Chapter 20 #2
Ryan was already unloading the cases. I moved to help him, but Charlotte reached him first, her hand brushing his arm as she spoke quietly.
I hesitated. Unsure where I fitted.
They turned and headed towards the house, and I fell into step behind.
Charlotte dropped the case she was carrying in the hallway and moved straight into the kitchen, flicking on the light, filling the kettle with easy familiarity.
‘Tea?’ she asked, already reaching into cupboards.
‘I don’t know what I’d do without you,’ Denise said, squeezing her arm as she passed. ‘Charlotte has been such a help while you’ve been away,’ she added, turning to Ryan.
‘Of course,’ Charlotte said. ‘You and Martin are like family to me.’ She glanced at me. ‘Are your family happy to have you home from Malta, Kirsty?’
‘Um.’ I hesitated. ‘They’re up in Birmingham.’
Denise looked surprised. ‘Oh. So you’re not staying with them?’
I shook my head. ‘No. We’re not really that close.’
‘Well, I guess we’ll have to figure out where to put you then.’
I blinked.
‘We weren’t expecting visitors,’ she added.
‘She can sleep with me,’ Ryan said quickly.
‘In your single bed?’ Charlotte tutted, as she set the kettle to boil. ‘She’ll be better off in the guest room.’
I stared at her. Who was this woman? The question circled my brain again. And how did she know what his bed was like?
‘I’ll find you some sheets,’ his mum said wearily.
‘Leave it,’ Charlotte said gently, placing her hand on Denise’s arm and guiding her to a chair. ‘You sit down and rest. I’ll sort her out once I’ve made you a nice cup of tea.’
Her. That’s who I was to them. Not Kirsty, not even Ryan’s girlfriend. Just ‘her’.
‘This is you,’ Ryan said, opening the door to the guest room and setting my suitcase just inside.
‘Thank you,’ I said, stepping past him as I looked around the room. Faded wallpaper, bleached unevenly by the sun. A floral duvet. Heavy wooden furniture, slightly chipped but carefully polished. It all fitted perfectly in the old farmhouse. It belonged.
Unlike me.
‘Why didn’t you tell your mum I was coming?’ I asked quietly, as I turned back to Ryan.
‘I did.’
‘Then why was she so surprised?’
‘She’s got a lot on her mind right now.’
‘But she didn’t even seem to know you had a girlfriend.’
He hesitated. ‘It’s hardly the time to tell them we’re planning to get married,’ he said, lowering his voice to a whisper.
‘You could have invited them.’
‘You didn’t invite your family.’
‘That’s different,’ I said quickly. ‘They wouldn’t have come. Even if they had…’ My thoughts trailed away. It was too complicated to explain what their presence would have been like.
Dad’s ambivalence. Janine’s cautionary reminders. It would have crushed me. I might have lost my nerve to even go through with the wedding at all.
‘It wouldn’t have been fair to have my family there and not yours,’ he protested.
I frowned. ‘So, you had wanted them there?’ The question tore at me to even ask. The possibility that I’d misread what he’d wanted, what he’d needed, made my chest tighten.
Had I been selfish? Had I only thought about my own needs?
He shrugged. ‘Might have been nice to share it with them.’
I swallowed. ‘But I thought we wanted it to be just us,’ I said, clinging to the hope that I couldn’t have been completely oblivious. Completely wrong. ‘I thought you wanted that.’
‘I did.’
Relief loosened the tightness in my chest. Maybe I hadn’t misread everything between us. Maybe we really had wanted the same things. At least at the time.
‘But you don’t any more?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
The sense of relief evaporated as quickly as it had come, as more doubts tightened their grip. If he’d changed his mind about this, what if he’d changed his mind about us too?
‘If you can’t even tell them we’re engaged, how would you ever tell them we were married?’
‘The timing isn’t right,’ he said with a slight shrug.
His words made sense. His dad was in the hospital. His mum was stressed and worried. Sharing our excitement right now would have been selfish. But I still needed more certainty. More reassurance.
I studied him carefully. ‘You’re sure that’s all it is?’
‘What else do you think it is?’ His voice was edged with impatience rather than reassurance.
I hesitated. Something inside me told me not to say it. Not to put my fears into words. Not to say them aloud. To make them real.
But I couldn’t stop myself.
‘Maybe you’re having second thoughts.’
The words hung between us, sharp and quiet.
The memory lingered as we gathered in the hallway and Denise pulled Ryan into a tight hug. ‘Come home tomorrow,’ she said softly. ‘Your father would love to see you.’
‘I will,’ Ryan promised without hesitation.
She stepped back, her hand lingering on his arm. ‘Just don’t tell your dad.’ Her gaze drifted to me. ‘You’ll kill him.’
I flinched as she repeated her earlier warning. Then she turned away and slipped out of the door without even a goodbye.
I swallowed as Ryan clicked the door closed behind her. To us, our ceremony in Malta had felt like we were practically married now, but to Ryan’s family I was still nothing more than I had always been. An inconvenience.
And nothing was ever going to change.
Ryan leaned against the door and closed his eyes. I moved towards him, threading my arms around his waist.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked quietly.
He shook his head slowly. ‘What if Mum’s right?’ he asked quietly. He opened his eyes and met my gaze. ‘What if we rushed into this?’