Chapter Sixteen
“no” I mumbled, puling myself away from the kiss and getting up. I walked over to the window and opened it, feeling the need for some air.
I turned back to look at her briefly, her eyes were trained on me, looking at me quizzically.
“sorry” she said after a moment and turned away. I wasn’t really sure what she was apologising for, maybe it was for kissing me, or maybe it was for being in my apartment at all.
Or maybe it was for breaking my heart.
“you should probably go” I said quietly, looking out of the window in to the gardens which were always quiet around my home.
Of course I was trying to make it easy for her, giving her the option to leave before any of us said something more, something that wouldn’t be easy to come back from, but Cheryl never liked the easy way of things.
“I don’t want to leave” she replied evenly. I heard her getting up from the couch but I didn’t turn to look. There was nothing holding my interest out of the window – but it seemed easy to look out there than to look at her.
The room went quiet as I felt her standing somewhere at the back of me. She walked up to me slowly and put her hand on my hip. I looked down at it before turning around, letting my eyes leave the calm, almost serene scene of the outside world to look at her.
I almost wished I hadn’t as I noted the seemingly incompatible mixture of fear and desire in her eyes. Maybe on some level she knew this was wrong too, but like all of us, she was just a human being, no stronger or weaker than myself, no more able to turn and walk away than I was.
“if I leave now Kimberley…” she started, letting her hand that was resting on my hip move slightly so she was rubbing the fabric of my dress.
“I’m scared you will never let me back in” she admitted, before using her free hand to cup my face.
She looked at me intensely for a few seconds, so intensely that it was all I could do to look back at her and not avert my eyes.
For a fleeting minute I thought she was going to kiss me and I was almost glad when she didn’t. I really don’t think my head could have taken much more of her, she already seemed to be filling it to capacity lately, any more and I was sure it would actually burst from the pressure.
“it scares me to Cheryl, but it scares me more that I will let you in and you will leave me again. See, I’d rather we just forgot about everything and started again because I don’t think I could take much more of having you walk in my life and walk straight back out of it when its time for your husband to come home”
I didn’t say his name. I couldn’t say it, even when I was around him, I could never say it. I suppose it wasn’t his fault that Cheryl took him back, it wasn’t his fault that she was so blinded by him that she couldn’t see what was going on right under her nose.
She sighed deeply before letting her hands drop away from me and breaking the contact that we shared.
“I can’t leave Ashley” she said, her voice almost a whisper, as though she didn’t really want to hear it any more than I did.
I nodded my head in agreement, I never really expected her to leave her husband for me anyway. It would have been nice of course, but things like that don’t really happen do they?
“I’m so sorry” she carried on, her voice wavering and telling me she was about to cry. She breathed in deeply to stop the flow of tears and turned around, heading for the door.
