Holly

This is the third and final chapter in David, Holly, and Sophie's story. I hope their respective journeys has proved interesting, or at the very least, a distraction during the shutdown brought about by the Wuhan Virus pandemic.

I sincerely hope you all stay safe and well. Look after each other.

Sorry to repeat myself, but I give my usual warning about having edited my story myself so I may have overlooked some errors due to being too familiar with the story. I hope they don't detract from your reading pleasure.

My thanks, as always, go to Vandemonium1. His input and proofing skills always improve the story.

On another note, I am immensely proud of him and in awe of his strength that he hasn't caved in to the cyber bullying he's experienced on this site. I love you, Vandy. You're my hero and I thank the gods for the day you wrote me an encouraging email after my first story in LW.

IF YOU TRULY LOVE ME

CHAPTER THREE: HOLLY

MY CELL BOUNCED off the bed from where I'd thrown it and landed with a thud on the floor. I walked around the far side, initially intending to pick it up but as I looked down at its blank screen it became the focus of my rage and I kicked it instead. It skidded under the bed. I left it there. What was the point of retrieving it? David was refusing to talk about anything but divorce.

I threw myself face down on the bed, screaming my frustration into the bedding. How? How could he refuse to see me? Dismiss all my attempts to talk about how to fix things between us? How could he be so ready to flush a quarter of a century down the drain?

The voice of my mother calling up the stairs that dinner was ready interrupted my outburst. I wondered if she'd heard me. Not that hearing my hurt and frustration would garner me any sympathy from her. She was angry and disappointed with me. That much I knew. She hadn't said much but it was there in every reproachful glance she directed at me. Each look made me cringe and I hated that her disapproval still had so much of an effect on me. I was an adult, for pity's sake. A mother myself. But it did. I hated that I'd disappointed her.

Perhaps, I should have gone to my father's. He, at least, might have understood my succumbing to temptation, having done so himself. I sighed. Who was I kidding? He lived in Fremantle, the other side of the country, and I needed to stay close if I was to have any chance of getting David to see and speak with me. Besides, I hadn't spoken to my father in years. Had hardly spoken to him at all after my mother left him when she discovered his affair.

That realisation knotted my gut. I knew Ben had pretty much cut ties with Dad, too. Same with my cousins. They had nothing to do with him either. The only one who kept in contact, ironically, was my uncle.

Would that be my future? Would my family disown me?

I dreaded the conversations that I knew were in my near future. Thus far my mother only knew the bare bones of what had happened. Even then, she'd walked away, spine rigid, and I knew it was because she needed space or she'd lash out at me. Mum didn't like losing her self-control and I knew my confession, as glossed over as it was, had pushed her to her limit of her control.

I rolled onto my back and surveyed the room. This was what I was reduced to; staying in the guest room at my mother's feeling like a scolded child. I had to make David see me, speak to me. I had to make him understand and forgive. The thought of any other outcome was unbearable.

*****

"HOLLY, I CAN'T let you in. David's here and he doesn't want to see you."

Ben's uncompromising expression and tone as he stood barring the way into his townhouse rocked me. Shocked, I retreated a step. Never, not once, had my brother ever looked at me like that. Where was the big brother who always protected me? Looked out for me?

"But, Ben, you have to. Please. I need to see him. How can I make him understand if he won't see me?"

"From the way I heard it, Holly, you've done plenty in recent months to try to get Davie to 'understand.'"

Ben curled his fingers signifying quotation marks on the word understand. I cringed, feeling heat creep into my cheeks. David had obviously told my brother a few things.

"Christ, do you have any idea what you've put him through?"

"So let me make it better. Let me in so I can start fixing things."

"No. I insisted Davie stay with me. He didn't want to. He didn't want to put me in the position of choosing between my best friend and my sister. Even in the middle of his devastation he thought about me. About the family. Did you? Did you give any thought to what your choices meant for everyone else? For me? For Caitlyn? For Mum? Damn it, Holly, she's gutted. David's gutted. We all are. Davie is my best friend. I think of him as a brother. I love him like I love you or Ronnie or Warren. You know that. And now you've put me in the position of having to choose who I'm going to help. Well, sorry, sis, but I choose Davie. He's the one who's been wronged so you can damn-well forget my helping you sweet talk him into more pain and hurt. You can't "fix" what you did. It's not fixable."

