Poison

I was scared, and alone, and felt like maybe I was insane after all – just like everyone was so keen to convince me I was – and I sent that reply with shaking fingers.

One simple word in one simple moment at breaking point.

Yes.

I sent the yes I’d been avoiding for months.

And so he came back for me.

My real life in Sebastian Maitland came back for me, and the whole fucking world was cheering for it, waving their party banners and thanking the heavens.

If only I could too.Chapter Thirty-TwoLucas“Hey, Daddy, look what I drew for you,” Millie’s face was a beautiful smile, so innocent in her happiness as she held up her drawing for me to see. “It’s us! You, me and Mummy!”

Three scribbled people, one in a dress, and one in a scribble tie, and one grinning little girl in between them.

I’d have given anything for it to work and be as picture perfect as she wanted it to be, but it never would. Never could.

“Let’s have a look, sweetheart,” Maya said and called Millie around the table, and I had to look away, across the kid’s group Saturday art session to the other grinning families and feeling that same crushing pain in my gut all over again.

Failure.

Failure to be what I needed to be.

It was Maya’s condition on coming back to Cheltenham – that I could see Millie, but only with all three of us together as one group, showing her just how great we were together as Mummy and Daddy. I was taking any opportunity, because I needed it. I needed my little girl.

I also didn’t deserve any better treatment. I’d been enough of a prick to Maya for a lifetime already – so Mother had been so keen to tell me. Poor Maya being so bound by life at your side, knowing you never wanted her from the beginning. Terrible, so terrible.

Seemingly the rest of the world was certain this was life at its finest anyway, pushing us back into regular contact, regardless of what I was feeling. I was choking back my pain at Mother’s dining table over far too many evenings to feel comfortable while she smiled smug over at Maya and Millie, shooting me knowing glances like she told me so.

I was keeping my schedule open to make the most of the potential time with Millie, but I wasn’t doing any more.

Whenever Maya pushed me to stay on past Millie’s bedtime to talk or spend time together I’d politely decline, and keep my message clear and true.

I’m here for Millie, but not for us.

There will never be an us, Maya. I’m sorry, but there will never be an us.

I’ll do anything I can for Millie, but I can’t do anything more for me and you.

She would shrug and pull faces, and cast me aside like I was still the selfish prick she was fighting against, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t be anything else to her anymore. I’d be lying if I tried.

In my head I was still churning through potential miracle solutions on loop, but it was getting nowhere. Anna’s phone still had me on block, and I couldn’t see her listed on any other channels of communication, even though I looked.

Oh fuck, how I looked.

I was barely sleeping around seeing Millie. The dogs were getting their usual walks, but I was on autopilot, throwing balls and praising them like I was still fully engaged with the world, but even they knew the difference. They’d stare at me from my feet at night, looking up at me with far more sympathy and care than I was getting from anywhere else in my life.

Work was doing fine, but I was back to the grey, bland version of me they’d come to know before I’d exploded in colour. I didn’t give a shit for the projects I’d been throwing myself into with newfound zest, and I couldn’t give a shit for socialising around work meetings.

It must have been desperation that meant I abused my position at GCHQ for the first time since I’d been employed there. I used the security surveillance potential to tune into Anna’s communication channels and see when and how she was active.

It showed me nothing new. She was working long hours, and switching her phone onto standby for early nights, and at least that was a relief – that she was sleeping long hours, and taking care of her epilepsy and going about her regular life.

This grand fate that Maya and her friends were so keen to believe in was just a fucking cunt. Anna’s regular life should have been with me.

I lost track of how many nights I’d been smiling fake at Mother’s dining table, but I was taking our plates through to the dishwasher on one of them when she followed me through to the kitchen and closed the door.