still want to kiss you every time you look at me?
She scrubbed her hands over her face and exhaled a calming breath. She wasn’t okay, not by a long stretch of the imagination, and if Amelia didn’t turn up tonight…
Jo froze when there was a soft knock at the door. She eventually rose to her feet, her knees barely carrying her, and moved across the room. She didn’t enjoy the way her heart raced, because right now, nothing was okay between them. She would have preferred her heart to race for other reasons.
When she opened the door, Amelia gazed back at her. She was still beautiful, and she was still as composed as ever, but her eyes were swollen, her coat was unbuttoned and hanging off one shoulder, and she looked like she’d left in such a rush that she hadn’t even thought to bring her bag.
Jo’s lips parted. So many things she wanted to say were just waiting to be unleashed, but they remained lodged in her throat. She hadn’t expected Amelia to look so broken standing in front of her.
Jo finally stepped aside. “Come in.”
Amelia stepped past her carefully, almost as though she didn’t trust her legs to carry her. Her eyes skimmed the room, not quite landing anywhere, and Jo could see the tremble in her hands as she pulled her coat tighter around herself.
God, this is going to be a tough conversation.
Jo closed the door and turned around, watching Amelia as she stood in the centre of the living room, looking like she didn’t belong there anymore. And maybe she didn’t, but the ache in Jo’s chest told her she wanted her to.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get here any sooner,” Amelia said, not meeting Jo’s eyes. “Things aren’t great at home, and I just needed to pull over for five minutes to get myself together.”
“What’s happened?”
“It’s not important. Not right now. You texted…and here I am.” Amelia did look up this time, slowly, her bottom lip trembling as she locked eyes with Jo. “Is everything okay? I didn’t think you wanted to see me again.”
Jo swallowed. “I didn’t, not really, but I couldn’t stop thinking about everything.”