With those words he retreated, closing the door in my face. I stood, unable to move. I was shocked. Ben had chosen David. My own brother was abandoning me.

How could I make him see there was no need to choose sides? That if he let me see David, if he could convince David to talk to me, we could salvage our marriage. Yes, I had made a mistake. Yes, it had hurt my husband. But I wanted to repair the damage I'd done. Why wouldn't anyone let me make it up to David? Why wouldn't anyone help me?

I rang the bell again. I had to make Ben see. He had to help me.

He opened the door but before I could say a word he snarled at me. "Holly, get lost before I call the police and have you forcibly removed. For once in your life accept that no means no."

This time he didn't close the door. He slammed it.

*****

I COULDN'T LOOK at Ronnie. His pity was too much to bear. I wished I could avoid hearing his words as easily as I could avert my gaze from his.

"Jesus, Holly. Why didn't you come to me when all of this started? Maybe I could have helped you avoid all of this shit."

I slumped in my chair, defeated. There was no point lying or sugar-coating it. Ronnie knew me too well. He'd see right through me.

"Because I knew you'd try to talk me out of it. I knew you'd tell me to get rid of Sophie and go to counselling or something to deal with my feelings, and my, um, urges and I didn't want to. I wanted her and I wanted to be allowed to have her."

Ronnie sighed. "So, you wanted your cake and to eat it too."

I nodded.

"And look where that got you. You do know you've lost a gem? Right? David was one in a million. Not perfect, mind. But pretty damn close."

I burst into tears. "Don't say that. Don't say I've lost him. He has to forgive me. He just has to. Can't you help me? Can you please speak to him?"

Ronnie's silence spoke volumes. I stood and grabbed my handbag. I had to get out of there. Why couldn't Ronnie lie to me? Would it kill him to utter a white lie to help me? Reassure me? Why did he have to be so god-damn honest all the time? And why wouldn't he help me?

*****

THREE YEARS LATER

I LET MYSELF into my home and placed my bag and keys on the entry table. I was exhausted. Dragging myself through the workday was getting harder rather than easier. There was no joy in it anymore. No fun.

The house was quiet. Of course, it was quiet. I was alone. I paused for a moment, and, only for that brief moment, let my mind peek behind the mental door I normally kept shut because I couldn't face the contents of that particular room in my mind.

The room where I fully acknowledged I was alone. Truly alone. Alone in a crowded room. Alone at the office. Alone when I face-timed with Caitlyn. Alone when I visited Ben or Ronnie or Warren or my mother. Alone when I sipped wine with friends. Alone when the dawn coloured the horizon. Alone when I switched off the lights and called it a day. Alone in the darkness. Alone in the light. Alone as I had been since the day I betrayed the man I love.

When David and I broke up it was as if my whole identity shattered. I didn't know who I was without him. It was like a death. Unrelenting and never-ending.

I closed the door on my forbidden room and began my evening ritual. It had taken time to develop the ritual because I discovered early in David's and my separation that living alone was a skill as simple and complex as playing a game of chess or writing a novel.

You have to learn the limitations. The rules. The do's and don'ts. You have to study them as if for a final exam. They have to become second nature to you so you do them automatically, without thought. Things like always having sound, be it music or movies, playing in the background so that the silence doesn't deafen you.

You have to perform whatever task you're doing, no matter how big or small, with the utmost concentration, even if it's only the dishes. You have to approach it with the same care and concentration as building a house of cards because it's equally delicate and precarious.

You have to fill your time exactly, measuring it as if for a recipe requiring precision; do enough to stave off restlessness but not so much as to overwhelm.

Living alone was a balancing act. One I was still perfecting. I'd learned through failure exactly how easily one wrong thought or move could tip the scales to unbearable.

As I passed through the dining room on my way to my bedroom I glanced at the framed portrait of David and I that still hung above the dining table. Old habits die hard. It was like a knife to the heart to see my former happiness but somehow I couldn't bear to remove the print. Same as I couldn't bear to sell the house we'd built together. I jerked my gaze away from the portrait in the same way instinct makes you pull your hand back from an open flame. My heart avoided hurt the way a cripple favours an injured leg. It couldn't bear any more.

