Chapter 15
I stretch as I wake and notice there is no Nate.
Something is weird. First of all, I'm alone - Nate’s already left the bed and I can hear him moving around downstairs.
We always wake up together and make love before getting out of bed – always.
We sometimes shower together and go down for breakfast. But not this morning. .. he’s gone.
I get up, slip his t-shirt on, and go downstairs to see what’s happening. I hope the girls are okay, they will be, Nate’s mum would have rang his landline if there was a problem.
When I enter the kitchen, I sense deep down in the pit of my stomach that something has gone horribly wrong.
The air is heavy and thick. He’s standing at the kitchen counter, fully dressed, drinking a cup of coffee, staring at the floor.
When he senses me there, he looks up and smiles at me, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes.
“What’s up, honey?” I ask uneasily.
“Nothing, why?” He’s lying, he’s being weird.
“Nate, I know there’s something up. What’s wrong?”
He stares at me for a minute and shakes his head. “Nothing’s wrong, I've just got to go - I need to pick the girls up.”
I check the time, it's 8:30 am. “It’s too early to pick the girls up yet, they’ll probably still be asleep from the late night they had. What’s going on?”
His eyes are hard and cold – a way I've never seen them before. “I want to go and pick my daughter up - I want to see her, is that too much to ask?” he snaps at me.
I'm floored.
He’s never snapped at me before.
I walk over and gently put my hand on his arm. Did he flinch?
“What on earth’s the matter?”
He shakes his head and stares at the floor again, but doesn’t say anything.
“OK, I'm getting worried now.” The anxiousness in my voice is obvious
He doesn’t say anything, we’re silent for a while, and I ask, “Are you coming straight back here when you’ve picked the girls up?”
He shakes his head. “I’ll get them both, then come and pick you up to take you home. I want to spend time with Lucia, just the two of us.”
He turns his back to me, putting his mug in the sink. I walk forward and slide my hands around his waist, but instead of welcoming me like he usually does, his body stiffens.
“What the hell, Nathan? Have I done something to upset you? You don’t want me to touch you, do you?” He’s rejecting me, and I have no idea why.
His shoulders droop, and he turns around, putting his arms around me. Why does he seem sad? “Sorry, babe, you’ve done nothing to upset me . . . you’re perfect. I love you so fucking much.” He sighs, “I’ll speak to you later, OK?”
I nod and release him. I want to cry. He gets his things together in silence and comes to peck me on the cheek.
“Bye.”
And he’s gone, leaving me very unsettled indeed. What could have happened between last night when he was in a funny, sexy, loving mood, to this morning acting like a stranger?
***
When he returns with the girls, he doesn’t get out of the car; he waits for me to get in and takes me straight home.
He says ‘bye’, but he's like a stranger. I get confirmation that I'm not imagining things and that something is definitely wrong when I don’t hear from him until nine that night. I make a point of not texting him or calling him, but I have a constant knot in my stomach. I call Amanda and Karen, fill them in on what’s happened, which confuses them both as well.
They drag me to the cinema with Jess, and we go to Nando's for dinner. What’s going on with him?
He’s on my mind the whole time - I try not to let them see that it’s bothering me.
I go over everything again and again in my mind, but I'm sure nothing that happened the day before could have triggered his behaviour.
I'm certain I didn’t do anything wrong; I got along well with his family. . . I can't understand it.
I get a text from him at nine.
Sorry I haven’t been in touch, Kate. I need to see you in the morning, after the school run. Is that okay?
What? I'm not ‘babe’ anymore? I don’t work Mondays, so I text him back
Yeah, that’s fine - see you then. Is everything ok?
It’s a while before I get one back:
Not really, I need to talk to you, see you in the morning. Night x
I reply
Love you xxxx
But I don’t get one back.
It's never good when you’re in a relationship with someone and they say they want to talk. I toss and turn all night, worrying about what’s going to happen tomorrow. I finally drift off to sleep when my alarm goes off at 6.30 am.
On the way to school, my heart stops a beat when I see him.
Lucia comes running over to Jess. “Guess what, Jess? Mummy’s back!”
I go lightheaded. Floored.
That’s why I didn’t see him yesterday, that’s why he was distant. I remember the distant text on Saturday night when we were going to sleep. It must have been her. Fuck.
What was it he said about her? That she has a hold over him that he can’t seem to shake - something like that. He closes his eyes slowly, probably gutted that Lucia got in there first with the info - I notice the panic in his eyes when he opens them.
I can't be here, everyone’s going to see me upset, and I could cry at any minute.
“I . . . I. . . . I need you to take Jess in with Lucia, please, Nate. I have to go.”
He starts to speak, and I hold my hand up to silence him; he closes his mouth again.
He sighs, “Ok. I’ll be round at yours straight after I've dropped them off.”
I don’t look at him, I bend to say goodbye to Jess and kiss her. “Love you, sweetheart, have a good day.”
“Love you, mummy - you have a good day too.”
Not much chance of that. I turn and leave without throwing a glance his way, my hands are shaking.
