He lay the cushions on the floor beside the bed, something soft in case Summer rolled over and accidentally fell out of bed. And then he sat in the easy chair under Jaxon's window, pulled the blanket over himself and tried to sleep.
When Ashlyn finally appeared the next morning, Kyle was on his fifth cup of tarlike black coffee. Despite how exhausted he was, he hadn't been able to sleep. He'd dozed off for a few minutes, but every noise, even the wind moving gently against the window, the creak of the floorboards settling, snapped him awake. So terrified was he that it'd happen again. Something would happen to his daughter or son, right in front of him and he wouldn't be able to stop it.
“What time is it?” she croaked, rubbing at her eyes. She hadn't cleaned herself up properly. She'd changed her clothes, but the scent of vomit still wafted around her, her hair was a matted mess, and she had the flower motif imprint of the floor tiles in their en suite bathroom on her left cheek. She must have passed out in there. Spent the rest of the night. Slept. She was disoriented, bleary eyed, still pissed for all he knew. Kyle surveyed her with disgust. Not for how she looked, but this: showing her face like this with no shame, no regret, no apology on her lips.
He turned his back on her and stalked over to the sink. Once there, he didn't know what he meant to do, so he stood glaring into the white porcelain. They'd chosen the sink together, when they were renovating this place. Before the kids had been born. They'd driven from reclamation yard to reclamation yard until they found it. “Our sink,” Ashlyn had declared when she saw it. “Yup, that's our sink.” He'd laughed and kissed her on the neck because even though he was the one who built buildings, those things were far more important to her. He stood glaring into the sink now. He'd washed up. Down here and upstairs in the bathroom. He was still in his pj bottoms with the red vomit streak on his right leg because he hadn't been able to bring himself to go into the bedroom.
“Oh, God, it's nine o'clock. Shouldn't you be at work?” Ashlyn said.
Kyle raised his eyes, stared at the corrugated metal splash-back and wondered, quite casually, how much noise the cup would make if he threw it against the wall. Frustration and anger and blind rage were bubbling up inside him; they were going to boil over at any minute, of that he was pretty certain. If he didn't throw the cup, he'd put his fist through the wall, or say something truly nasty to his wife. Something he meant and probably wouldn't take back even if he could.
“Where are the kids?” Finally, number three. Her third question had been about the kids.
He inhaled deeply, exhaled to calm himself. “They're still asleep. They were up late.”
Silence. A long drawn-out silence from behind him, then a sharp sucking in of breath as she suddenly remembered. “Oh, God,” Ashlyn breathed. “I wasn't feeling well.”
“You were drunk,” Kyle replied.
“I'd had a couple of glasses, which I probably shouldn't have because I wasn't feeling well. Did Summer see me being sick?”
Anger flashed through him. He turned to face her. “You were pissed out of your mind. And Summer didn't see you, she felt you. You threw up on her. As you well know.”
“I'm sorry,” Ashlyn said. She had felt unwell. Her stomach had been playing up all day, meaning she shouldn't have had those three or four drinks. But sometimes a few drinks made it better. She often didn't feel ill if she had a few drinks.
Kyle shook his head. “It's not me you should be apologizing to.”
“She probably won't even remember,” Ashlyn reasoned. “She's only three”
“Are you for real? She won't remember so you don't have to apologize? She was terrified, Ashlyn. And her screaming woke up Jaxon, who was terrified. The pair of them woke up a couple of times during the night in a cold sweat, crying. They didn't even know why So, maybe they won't remember what happened exactly, but they'll never forget the terror.” Kyle stalked past her, deciding to leave the room—he couldn't stomach sharing the same space as her a moment longer. “Oh, and the reason I'm not at work? I couldn't risk leaving the kids here with you—I didn't know what sort of state you'd be in. It's the biggest day of my career, the shopping center presentation we've been working on for six months is today and I'm going to miss it. Even though it's my project, someone else is going to present it. Probably get to work on site with it, too.”
