Chapter 34 #2
‘You’ll always have a home here,’ she vowed. ‘It isn’t the same, but it’s true. You and Vik are going to have a happy, full life, and the only person missing out will be her if she’s too ignorant to see it.’
‘Aye, I know. Thank you, Rae.’ She pulled away to savour another bite of the food, laughing when Milly pined for a taste.
Rae shooed her away, rolling her eyes when it only spurred the dog onto her hind legs so she could beg more effectively.
In the end, she was awarded a bit of pasta, and dashed off with her tail wagging triumphantly.
‘I’m pissed off that Struan just up and left,’ Martha admitted after a few moments of quiet. ‘He’s not due in Glasgow until tomorrow, but he couldn’t get out of here quick enough.’
Rae frowned. ‘If you called him, I’m sure he’d come back.’
She shook her head. ‘He already texted me that he’s on the road.’
Rae’s chest strained with that distance now she knew it was there. He was gone. She wouldn’t see him again for weeks. She’d convinced herself they’d needed the space, but now, she felt hollow and alone.
Still, he deserved the breather. He had more to deal with than just her. ‘He’s hurting, too, after what your mum said. Probably just needed space.’
‘I know.’ Martha’s words were suddenly terse, causing Rae to bristle. ‘It’s not the same, though. Mum is disappointed he’s a commitment-phobe, not that he loves the wrong person.’
He hadn’t sounded like a commitment-phobe today. In fact, Rae hadn’t doubted his capacity to care for someone once, since all this had begun. He wasn’t the flaky flirt Martha had always made him out to be. He was steady as the river that ran through the orchard.
She didn’t know how to say that without stirring an argument, so she kept her mouth shut.
The truth brimmed in her anyway, climbing up her throat with every fast beat of her heart.
She could tell her now, rip off the band aid…
but Martha had already been through enough today.
Enough that Rae had brushed aside her own hurt from the car ride there, when Martha had all but called her pathetic.
‘And she’s got a point,’ Martha continued. It felt like she was prodding a wound over and over, every word sharp and pointed. ‘At least I’ll have a family, even if it isn’t the one Mum wants for me. At least I take my life seriously.’
Rae set down her plate again, fingers furling into her palms. She couldn’t do this.
She couldn’t lie, and she couldn’t listen to Martha criticise Struan like being alone somehow meant he – and she – were less than.
‘Do you think that of me, too? That I don’t take my life seriously because I haven’t tried to find a partner? ’
‘No. You have your career.’
‘And if I didn’t? Because I’m walking away from it, Martha, and I don’t know how long for. I might never be a chef again. I might stay on this farm for the rest of my life, alone, and I’ll be doing far less important things than rescuing people the way Struan does.’
‘Why are you getting upset?’ Martha questioned, but her voice was low. She already knew the answer.
‘Your mum was out of line today,’ Rae said, ‘but so are you. You’re so unfair to him. You have no idea how good he is.’
‘But you do?’
‘Yes!’ It spilled out before she could stop it. She gulped, folding her arms around herself and picking at a midge bite on her shoulder until she felt the blood under her fingernails. God, she was tired. Of putting people down, of pretending.
It was more than that, though. It was all of it.
She found a new, fierce resolve as she met Martha’s gaze.
‘You blamed me for our friendship deteriorating, but it was you, too. You’ve always been so focused on relationships, with Cam and everyone that came after.
You act like the rest of us are doing something wrong for prioritising different things.
You have no fucking idea how isolating it is to always be the single friend.
’ Her voice shook. ‘You have no idea what it’s like to have to adapt our communication every time you date someone else.
As soon as you get into a new relationship, I know I won’t hear from you nearly as much.
I’m glad that you’re happy, Martha, but you’re lucky. Not all of us have that.’
‘You’ve never even tried,’ she snapped.
‘Because I didn’t want to! I needed to focus on other things, and you’ve always made me feel silly for it!
I was terrible for putting my job before you.
I was selfish and thoughtless. But when you cancelled our plans to stay at home with Vik or missed calls for days on end because you were in your honeymoon period, that’s okay.
When your love life was the only topic of conversation for months, that was fine, but when I talked about cooking, I was a workaholic.
God, even with Cam, I separated myself from her. She was my friend, too!’
Martha glowered, but Rae didn’t want to apologise or take it back this time.
‘I’m not blaming you for focusing on your relationship, but sometimes, the way you treat us is hurtful.
Especially because you’re my person, but I’m not always yours.
You make me feel like I might never be enough.
And the way you patronised me in the car today, in front of Vik and Struan, wasn’t okay.
I’m sick of feeling embarrassed about my sex life.
We don’t all have, or even want, the things you have, and that doesn’t make us broken or incomplete! ’
Shaking her head, Martha shredded buttercup petals between her fingernails. ‘I’m not going to apologise for wanting you to find someone, just like I’m not going to apologise for focusing on my relationship with Vik.’
‘I don’t need you to apologise.’ But she didn’t get it.
She never would. She’d always had somebody who loved her or at the very least found her desirable.
She’d always had a secure job in the field she loved.
She’d always known exactly what sort of path she would follow.
Not like Rae, who had been winding around the same bend for years, searching for a way out that wouldn’t mean leaving everything behind.
Not like Struan, who was content with wherever his own path took him.
Who climbed his way over uneven rocks to reach his own peak.
Martha didn’t know that her flat flagstones were a luxury.
‘I only want the best for you,’ Martha continued. ‘And Struan. He needs to be pushed sometimes—’
‘I don’t think he does. I think he’s exactly where he wants to be.’
‘How would you know? You’ve been here for what? A month? Two?’
