Chapter 36
36
CRYSTAL
I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to completely break down in front of Gemma – in front of everyone in the pub – and if I’d let her continue with her so nice, so well-intentioned plea for me to open up and talk to her about what was upsetting me, I knew I would have done – I’d have broken down, and I’d have talked. I’d have told her everything. It was playing so heavily on my mind – the next visit, the crucial one we always made just before Christmas – knowing how it was going to turn out, how I was going to feel, how it would then affect me afterwards, all over Christmas, despite Gemma’s lovely offer to let me spend Christmas Eve with her and darling Poppy. I was trying, really trying, not to dwell on it but I just couldn’t stop, picturing the scene, picturing it all going wrong again, as it always did, however much I longed for a different outcome, however hard I tried.
I wondered, after I’d got back to work, tidied myself up and tried to calm down, whether she’d guessed. But how could she have done? OK, so she’d guessed that the weekends when I told her I couldn’t see her were because of something that was difficult for me. Something upsetting. But she couldn’t possibly have known what it was. It was nice of her, of course, to try to encourage me to talk about it. We were supposed to be friends – best friends, she always said – and it was what friends did, shared their worries with each other. I was so tempted, for a moment, to open my mouth and let it all pour out; so tempted, that I had to just get away, as fast as I could. And I really couldn’t imagine how I’d be able to see her for lunch as usual the next day; it would have been impossible to carry on as if nothing had happened. I couldn’t face it. I messaged her later to apologise, made an excuse about having a virus, and saying I’d see her after the weekend.
It was going to be a long, long week – not going to Gemma’s house, not seeing my Poppy, not even hearing anything about her from Gemma. But I decided it was the only way I’d be able to get through it.