“Don’t say that! Shit Fae, I don’t know what has happened here other than dad finding out about you two, but surely running is not the answer, not when there is a fucking threat out there and…” I cut him off once more,
“I dealt with that…look, I will be fine, don’t worry okay and…” I froze the second I heard the other voice in the room, making me tense all over.
“Is that her…is that Faith?!” My mum’s desperate voice invaded the conversation and it nearly broke me.
“Look, I have to…” I started to say when suddenly she was there.
“Faith…oh, thank God you’re okay! Sweetheart please, you need to listen to me.” I closed my eyes once more and held them tight as tears started to seep from beneath them, telling her in a hard tone I felt cracking,
“No mum, that’s where you’re wrong, I don’t need to listen to anything…”
“It’s not what you think, you’ve got it all wrong. Me and Luc aren’t or never have been anything more than just friends…please believe me, I don’t know what you heard but it wasn’t what you…” This was when I hit my breaking point and snapped,
“I can’t listen to this! I have to go… just tell dad I am sorry. Goodbye Mum,” I said quickly hanging up just as she shouted on the end for me to listen and before she could say anything more. Because I didn’t want to listen to it right then. Maybe one day I would ring and listen to what she had to say, but I knew what I had seen. I knew what I had heard. They had kissed, they had shared a moment, spoken the words.
What else could it have been?
There was no other explanation than the one I had witnessed.
The reasons behind my breaking heart…
The confessions of their affair.
Chapter 5
Bad Ass and Bats
After ending the call to my Mum, I found myself shaking as I didn’t know what I wanted to do first, scream in anger or agony. Because I didn’t want to allow her words to create doubt in my mind. I didn’t want that poisonous and lying emotion called hope clouding my decision to leave.
No, she was just saying all of those things to try and get me to go back there. Because she loved me still, like a mother would. She cared for my safety. She would say anything. I swallowed hard and folded my arms across the steering wheel before burying my head there and sobbing, letting it all go. The sound of someone calling becoming nothing but a theme song for my pain and I looked side on at the screen through my tears, cancelling it with a stab of my finger and all those after it.
Then, I took a deep shuddering breath and started the car ready to follow through with the rest of my getaway. Which meant that I continued to drive, all the while asking myself what on earth Luc had said for both him and my father to be driving to the plane together?
It was the only part of this that made no sense. I knew my dad and if he believed Luc had been having an affair with his wife then other than outright killing him, which he couldn’t do, the very last thing he would do was spend time with him in a fucking car!
But then again, when did any of this day make sense?
When did the sense part come into it, as everything in your life starts to unravel?
Never. That’s when.
I looked at the clock and seeing that the longer I gave them, the more chance they had to issue their orders, it meant that it was time to put the next part of my plan into action. And well, for that I needed to speak to the only person in my life I felt I could trust. The only person who wouldn’t try and convince me to go home or ‘do what they thought was best’. I thought about Auntie Pip, but then I knew she would never go against my mum and she was clearly emotional after what had happened. So, as much as it pained me, I knew that I couldn’t count on her.
No, there was only Wendy left in my life. And lucky for me I had memorized her number a while ago, which meant that I could tap it in to the car’s inbuilt phone using its Wi-Fi and ring my last lifeline.
“Err…Hello?” Wendy answered in the way most people would when they didn’t recognise the number calling them.
“Kirky, it’s me,” I said, unable to prevent my emotions from pouring out in those three words. Because that was the effect of a true friend, one you needed in moments of desperate need for comfort. I had missed my friend and had barely had the chance to speak to her during all that had been going on. But, before leaving for Afterlife, Lucius had given me his phone so I could call her, finally able to update her with the status of my relationship. News that seemed pointless now.
“Emmie! Oh my God, Jesus, I have been so worried!” The second her panicked voice said this I knew that she had already been contacted.
“I’m fine, honey.”
“Yeah, well, that boy of yours doesn’t seem to think so, as let’s just say that he put the fear of God in me!” she said, making me tense.
“What do you mean…Lucius called you?” I asked with a shake of my head knowing that this didn’t sound right.
“Oh yeah, he called me alright and your father, oh and then Dante, the asshole,” she said in a tone that was incredulous and ended on a growl of words obviously disliking the last one, something I knew I would have to ask her about when the time was right. I had tried the last time I spoke to her, but it had been obvious she hadn’t been ready. Something, that unfortunately in this moment I could relate to, so I hadn’t pushed.
“What did he say?”
“I would ask which one, but I gather with the sound of heartbreak in your voice you only mean one…oh and also I have someone’s skull to crack should I ever meet the asshole!”
“Yeah, well I will hand you the bat, but for now…” I said, leaving out the part that he would just catch it on the downward blow and snap it in two. However, my comment made her chuckle before telling me,
“Only that you had done another runner and that it was basically a life and death situation that you were found and that if I wanted to be any help to you, I would call him the second you called and tell him everything you told me.”
“Gods, why would he do that?” I muttered in disbelief.
“My guess, because he cares and is freaking out that you left him,” she answered making me frown at the dashboard with a shake of my head. Then I found myself asking,
“Are you going to?”
“Fuck no! You’re my girl, he can eat shit and die if he hurt you, which I am guessing he did.” I snorted a laugh and wiped the tears that had escaped with the back of my hand telling her,
“Yeah…he did.”
“Oh Smock, I am so sorry, honey. Men are shits, what can I say?” I scoffed at that and said,
“You can say that again.”
“Alright, men are shits, now you say it with me.” I laughed and did as she asked,
“Men are shits…you got that right.” I said lacking her enthusiasm for it and making her whisper,
“Oh, honey…do you wanna talk about it?” I sniffed back my tears and told her,
“Maybe one day but right now it’s just too painful, you know,” I told her and right in that moment I wished I was back there. I wished I was about to knock on her door, ready to throw myself in her arms and pour my heart out. But then again…