“I said I'm sorry,” Ashlyn repeated, on the verge of tears.
“Yep, you did. But this time, I'm not going to accept your apology.” He stalked out of the room, leaving Ashlyn to stand alone in her kitchen.
From that day onwards his life was irrevocably altered in two ways: Kyle was unofficially demoted and was never given another big project to work on even though they won the pitch; the rows began.
CHAPTER 20
The fire was gorgeous.
Lindsay built it, being the camping expert, and we all lay on blankets around it, warmed by it as it cast a warm, flickering orangey glow around us. We'd set up insect repellent lamps around the border of our tents to stop us from being eaten alive by bugs. We'd laughed and talked and played campfire games. I felt comfortable with these other women. Relaxed. For the first time in months, I wasn't worried about something. Anything. The kids did come to mind, but I knew they were fine. Probably didn't even notice I was gone. In this haven in the woods, I felt as though nothing bad existed. Not before, not after. In the here and now, everything was perfect.
Janene ruined it, of course. I lay on my back, staring up at the stars. I love the stars, I was thinking. If anyone were to get me my ultimate present it would be to box a star. I wouldn't want one named after me, that'd be too vain, but a beautiful star, in a box, would make me happy.
“We're women, we have choices now,” Janene's words cut into my thoughts. We hadn't spoken since our mini field trip earlier even though I had tried. I'd made the effort not only because we worked together, but also because Janene wasn't an evil person, just a stupid one. She believed that owning lots of things made you a better person. She didn't know—possibly didn't want to know—that happiness comes from the inside. Like beauty and wealth, they started at the center of who you are. Reading a million self-help books had taught me that and I was on the road to living it—one monumental mistake at a time. “And because we've got choices, we can't be whining about every little thing that happens to us.”
I rolled over onto my front, looked over at Janene illuminated by moonlight and firelight. She'd changed her clothes since we got here. Before she'd been wearing low- rider jeans and a skinny T-shirt and a cropped fleece top. Now she'd changed into silk combat trousers and fleece. The rest of us had come wearing jeans and fleeces and had stayed in them. Would most likely sleep in them. Janene was comfortable with her body, enjoyed showing off her curves in her designer clothes, and that would be commendable if I didn't suspect the reason she spent so much money on clothes and getting her hair done wasn't to raise her self- esteem but to try to lower everyone else's.
Janene's true stupidity came from her ability to pontificate for hours on a subject she knew nothing about. With me she didn't like to speak, with everyone else, she liked to hold center stage.
I could see we were in for one of those talks. Us being women with choices and all. Who talks like that at a camping bonding session? Who wouldn't rather yammer on about crap TV, which book we'd last read and whether astrology predictions were usually accurate? Janene was who.
She lay amongst a group of adults—most of us had many more years of experience in this thing called life than her— but she felt no bashfulness in holding court. In dominating the conversation. “Like my friend who's all, like, crying and stuff after this date with this guy.”
“Ah, she liked him, he didn't call,” Moira said, bored. She was married, had two kids and wasn't interested in hearing another tale about what bastards all men were, clearly. None of us was.
“Oh, no, no, nothing like that,” Janene said. “That's the stuff she usually comes out with. No, after this date with this gu
y, who she'd been going on and on about liking and being gorgeous for ages, she starts accusing him of all sorts.”
Ice water tumbled over in my stomach. You're special, murmured the voice from the past. Stop fighting, you're special.
I sat bolt upright, pulled my knees up to my chest, laced my arms around them. I was suddenly cold. The fire didn't seem warm enough, I wasn't wearing enough layers. I was suddenly freezing on the inside. So cold nothing could warm me up.
“How'dya mean?” Lindsay asked.
“Well,” Janene stopped to take a dramatic swig of her champagne from her plastic glass, “she says they went back to his place for a coffee, one thing led to another … But she said she didn't want to, changed her mind, whatever. I'm, like, what did you expect? It's, like, duh, what else did she go there for in the first place if not for that?”
