Chapter 18 Hestia #2
I’ve told Lil you’re back in town – why don’t you meet up? She extended her stay there too – coming back in two or three weeks I think. Here’s her number x
‘Hestia! Wait!’ Cal called out, following me down the road.
‘You know, Cal, I think it’s bad form to not finish the job,’ I muttered as I shot a quick message back. The thought of meeting Lil, someone connected to the ranch – to Jesse – was more appealing than I could admit to myself. ‘In fairness to you, she looked close.’
‘Stop it, for fuck’s sake,’ he hissed, pulling me to a halt, almost yanking my phone out of my hand.
‘Are you for fucking real?’ I yelled, only just resisting the urge to push him back.
‘Your mum calls me, thousands of miles away, to say that you’re back in hospital again and the business is in tatters, only for me to come home to find some random woman riding your face? Do you know how FUCKED UP that is?’
He stared back, a toxic familiarity in both of our poses, halfway between aggression and defence.
‘I was in hospital,’ he growled. ‘It just wasn’t quite as bad as Mum thought, okay? It’s been really fucking rough this last month, even with Becca—’
‘Oh fuck off, Cal,’ I spat, grabbing my case handle and beginning to drag it again.
‘Every bloody month is tough for you. You know what I’ve realized?
Being around normal, healthy, emotionally regulated people?
The life you live – that I lived with you – is the fucking symptom and the cause of everything rough in our lives. ’
‘Oh right, right,’ he mocked, following me, his mouth a hard line. ‘So is this the part where you tell me you’re going to join Lottie’s little fairy tale over there and start shacking up with some fucking American beefcake dick?’
I gave a bitter laugh, turning the corner onto the busier main road, looking out for a cab. I couldn’t bear the thought of lugging my case for the ten-minute walk to the studio with Cal bitching in my ear.
‘Not start, Cal,’ I corrected, walking again as no cabs appeared.
‘Continue. And believe me, no one’s been receiving fucking limp-wristed mediocre hand jobs on my watch.
’ It was petty, but I couldn’t help it. I never could when it came to him – that incessant need to wound and scar each other, then patch it up with sex until the next time, never quite healing in between.
That was why, as I heard his footsteps speeding up behind me, I wasn’t surprised when he grabbed me roughly by the shoulder and turned my head towards him.
His dark eyes burning even in the grey gloom, he brought his face so close to mine that the stubble on his jaw grazed my chin.
‘And how was he? Did he fuck you nice and hard, just like you like? Are you still aching down there? I haven’t forgotten how good that tight little—’
At one time, I would’ve leant into his hateful passion, knowing just how good the sex to follow would be. Instead, in a split second, I leant back, giving myself enough space to swing my hand up, and slapped the side of his face with resounding crack.
As he staggered back slightly, mouth open in shock, I pointed at him.
‘Don’t you fucking dare touch me or speak to me like that again, do you understand?’
Two women walking by behind him stopped. One of them called out to ask if I needed help. I shook my head, giving them a grim smile.
‘Now, I’m going to the fucking studio, and if you can’t behave yourself, I will call your goddamn mother first and an ambulance second, because that’s what you’ll need once she’s done with you.’
‘Christ,’ he swore, holding a hand to his face as he followed me. ‘Listen, Hestia – look, I’m sorry, okay? Can we just start again? Go and get lunch or drinks or something.’
I shook my head, marching on, knowing he’d have to behave once we got to the studio, with clients and our crew of artists there.
‘No. Not interested. We can talk business at the studio. Who’s in today?’
A tense pause followed, just the sound of the wheels on my case between us.
‘Look . . . um, that’s why we should go somewhere else instead. I can explain, but—’
I turned to give him a quick head shake.
‘Oh, no, no, no. You’re not getting away with anything – you’re going to grow a pair and straighten shit out right there. No persuading me into drinks and fuck knows what else in some overpriced shithole.’
I glanced around at the places and streets I knew so well, all coated in a film of grime from the pollution. Sirens blazed down towards Liverpool Street, and as I strode on, feet still entirely comfortable in my cowboy boots, I wondered what the hell I was doing here.
‘Before we go in, you need to know that it was a fuck-up on my part, okay? I’m owning that, no excuses.’
We turned a corner, the familiar black door of our studio straight ahead. Even as his words landed, they didn’t wholly compute. I just wanted to be back in my space, my place of creative calm, the simple meditation of my craft having been the salve to so many situations over the years.
Crossing the road as we approached, I realized it was dark inside.
I slowed to a stop, tapping my phone to check the time, suddenly wondering if jet lag had messed with my time perception. But no – it was 2.30 p.m. Way into our opening hours.
