Poison

I said it again. “Take me home. Take me home and think.”

Finally, he relented.

He started up the truck and headed down from the hillside. My stomach was fluttering with butterfly sick all the way back into town, and my heart was a wreck as we pulled up in my street.

He grabbed my arm as I opened the passenger door, and his eyes were full of so much hurt it took my breath.

“Don’t leave me, Anna. I can’t make that choice, and I won’t. I’ll figure something out. We’ll figure something out together.”

I nodded, and tried to smile, but it was empty.

“I love you,” I said, and my voice hitched. “You know I love you, but you need to get Millie back and you know that too.”

I left the truck before he could say anything more, and I didn’t look back at him, just put my key in the lock and headed on in.

Vicky was in the living room as I walked on through, and she tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t speak, just headed on through to my bedroom. She knocked at the door and asked to come in, but I told her I needed my space. I forced my meds down and wiped my tears away in my dressing table mirror and wondered how the hell I was going to make it through work the next day.

I’d have to try.

I waited until I was pretty certain Vicky had gone to bed before I showered. There were messages from Lucas and missed calls when I came back to my bedroom, but I didn’t click to read them, because I couldn’t. He needed his time, even if he didn’t want it.

Sleep was hard.

Tossing and turning, and churning with nausea. I don’t know what time I managed to drift into some semblance of rest, but it didn’t do me any good.

My sheets were wet when I woke up, thighs drenched and tongue sore with how much I’d been chewing. I cried a fresh sob and stripped my bed, casting off horrible wet knickers and waiting, sitting in my own piss until the sound of Vicky’s shower eased off through the wall.

And then somehow I got myself ready for work.

I tried to take part in my morning meetings, knowing full well my eyes must be nothing short of shadows underneath. I tried to smile and joke about just how great Oscars was with Lucia and Stacey and Melissa, and it stabbed me in the heart all over again – hearing how happy they’d been to meet him. A spiteful tease from fate at just how good life could be between us if we made it through.

I was waiting to talk with the Kershaw’s project manager when I had to revisit the fun chatter all over again with Peter and Jamie from finance, and I was on the edge of breaking all over again. I was feeling my dreams crumbling a second time around and praying for a miracle when I got a summoning call through from Lucia back on reception.

I had a visitor.

My heart raced, wondering, just wondering, if it was Lucas coming to tell me he’d found a way through hell, but I should have known.

I should have known there was no way Lucia would have said anything more than ‘your dance buddy is here and waiting’, or ‘here your hot guy comes’ if it had been Lucas out there.

I should have known it was some more shit on top of the rest to face on a Monday morning.

But I’d never have known it was Margaret Pierce standing there in reception waiting for me, the first time I’d seen his mother in a decade.

I’d never have known her cheeks were lined with tears, and that she’d take my hands in hers and beg me to let Lucas go back to Maya.

Her brown hair was clearly dyed now and tied up in a bun, and she looked thinner and older, but she was still her as she called up a string of beautiful pictures of a smiling happy family and shoved them in my face.

Lucas smiling at Maya with their baby girl in his arms, and Maya glowing happy in her wedding dress.

A video of Lucas and Maya singing happy birthday to Millie over a dinner table and both of them holding her tight when the candles went out.

“Please, Anna,” she said, and her eyes were so raw on mine I felt the sick bubbling in my throat. “Please, don’t do this. Maya’s a lovely woman who wants to try her best, and she’s always loved him, and always will, he’s just made it so hard for her to show it.”

I couldn’t speak, so she carried on.

“If you love him, then love his daughter too. Please don’t make him choose. Please don’t.”