“To maybe have a coffee?” Gabrielle suggested.
“Yeah, but everyone knows if you go back to someone's house you're going back for sex,” Janene said.
“Whoa! That's a news flash to me,” Lindsay said. “In all my years of dating I never knew that. As far as I know, I go to someone's house for a coffee, I'm wanting coffee. If he tries it on and it leads to bed, then it leads to bed. If I say no, I mean it.”
“You can't lead a bloke on—” Janene asserted, a little put out that this conversation wasn't going her way.
“Hang on there, missy, ‘lead a bloke on’?” Gabrielle cut in. “What the hell does that mean? Are we living in the dark ages? He needs to take responsibility for his actions. No one is led on. And, let's just say if that ridiculous notion is true, and he is ‘led on,’ it still means he should stop when asked to.”
Janene rolled her eyes, her face demonically illuminated by the orange and yellow flames. “You're all so politically correct,” she said with a sigh.
For a moment I felt like picking up one of the burning logs from the fire and beating her over the head with the flaming end. She was one of those people who reached for those two words when she wanted to say something offensive or indefensible by trying to make you think you were in the wrong.
“But politically correct or not, next time she goes out on a date she'll know what to expect,” Janene added.
“She'll expect to never feel safe again.” Me. This was me talking. My voice was low but determined. I'd decided not to beat her with a flaming log, but to explain the reality of this to her. “She'll expect to always walk down the road, looking behind her, worried about who's following her. She'll expect to never quite trust another person's motives again—even if they're the nicest person in the world. And, of course, she'll expect to never be able to confide in someone without the reaction she got from you.”
Silence descended upon the group; the only noise came from the crackling and snapping of the wood as the fire broke it down into ash and charcoal. Everyone's eyes were fixed on me, all wondering where my reaction, my voice came from. Everyone, except Janene, who couldn't bear not to have the last word. “What you don't seem to understand, Kendra, is that you could ruin a man's life by accusing him of something like that.”
My voice remained as hard as concrete. “What you don't seem to understand, Janene, is that a woman's life is always ruined when something like that happens to them,” I replied. I stopped, aware that I was about to slide into a rant and this wasn't the arena to get my soapbox out.
I struggled to my feet from the ground, folded my arms around me so my zip-up fleece hugged my body. Moving over the food containers, plastic glasses and plastic cutlery, I passed by the fire. “I'm going for a cigarette,” I said.
“But you don't smoke,” Gabrielle said.
At the edge of our tarpaulin and tents, where the ring of citronella lanterns sat and the edge of our pool of light ended, I stopped, turned as one last thing occurred to me. Something I meant to say. “I hope nothing ever happens to you, Janene. That you never know such fear. That you never experience such contempt afterwards.” I picked up a lantern then marched through a gap in the trees into the heart of the forest.
Anger thudded and pounded through my veins at the speed of light. My whole body was on fire with it.
Every time I thought about what Janene had said I wanted to hit something. Every time I heard that sort of nonsense it needled me. Prodded at the part of me that believed in causes. I meant what I said to her, I hoped nothing ever happened to her. I wouldn't wish such a thing on anyone. Maybe it was better for her to think as she did because she knew no better. She was an innocent. Better an innocent than an enlightened victim.
As the anger slowed its progress through my body, the reality of my surroundings came back to me. I was in a forest, at night, with insects licking their mandibles and dreaming of feasting on my flesh, and wild animals whose ears were pricking up at the sound of a ten-stone- something steak walking right onto their plates. This wasn't good.
A little farther on, I spotted a fallen tree, its leaves stripped away, its branches broken. Its bark had been worn off by the elements over time and the most worn sections glowed white in the full moon. Full moon. Werewolves. Great. I survived living in the land of sharks, crocodiles and poisonous spiders for nearly three years, so obviously I was going to be dismembered by a half-man, half- animal supernatural beast in Sussex.