‘Where is everyone?’ I asked, glancing back to realize Cal had slipped back, allowing a greater distance to open between us. His eyes were wary, holding up a hand.
‘Wait – let me just explain first . . .’
Ignoring him, I took out my keys, jamming the right one into the lock before he could stop me, and walking into . . . another living nightmare.
It was trashed.
I let go of my case, leaving it in the doorway, and stepped through. My mouth was fully agape as I took in the utter carnage around me. It made our flat look like a fucking show home.
Graffiti was sprayed everywhere – even, I recognized with a start, Cal’s old tag sign from our uni days. It mocked my own hand-drawn cherry blossom on the back wall. Broken glass was scattered across the floor, cans and more rubbish strewn over every surface.
I went further in, heart in my mouth as I turned the corner into the back room, my room. My custom-made red chair was covered in what looked like vomit. It stank – of piss and stale beer. As I turned, unable to disguise my horror, Cal appeared in the doorway.
For one awful moment, I tried to rationalize it. A break-in? Squatters, even. But as I looked up at one of Cal’s own spray-paint tags right above his head, I knew.
For years we had swum together in a filthy pit of past trauma, each holding the other down until neither of us could see a way out.
Until Lottie had left – my one chink of light in the darkness, the one person I knew was always there, holding onto me through everything.
That had forced me to move, to let go of Cal’s grip and swim out, climb up.
And there, at the top, had been Jesse – and Lottie, Bailey, Cole, Dee, Luci . . . a whole other world I’d never allowed myself to imagine existed.
Now the contrast was gut-wrenchingly sharp.
Cal had always, and would always, be on a mission to self-destruct. The minute I’d decided to pull myself out of his fucking black-hole orbit was the minute he’d decided to literally piss all over the only good thing we’d actually shared.
‘You fucking bastard,’ I snarled, watching as he tried to think his way through the possible excuses.
‘It was just one of those things – listen, it was a heavy night, Dion got hold of a whole load of pills and the party got really fucked up . . . I didn’t mean it to go this far. We can get it cleaned up, I swear . . .’
I launched myself at him, restraint lost as I pushed him back into the wall, screaming at him in frustration as his hands closed around my wrists, forcing me back.
‘I fucking hate you,’ I yelled, fresh tears welling, stinging as they fell, the skin still raw.
‘I fucking hate myself too,’ he shouted back, struggling as I put all my weight into getting free of him. ‘Just like you hate yourself. Just like we’ve always been. You can’t change any more than I can. Look at you! The same thing every fucking time!’
With a final shove, I brought the hard heel of my boot down on his soft trainer. He let me go with a yelp, swearing as he stumbled.
‘No, it’s not,’ I shouted, moving back from him, closer to the front door. ‘It’s not the same. I don’t think I do hate myself, Cal. I hate what’s happened to me in my past, and I hate that I’ve wallowed in it for so long. But I’m done.’
I half stumbled, half ran out, swearing as I realized my damn case would prevent me from storming off in the way I so desperately needed to.
Pulling out my phone and navigating to the Uber app, I blindly booked the first one I could see, my hand shaking as I tapped the screen.
Moments later, Cal emerged, eyeing me warily.
‘I’m going to sort it out and clear it—’
‘Don’t you fucking dare go in there again,’ I hissed, internally begging for the cab to arrive, desperate to get away from him, from the fucking horror inside the place I’d loved.
‘I will deal with this, and when I’m done, I’m going to buy you out of the business and never see you again.
If you try anything, anything at all to stop me, I swear to fucking God that I will make your miserable life even more of a living hell.
’ I paused, seeing the Uber approach. ‘We are done, Cal.’
‘What do you want me to do? I can prove it, I can prove I was in hospital,’ he said, a new desperation in his eyes, pulling out his phone. ‘I’ll get someone to send me my notes or something.’
The driver opened the boot of the car, jumping out to help me lift my case in.
‘You still don’t get it, do you?’ I said, opening the back door, gripping it like a shield between us.
‘I didn’t come back for you. I don’t care –’ I stopped myself, making a sudden, new pact with myself.
I did care about him, deep down, but not in the way he might want.
‘I don’t want you to hurt yourself, Cal. But I didn’t come back for that.’
‘So what, then?’ he replied, throwing his hands up.
I shook my head as I sat down, quietly giving the driver the name of the first hotel that came to mind as he climbed back into his seat.
‘For our business. For everything we put into that,’ I replied softly. ‘And because I didn’t deserve to stay.’
He swore as I closed the door. The driver waited for a gap in the passing traffic to pull out.
‘I’m sorry, Hestia,’ Cal shouted, his voice muffled through the glass. ‘I can’t do it without you.’
I looked back at him – at five years of my life.
As the cab pulled away, I faced forward, determined to keep it that way.