Chapter 2 #3
She stared at it for a whole minute while a myriad of thoughts tumbled through her brain. With tightly pursed lips she pulled her phone from her pocket and jabbed at the screen.
‘What the actual fuck, Jack,’ she growled, her heart beating furiously. She never swore. ‘You think you can just move back in.’
‘Bets. I’m sorry. Mum got the wrong idea. She had Dad drop the bag off. I’ll come and get it.’
‘I’ll leave it outside the front door.’
‘Bets. We need to—’
Nope. With a stab of a finger she finished the call.
She did not want to talk to him. When her mobile rang back seconds later, she tossed it onto the console table.
Leaving the dogs in the hall secured behind the child gate on the bottom step, she stomped upstairs to the bathroom and went straight into the shower.
The hot, welcome stream of water washing the mud out of her hair hid the tears mingling with the soapsuds on her face.
What the hell was she going to do? Jack had every right to move back in if he wanted.
In fact, now they were no longer a couple, she probably ought to start looking for somewhere else to live.
The beautiful barn conversion, her home for the past two years, belonged to Jack’s family and was a small perk of working for the vets’ practice, but he’d lived here whenever he was home.
By the time she stepped out of the shower, she’d calmed down and had worked out a plan of action.
She picked up her phone, prepared to start looking at rental properties in the area.
A text message from Jack flashed up. She should have blocked him but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do that.
They’d been friends since the first day at secondary school and then more than friends when, at fifteen, she came to do work experience at the surgery.
They’d been together ever since. Nine years of her life with Jack in it.
How did you separate all of that? He was so interwoven into everything.
Their friendships. Families. Work. Home.
‘We need to talk. Meet me at Ashridge at the Bridgewater Monument at 6.00 tonight. Jack.’
No kiss, she noted and her heart cracked a little.
Typical Jack, assuming she’d jump to his orders.
But he’d always been the leader in their relationship.
Older, smarter and more sophisticated than her.
She’d grown up in social housing, as council houses were now called.
Despite that, people still knew that people like her – with no dad and a mum who worked as a school dinner lady and school cleaner and claimed benefits – were poor.
Poor on its own might have been surmountable, but poor and common was much harder.
Theirs was the house with the rusting washing machine on the front doorstep and a mountain of rubbish on the lawn.
Theirs was the house the police were called to when her mum fell out with her latest boyfriend.
Theirs was the house the neighbours complained bitterly about.
Bets and her sister were the children people felt sorry for because of what polite people called their mum’s chaotic lifestyle.
It had been one of those golden miracles that, despite her infamous family background, Jack had chosen her and had guided her through their teenage years and early twenties.
Without him, she would have had no idea how to navigate the world.
He’d been her best friend for ever. Another tear trickled its traitorous way down her cheek and she swallowed hard, puckering her mouth, determined not to cry.
Tess came and leaned against her leg, the weight of her body heavy.
Bets knelt down and buried her face in the dog’s neck, putting both arms around her, giving her a hug.
She sat for a moment breathing in Tess’ familiar doggy smell.
Dexter wandered over and laid his head on her shoulder. She huffed out a teary laugh.
‘Thanks, guys.’ She rubbed Dexter’s head and took a deep breath. ‘Onwards and upwards, eh?’
She rose to her feet and padded through into the kitchen to her secret stash of doggy treats.
‘Here you go.’ She held out her hand with the bacon bites that always smelled good enough to eat, although she’d never risked it.
Pushing her shoulders back, she told herself she’d get through this because that’s what she did.
She hadn’t told a soul that she and Jack had broken up, although Ella probably guessed things weren’t good.
There was a point earlier in the year when she’d almost confided in Ella, but then Ella had had her own emotional issues with Devon at the time and it didn’t seem quite right for Bets to share her own heartbreak.
Her phone buzzed again.
‘Please come. I think I might have made a terrible mistake.’
Her foolish heart leapt. Did he want to get back together?
Fool that she was, she’d take him back in an instant.
Restore the status quo. Nothing would have to change.
Relief coursed through her. Suddenly she could see the future again.
For the first time in a long time, she felt she could breathe just that bit easier. Everything was going to be all right.