I stood in the doorway to what was now my bedroom. It was once Caitlyn's room but with her permission I'd moved in. She wasn't that sympathetic to my reluctance to sleep in the master bedroom. At one point, I thought she'd make me continue sleeping there. I couldn't, not without David beside me. It was too painful to sleep in our vast bed alone and know his clothing was gone, his toiletries were gone, and, now, even his scent was gone, time having faded it. Nor could I face the guest room, the room I'd betrayed him in. Both doors remained shut. All part of my balancing act.

I sat on the edge of the bed and closed my eyes. As clear as if she were sitting beside me I heard my daughter's words. Again. They haunted me. Three years hadn't faded their vehemence.

"How could you, Mum? How could you do that to Dad? To me?"

I cringed at the memory of her anger when I attempted to defend myself.

"Sweetheart, I didn't do anything to you. To your Dad, yes, but not to you."

"Yes, you damn-well did! From this time on I will have to choose who to spend my Christmas's with. I will have to see you separately on holidays or for birthdays and what am I supposed to do when the day comes that I marry? Tell me that? Will I have to choose which parent can attend? What if having you attend would hurt Dad who is innocent in all of this. Great, Mum. Just great. And what happens when I have a family? My children will also have to divide their time between two households on my side of the family! So, don't tell me this has nothing to do with me or that I'm not affected.

I still love you, Mum—I can't turn off a lifetime of feeling like flicking a switch—but I have to tell you, I don't like you right now. I never told you before but you were my role model. I can't tell you how many decisions were made from me asking myself what you would do if you were in my situation. I can't do that now, can I? Let's see, 'Dating fabulous guy but attracted to obvious bad-boy. What would Mum do? Fuck him. Yeah. Let's fuck him and to hell with good-guy's feelings. To hell with my morals. To hell with what's right. To hell with other people's feelings. I'm going to do whatever the fuck I want."

I put my head in my hands, remembering the flood of tears that had come at her words. She hadn't been moved by them.

"Enough with the tears, Mum. They won't work. It's too little too late. I hope she was worth it. Was she? Was it? Dad is devastated. I'm not sure he'll ever fully recover."

"But he won't let me make it up to him—"

"Make it up to him!" she shrieked. "How do you make something like that up to someone, Mum?"

She didn't give me time to reply.

"Simple truth is you can't. And I'll tell you something else. I no longer look up to you. You've lost my respect. And my trust. If you can do something like this to Dad, the man you promised to love and cherish for life, then what's to stop you throwing me under the bus if it got you what you wanted?"

She'd hung up when I protested. I couldn't blame her. She was her father's daughter. She still spoke to me but now it was once a month instead of once or twice a week and always at my instigation. Gone were the confidences. Gone was the laughter, the teasing, the ease between us. Now she answered my questions about her life in London with a bare minimum of words.

Later, much later, I was back in Caitlyn's room after having eaten a bowl of soup, tinned soup, standing at the sink. I should learn to cook. It had been three years, after all. But, somehow, learning to cook was an admission that David was never coming back and though I knew that, I still couldn't let myself truly know that truth. That truth would break what was left of me.

I stared into the darkness wishing sleep would come. Anything, even bad dreams, were better than being alone with my thoughts. My regrets.

Everyone, even Sophie, had paid a price for my obsession. It was a hard truth to bear. From a physical perspective, Sophie had paid the biggest price. It could be argued she'd deserved it. She certainly wasn't innocent in the collapse of my marriage; I could see that with the wisdom of hindsight. If only my vision had been 20-20 back then.

But did she deserve what she got?

Whether the answer was yes or no, I still felt guilt. Guilt and responsibility.

"Holly, you can't hide out forever."

"Sophie, leave. Please, just leave. I want to be alone."

"Let me help you, my sweet peach."

"Don't call me that. I'm not your peach. And you helping me is what got me into this mess."

"It doesn't need to be a mess, Holly. It could be a beginning. A beginning for us. We could be so good together."