Rae chewed the inside of her cheek, glancing up at the candyfloss clouds. There was no way out of this without telling the truth.
‘I know because we’ve been spending a lot of time together, Martha. I know because…’ – her fingers dug into her thighs as fear pulsed through her – ‘because I’m falling for him. We’ve been… together. Romantically. He’s…’
Christ, she didn’t even know how to say it. What they were, what they’d done, went beyond words.
‘He’s starting to feel like my person, too,’ she decided on.
Disapproval dripped from Martha’s huff as she leaned back on her palms. Rae bowed her head, her entire body vibrating as she waited for the shouting to commence, the insults, the venom. She’d deserve it. Most of it. She was a liar.
When none of it came, she blurted, ‘It wasn’t planned. I didn’t want this. I knew it was out of line to even consider it—’
‘But you did anyway.’
She nodded. ‘We just… We hoped it would fizzle out before you came home.’
‘This was happening before?’ Martha spat. ‘Jesus, I’m not blind, but I thought it all happened at the wedding last night. I didn’t know you’d been doing this behind my back for weeks!’
Rae’s head snapped up. ‘You knew?’
‘Do you honestly think you were that subtle? Why do you think I was such a bitch in the car this morning? It was a test, eejit. I was waiting for you to fess up.’
Oh.
Oh.
‘So, you didn’t actually expect me to have a one-night stand with some girl called Jo?’
‘Emma doesn’t even have a friend called Jo. Believe me, if there was someone out there looking like the lovechild of Megan Fox and Rachel Weisz, we’d both know.’ Martha rolled her eyes. ‘I just thought I’d piss you both off for lying to me.’
Rae didn’t know what to say. ‘Martha…’
‘You know, we used to tell each other everything.’ For once, the steel in her voice was gone, replaced by something far worse: betrayal. ‘That’s what hurts the most. You didn’t tell me.’
‘I didn’t know how,’ Rae admitted. ‘You were trying to set him up with some girl who was my complete opposite. You wouldn’t have understood.’
‘Because it doesn’t make sense. You’re you…
He’s him…’ She shuddered. ‘This is all so fucked.’ She stood up, pacing to the yard’s end where the weathered fence sunk into the soil beneath the crooked fir tree.
Rae fixed on her back because she didn’t know what else to do.
Eventually, she pulled herself up, keeping a safe distance as she joined Martha.
Picking at the moss on the damp wooden spokes, she said, ‘I’m so sorry for not telling you sooner. I just… I was so out of my depth. I’ve never felt like this before, and it wasn’t supposed to be with him, and I was terrified of losing you.’
‘You’re too good for him, Rae.’
She sucked in a breath. ‘That’s not true. He’s the best man I know. If anything, he’s too good for me.’
Martha massaged her temples. ‘Do you realise how messy this could get? If he fucks you over, what will it do to us? How will we still be best friends if he breaks your heart?’
‘You’re not being fair to him.’
‘You don’t know him like I do!’ she yelled, voice carrying into the surrounding trees.
‘Do you know how many jobs he’s had? How many classes he failed?
How many dates he’s never called back? He’s a flake.
He thinks he knows what he wants until he doesn’t.
He’s always been that way, even when we were kids.
He’d beg Mum for the most random fucking bike or toy or whatever, and then he’d never touch it again. ’
Frustration built in Rae’s chest. ‘That doesn’t mean anything!’
‘You’re not built for someone like him. Fuck, you just said yourself that you’re not really built for anyone. You’re so busy and overstrung. He’d be like a puppy at your feet, always in your way, always fighting for attention you don’t have time to give!’
Rae stumbled back, horrified by just how brutal Martha’s words were, even if there was no bite to them. That made it worse, somehow. She wasn’t saying this to hurt Rae. She was saying it because she truly believed it.
‘What if you think this is real because you’ve never had anything real,’ Martha continued, ‘when really, it’s just a moment of madness brought on by your career crisis?’
‘Don’t throw that back in my face! Struan has been there for me through all of it!’
‘And I haven’t?’ she retorted. ‘Just stop. Get it out of your system if you have to, and then go back to being my best friend.’
‘I can’t be his and yours?’ Rae questioned.
Martha’s chin tilted stubbornly. ‘No, I don’t think you can.’
‘Even if I love him?’ Rae hadn’t been prepared to say it, hadn’t been prepared to even think it, but it spilled out of her without permission. The unbridled, merciless truth. Her hand rose to her tight chest, the very centre of her anguish.
Martha worked her jaw, kicking the bottom slat of the fence with furious force. ‘You’re telling me you’re in love, now? I thought… Jesus, I thought that you were the one permanent thing in my life.’
‘I still am, Martha. Loving him doesn’t make me love you any less.’
‘But it changes everything.’ A tear rolled down her cheek. Rae tasted acid. ‘He’s my brother. Why couldn’t you have picked someone else, anybody else?’
Because there was no one else. There never had been.
But the same could be said for Martha. They’d survived secondary school, university, long distance. Rae had loved her for most of her life, and she had no intention of stopping. If she had to choose between them, it would be her. They had too much history. Martha was home in so many ways.
Even now, when it hurt, it was because Martha had never filtered herself with Rae. That honesty was cruel, but it was a blessing, the mark of two people who could be unapologetically themselves with each other.
Rae swallowed a sob, turning her face away from the low sun rays pouring over the field. Away from Martha.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I’ve been selfish. We both knew it could only go so far.’
‘So it’s over with him?’
Rae’s heart shattered into a thousand glass shards. She already knew the answer, already heard the slam of a door closing, and felt that sound ricochet right into her bones. Her grip on the fence grew so tight that splinters dug into her palms.
She needed the sting to choke out her next words.
‘Yes. It’s over.’