Flying on the wings of Dragons - Book 3, The Porth Kerensa Series

Chapter Thirteen

     "Can I have you?" he interrupts me.

     I sigh, "Joe, I'm not the woman for you,." He mutters something and I wish I could see his face, then I am glad I can't.

     "Lia, with all due respect, and said with all the love in the world, I don't want to listen to this bullshit anymore. You love me and I love you, so why the fuck are you not here? Why are wishing me all that I want in my life on the fucking phone? All I will ever want is you and if you're not here with me then I don't want your trite hopes and feeble apologies."

     "I'm so sorry," I sob.

     He is silent for a long time. "Me too," he says eventually. He hangs up the phone and I sit and cry, holding the receiver until the automated voice message prompts me to put it down.

     One day, when Joe meets the woman of his dreams, and he marries her and makes little mini Joe's with her, he will remember me and he will thank me for walking away when I did. One day he will, I promise myself. That is all I have left to hold onto now. No more dreams of a happy future with Joe. Only the reassurance that for once I have done the right thing. One day he will know that and thank me. But God how lonely it is going to be and how will I get through it?

My first week back in London is something that passes me in a blur of tears and self pity. The hotel room becomes the centre of my universe, for there is nothing and no one in it that can hurt me or confront me with memories that I do not want to face. The phone sits silently on the nightstand taunting me but I do not pick it up and use it. I could ring Sue, Mum, Simon Amy, my boss or Eve and Joe but I don't. There is nothing left to say to Joe now, and I don't want to hear the truths that Sue, Mum or Eve will make me listen to.

     I lie on the bed, and sometimes I sit on the armchair by the window looking out at the park. The view is jaded and does not compare to the scenery from the bedroom I had at Joe's. Yet I sit relentlessly staring out at the people that pass by the window, blissfully unaware of the pain I carry in my heart. I gaze at a park that looks exactly the same as every other park in London and the different people who use it. Mothers with tired faces and excited children, dog owners strolling across the green, and workers at lunchtime who sit on the benches and shiver whilst munching their sandwiches.

     I was one of those people once. In another lifetime when London was the only way of life I knew, I too used the local park to sit in, eating my lunch in and watching the hour slip by. When Emi began to toddle the park became her refuge, and I was just another mum with a tired face and a thousand other things to do. That life seems alien to me now; the people I watch are grey and lifeless. In the summer the park will fill up with young lovers lying on blankets together soaking up the sun, but there is no love or romance in a park in the bleak last days of February and I am glad of that.

     The armchair becomes as familiar to me as any other part of my anatomy and I start to view it as an extension of myself. The only company I have is the radio tuned to Magic FM, which I am beginning to think should be renamed Suicide FM when you are alone and living without the Great Love you once had. There are only so many love songs you can listen to before you start gnawing your knuckles and crying helplessly. I try Classical music but it is either too abrasive or as heartbreaking as music with words. A variety of radio stations does not soothe me, but the silence without it is heavy and unsettling so eventually the dial goes back to Magic FM and I sit and watch the world go by.

     And I cry.

     One day I see a woman and a man in the park walking together, familiarly though not close to one another. They are talking and the woman is animated, using her hands to illustrate her words. She turns her body towards the man every now and then, as if to show him what he cannot have.I watch them walk and sit on one of the benches. She turns to him and strokes his hair. Her hand trails through his dark hair and down his chiseled jaw to his lips, and as I stare fascinated it takes me a moment to realise that the man she is caressing is my husband.