In the end, it wasn’t worth it. None of that shit was ever was. As long as my sisters were safe, I didn’t want to deal with anything else.
As I turned and walked out the door, I felt some sense of relief when I saw Tammy and Janie buckled up in my car.
The black BMW looked so out of place next to their rusted Ford Focus. Part of me wondered if they actually had a nicer house and car tucked away somewhere and the house behind me was just a decoy.
“You get back here, Dom!” Terry roared from the house as I flung open the front door of the car.
“Dom!” Sally shrieked from behind him. “Dom! Come back! Don’t leave us!”
It was time for the public show. Neighbours could hear us and there were already curious faces at their windows.
I was in the driver’s seat slamming the door before he could take a swing at me.
“Open the door, Dom.” I looked up at him, sweaty, red-faced, rage flowing through him. He slammed theside of his fist against the window and the girls cried out and flinched back. “Open the fucking door and come and face me like a man.”
I laughed as I started the engine, and the doors clicked as I locked them. Disappointment and glee hopped through my veins that I’d finally done it.
“Ready to go?” I said to my sisters, and they both nodded. Nervousness showed in their smiles, so I tried to reassure them.
“He can’t get in the car, okay? I’m not letting him near you. So show him how you feel about him scaring you yesterday.”
I lifted a hand, giving Terry the finger, and my heart clenched as they copied me. They still looked unsure as I pulled away and we watched Terry jolt back as he kept shouting.
“Yes, that’s the shit.” I grinned at them both, trying to distract them. “Come on, tell me where you want to go first. You said there’s an ice cream place?” They needed a pick-me-up since they hadn’t finished their dinner.
“Oh my God, yeah!” Tammy edged forwards on her seat. “It’s ten minutes away, if you go left at the end of the road you can…”
I glanced at Terry standing on the driveway, panting, and Sally watching us from the front door with a cold expression, tears miraculously gone again. I was surprised they didn’t wave their fists at us old-school sitcom style.
But fuck them. Fuck them both. My sisters deserved so much better than them, and yet, they were stuck. It was my job to look after them, just like I was supposed to look after Harry.
I needed to contact Christian and Grace and find a legal way to get them out, because I couldn’t deal with how shaken Janie looked as Tammy chattered away.
At least my sisters didn’t create the hell they’d been forced into. Oh no, I’d done that all by myself. And, at the moment, I really couldn’t see a way out.
Harry
The sounds of the airport spun around me. It was chaos, but it helped me think of something other than the look in Dom’s eyes as I told him to get out of my office.
It hadn’t even been a week. I didn’t think it would be so bad, or that I’d miss him so much after everything he’d done to me. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d spent that long apart. Even when we were both swamped with work, he still made sure we saw each other, even if he had to break into my office at midnight.
I was surrounded by noise: screaming children, happy chatter, and joy at people reuniting. But all I could see were huge boards above us announcing arrivals and departures.
I should have been tracking Molly’s plane, and I was, in part. But for the past half hour, my eyes kept flitting between the arrival for her Oslo flight and a flight to Newcastle that departed in forty minutes. The last call for boarding was blaring out over the speakers.
I could have done it. Just went straight up to the desk, whizzed through security and threw myself on the plane moments before it left. Then I could sit there for an hourpanicking about what I was even going to do when I showed up at Dom's family’s house.
Unlike with Molly, I’d met all of Dom’s family at our graduation eight years ago, and heard stories about them from him. He’d prepped me solidly beforehand, ‘just in case’. The advice mostly revolved around avoiding his parents at all costs. I met them a few days after graduation when they interrupted my family dinner at a local restaurant, and then I’d understood why he’d acted that way.
But I had come to the airport for Molly. I was there to pick up my fiancée, the woman I was meant to have missed for over a month. The person I thought I’d been growing closer to during that time. I’d been imagining this moment since she left; running towards her, gathering her up in my arms, both of us sighing into each other as we apologised. Then we would go home, and make love like we'd acted out through our texts.
But everything was ruined now. I wasn’t even sure why I was there. She might have said on the phone that she wanted to try, but she broke up with me. It was Molly who didn’t contact me once when she was away. She could have saved me so much heartache by being honest. But it was pointless laying blame on her for Dom’s actions.
I didn’t feel like I should be the one who made more of an effort when she left me like that. But that was always her complaint: my lack of effort.
All I did was think of Dom. Over and over again, playing out every conversation we’d had since Molly left, failing toconvince myself I hated him. I’d even read through all of ‘Molly’s’ messages to see why I didn’t work out it was Dom sooner.
Even after all of that, I still considered getting on a plane and going to him. It was pathetic, but I missed him so deeply that there was a burning ache in my chest that turned with the raw pain of his betrayal. One I knew could only be soothed by him.