I sat heavily on the fallen tree, placed the lantern on the ground beside my feet, put my face in my hands then slowly pushed my fingers through my hair. Jeez, it was tiring having strong beliefs. Reacting to the filth people like Janene tried to propagate. Sometimes I wanted to sit back and accept it. To not register anything when the nonsense started. To be morally numb—or even morally corrupt—so I could eat certain brands of chocolate, go into certain stores, wear certain brands, listen to certain theories.
Also at times like this, I wished I did smoke.
Crack! The sound of a snapping twig made me jump and I froze, wondering if I should have paid more attention to those black-and-white Hammer House of Horror movies. How did you kill a werewolf? Silver bullets? A silver stake through the heart?
The footsteps continued through the forest but they didn't sound like an animal's, they were soft and light. “Ow, shit,” the person cursed softly.
Not a werewolf, more likely the only person who would bother to come after me.
“Despite all the bugs, and scary stuff out here, I had to check to see if you'd really taken up smoking,” Gabrielle said, coming to stand in front of me.
I gave her a small smile. She sat down on the fallen tree, on the other side of my lantern. She reached into the left pocket of her navy-blue fleece, pulled out a battered packet of low-tar cigarettes. From her right pocket she pulled a slender, silver lighter. She slipped a cigarette between her pink lips and held up the lighter to the end of the cigarette. “Now,” she spoke with the cigarette clamped between her teeth, “I've not smoked in about eight years, but I'm willing to start again just to keep you company.”
“Don't do that,” I said, taking the cigarette out of her mouth and relieving her of her lighter.
A long silence stretched between us.
“I've never seen you like that,” she said. “I've never seen you go for anyone like that. Wanna talk about it?”
“She was talking bullshit,” I said, straight back into Soapbox Kennie mode. “She's always talking bullshit but no one ever says anything because ‘Janene's young.’ ‘Janene doesn't know any better.’ Bollocks. I'm so sick of that excuse. I was young once, I never came out with as much nonsense as she does. And we're worse because we do nothing. We pander to her filth. We excuse it by letting her spout that vile nonsense.”
Gabrielle unsheathed another cigarette, held it between her forefinger and middle finger, then started threading it along her fingers by twisting it slowly between each finger. “Wanna talk about it?” Gabrielle repeated.
“It… That happened to someone I know. A long time ago when we were all in college. And she wasn't asking for it, like Janene was implying, or l
eading him on. She was really hurt by this man, she trusted him, and he took advantage of that. And you know what kills me? There are so many people—women—who think like Janene. It's scary. It's why women keep those things to themselves.”
Gabrielle watched her cigarette moving along her fingers and back again. She said nothing for a while, then without looking at me, she asked, “What happened to your friend?”
“She got on with her life. Made sure she never made that mistake again,” I explained.
“Really?” Gabrielle asked. I could see from the corner of my eye she was looking at me.
I nodded. “As far as I know. We don't keep in touch, but the last time I heard she was doing well. Really well.”
“Yeah?” Gabrielle kept looking at me until I faced her.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Good. I'm glad.” Her naked lips slid up into a smile, her gentle blue eyes, which reminded me of the color the sky had been earlier, seemed to see right through me. To understand everything about me. I recoiled a fraction. She was clearly making assumptions that were way off base. “Everyone deserves to do really well. To be happy. Don't you think?”
I nodded and looked away.
“Right, well, I am officially freaked about being out here. Are you going to come back to the safety of the campfire?”
“You mean back to that pool of light that might as well be a beacon for wild animals to find us?”
“Erm, yeah. That.”
“No.”
Gabrielle stared at me, trying to work out if I was joking or not.
“I can't, Gabs, I can't be around Janene, I won't be responsible for what else I say to her. I'm going to wait until you're all asleep, then come back and go sleep in your car.”