When I'm inside the safety of my own house, I shut the front door and lean back against it. It comes over me in a painful wave - the news I've just heard. My legs buckle, and I slide down the door until I'm sitting on the floor. I put my head in my hands and cry. This is it, he promised he wouldn’t hurt me, and now he’s going to dump me because she’s back on the scene.
My stomach churns, I'm going to be sick.
He breaks me out of my trance by knocking on the door. He tries the handle but can’t open it because I'm leaning my back against it.
I jump up, and he comes in. “Jesus Kate, what are you doing behind the door?”
I shrug and walk into my living room, sitting on a chair so that he can’t sit with me. I stare into space - I can’t bear to look at him, for fear of what I’ll see in his eyes.
“I'm sorry that you had to hear from Lucia that Nicki is back.” He speaks quietly.
I look at him through wet lashes. “I'm sorry that I did, too, Nathan. Why didn’t you tell me yesterday, you arsehole? I was worried all day - I thought I’d done something to piss you off.”
Guilt washes over his face. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. She texted me that she was coming home for a visit - I was hoping that I didn’t have to tell you - after what I’d said about her, I didn’t want you to be worried.”
“Well, that for a start is incredibly screwed up – you should tell me everything important, including the woman being back that you can’t say no to. Why are you telling me now?”
“Because she says she’s staying this time.” He says in a whisper.
Oh shit, this is bad for me . . . really bad. “Have you told her about us? That you’re seeing someone?”
Silence.
“That’s a ‘no’. Fucking talk to me, Nate - instead of standing there like a prick!” I yell, losing my temper.
He finally meets my eyes, nothing but pain in them. “She wants to give the whole family thing another go. She wants to move in with us and do the whole mum thing. She says she’s serious this time - that she’s changed . . . I . . . have no clue what to do, Kate, this is fucked up.”
“What do you want to do?” I ask quietly.
He stands and runs his hands through his hair. “Christ, Kate, I don’t have a fucking clue what to do. What if I tell her to get lost, and Lucia misses out on a chance to be with her mum? Surely I owe it to my daughter to give her a chance.”
“And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Does she want to be with you, too?”
“Yes.” I never knew one word could make me go cold all over and make my stomach churn.
“And do you want to be with her?”
He stares at me, “No, babe, I'm in love with you, remember? I don’t want her, I told you that when she’d be back this time, it would be different. My feelings for you haven’t changed, and they never will. But I don’t know if I can do it to Lucia... I should… I have to put her first.”
“So you believe it’s in Lucia’s best interest to have her mother around. You’re here to end things with me, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I'm sorry, Kate - I don’t feel as though I have a choice.”
I nod coldly. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt me. You said that if I gave you a chance, you wouldn’t hurt me this time.” My voice breaks, betraying how upset I am.
“Please, babe . . . please don’t make this harder than it is.” He pleads with me.
“Don’t call me babe. Don’t ever call me babe ever again.
” I'm silent for a minute, I barely recognise my voice when I whisper, “I let you in Jess’s life.” Bile rises in my throat at the thought of telling Jess that we’re not together.
“What the hell am I supposed to tell her? You’re going to make me seem like a piece of shit to my own daughter when I tell her you’ve dumped me for someone else. Never mind the whole school!”
“Don’t you think I already feel shit about this?
It's a mess. I don’t want to be with her, Kate, I want to be with YOU.
” He’s shouting now. “I wanted us to be together forever, I hadn’t got around to telling you that part yet - but I'm torn apart by this - I owe it to Lucia to give her the family life that she always should have had, with her mum.” He puts his head in his hands and fists them in his hair.
“You’d better go.”
His head shoots up, and his gaze pierces me. “I'm sorry. I do love you, I do . . . so fucking much, I want you to believe that. Please don’t ever doubt my feelings for you. I've never been as happy as I have with you these last few months.”
We stare silently at one another, me - too shocked to speak - him, stuck for words.
After what feels like an age, he stands and goes to the door. He stops before opening it and, still facing the door, says quietly, “I'm so sorry, Kate.”
He walks out, leaving me alone.
I burst into tears. I slide my feet to my bottom and wrap my arms around my legs. I stay like that until lunchtime, feeling numb and incredibly stupid.
I realise with a start that I can't go to school later and face them. There’s no way I can face him, or worse, Nicki, at the playground.
I phoned Patrick and asked if he could pick her up for me.
He can tell there is something seriously wrong – I would never ask him to finish work early otherwise.
He agrees and says he’ll bring her back here, and we can get a takeaway.
Ha, like I feel like eating. It seems a pattern is forming here; men think they love me, but change their minds and move on to someone else.
I thought this was it with Nathan; I felt it - he was happy, and I stupidly thought this was it for me, that he was the one.
Nicki is planning on settling down now, is she?
Well, let’s see how long that lasts for them all.
I hope she doesn’t hurt Lucia. As for Nate – well, he’s a big boy; he can take care of himself.
My stomach churns. Will they share a bed?
The one that I've been in many times. I can't believe that he believes she’ll be different this time, after all the promises he made to me about next time she turned up, how he wouldn’t fall for her empty words.
Turns out that his words were the empty ones.