Chapter 38
38
CRYSTAL
It was a confusing maelstrom of emotions I was feeling. I’d been so much happier – almost elated – since the weekend. For once, and for the very first time, the visit went a little better than usual. Of course, it was Christmas time – everyone feels better, don’t they, around Christmas. There was a definite warming, a very slight thawing of the ice. It wasn’t much, and it could just have been the general excitement, the decorations and the big tree in the room, the festive spirit in the air… but oh, I left feeling overjoyed, wanting to believe that we’d finally made a little bit of progress.
‘Don’t get carried away,’ Donna warned me – and I felt annoyed that she’d found it necessary to burst my bubble. I wasn’t getting carried away – I wasn’t stupid, I knew it had to be baby steps, I knew we probably still had a long way to go and that the next meeting would probably be a step backwards again. I just wanted to enjoy my happiness and my little ray of hope, while it lasted.
But now I was back, and now Gemma was acting strange. She suddenly didn’t want me to go round to her place so often. And it felt like she didn’t want me to take Poppy out on my own – she was so quick to insist she’d come along too on the trip to see the lights – just because of a couple of people getting the wrong impression about my relationship with her. I knew it was all because of Gemma’s parents – suggestions they’d been putting into her head. Her mum didn’t like me, for whatever reason, and her dad was suspicious about me purely because he’d never met me. They seemed to have too much influence over Gemma, if you asked me. And why was she suddenly suggesting coming to my place? She’d never asked before. All that nonsense about me living closer to the town centre – there was hardly anything in it. Then she made the point about the car seat – well, surely she could take it out of her car and put it in mine? No, it was nothing to do with that, or the distance. She was starting to get suspicious. Well, I’d have to be more careful; I didn’t want to give her parents any more ammunition against me. If Gemma was determined to come and have a nose around my place, I’d have to… sort everything out. Have a tidy-up. Yes – there were definitely things I’d have to hide.