I groaned and rolled to my side, wanting to escape the memories, same as I'd wanted to escape her that day.

I shuddered, recalling the scene that followed.

"Come on, baby. Let me make you feel better."

Sophie led me by the hand and for a moment I was tempted. I wanted to feel good. I wanted some respite from the pain, to forget, if only for a few precious minutes. And she was so beautiful...

But then she led me into the master bedroom. The room I'd shared with David for over twenty years.

I freaked out, screaming at her, "Go away. Get the hell out of my house. This isn't a beginning. There is no us. There will never be an us. I'm not your peach and never will be. Don't you get it? I will never be able to look at you and not see the destruction of my marriage. Because of you I've lost David. I've lost everything. I will never be able to look at you again without feeling pain."

I rolled onto my stomach, burying my face into the pillow, hoping I could block out the look of horror on Sophie's face. Horror that morphed into hurt and anger. Such anger.

I put my hands over my ears but it was pointless; her voice was in my head. Would always be in my head.

"You can blame me all you want, peach."

This time the word 'peach' came out as a snarl.

"But we both know the blame lies with you. Yes, I wanted you. Yes, I made a play for you, but you could have said no at any point. You could have stopped me any number of times. But did you? No, you didn't, so don't play the victim with me. You might be able to bullshit everybody else with your woe-is-me act, but I was there. Don't forget that, bitch. I was there."

She'd walked out that day. Just turned and left. I suppose I should feel grateful she hadn't caused me problems by lodging a sexual harassment in the workplace lawsuit. Reading between the lines the threat had certainly been there. I was lucky that in the end all it had cost me was a one-way ticket to London, a work visa, six months rent for a flat in trendy Notting Hill, and a job at our London office.

Where Caitlyn worked.

And, boy, had Caitlyn let me know how she felt about that. Furious would be an understatement. If I was a writer I'd have described her reaction as incandescent rage.

She refused to speak to me for weeks. But what could I do? I couldn't work with Sophie anymore but I couldn't fire her without cause.

I tried to block out the images of Sophie's ruined face that the London office sent me. The photos taken after the attack. I tried but couldn't. They were lasered on my brain, same as everything else with the slightest connection to David and that time was permanently etched into my mind.

Sophie had been so beautiful with such exotic, yet delicate features. Now, even after plastic surgery, she had a scar. Liz, my P.A., nailed it when she said it looked like a sick parody of the smile of the Joker from the Batman movies. It did. Sophie now had a permanent ugly smirk. No amount of makeup or surgery could totally erase it. They told me her whole personality changed too. Gone was the confident, sexy, alluring woman I'd known. In her place was someone who flinched at sudden noises. Who was, by all accounts, all but a recluse.

Had David been responsible? The report said she was attacked after a night out at a gay bar by two women who glassed her, but had David organised it? Or worse, had Caitlyn? Surely not. It had happened twelve months after the move but doubt gnawed at me. Caitlyn had shown not so much as one iota of concern or compassion. What had been her words? Ah, yes.

Karma's a bitch

.

The assailants hadn't just robbed Sophie or beaten her. They'd scarred her. Intentionally. Was it out of revenge? Was I, by extension, responsible? I had, after all, had a fling with her and sent her over to London. She was there because of me.

I rolled to my side angry at myself. Angry for the memories that denied me peace. Angry for the doubts. For the tears trickling down my cheeks, dampening the pillow. When? When would I run out of tears?

*****

TWO YEARS LATER

I STARED AT the invitation. I'd read it three times but couldn't get the information to gel in my mind. Caitlyn was getting married. In Scotland! How could she be getting married? I didn't even know she and Drew had gotten engaged. How could I not know? How could she not tell me? How could no one have mentioned it to me? Had my brother known? Had Ronnie or Warren or my mother?

I put the invitation down on the dining table. My hands were shaking. I couldn't stop them. I felt so alone. No one. No one had seen fit to tell me. Had Caitlyn asked them not to tell me? It had been five years since my fall from grace and I was still paying the price.

In a perverse way, I wished they'd all cut ties with me back then. That would have been easier to deal with. Then I could have treated it as if they'd died. I could have grieved and moved on. Forged a new life.