Keep My Secrets by Elena Wilkes (large ebook reader .txt) 📗

How can she even bring herself to think about that man? She disgusts herself. But there’s a tiny part of her that remembers the tiny part of him that was good and kind and beautiful, and that’s the tiny part of her that wants him, too.

Chapter Three

She opens her eyes with a start and the grind in her stomach begins churning again. It’s just light and the house feels strangely still. She looks across at the dented pillow. She didn’t feel Alex get up and she certainly didn’t hear him leave. She puts her hand out. The space beside her is hours cold.

Swinging her legs from the bed she goes over to the window and pulls open the curtains. His car’s not on the drive. It’s Saturday morning. He could have gone anywhere.

Pulling on yoga pants and a sweatshirt, she walks quickly along the landing to her office. Her desk sits there, clear and tidy. All the usual things for working from home are laid out: the wigwam of pens she never uses; the papers in their tray; the black screen of her PC, and her mouse lined up neatly.

Silently, she wheels the leather chair back and crouches to kneel beneath the desk. She feels with her fingertips for the back where the board has come loose. Levering it a little wider, she gingerly draws out a large, crumpled envelope, and then reaches in again for the jiffy bag. The seal opens easily and she shakes its contents out across the floor.

At first, the thing doesn’t register. It lies, curled slightly, an old bit of red jersey fabric with crumpled silk flowers badly tacked along one edge. She swallows. Something from a long way back taps at her memory and her heart squeezes in a vice. The panic rises. Of course she knows what it is. She looks down at it, feeling oddly light-headed. Her mind conjures up images of flickering strobe light whirling across a ceiling, the sweep of long blonde hair, the buzz-thump of the music shivering under her ribs as she watches the girl raise her arms as she moves, sinuous and sexy, the coloured lights catching the contours of her beautiful face, the red fabric stripe against the blonde, like a deep crimson gash.

Her hand comes up to her mouth. Oh. My. God. It’s the hairband.

She glances up at the window at the bank of uninterrupted morning sky. It’s the same sky, same blue, but nothing is the same. She picks up the jiffy bag and turns it over. The postmark is an over-stamped blur. So this is it. This is the thing she was afraid of, and it’s here: now. The tatty envelope sits on the floor next to her knee. She doesn’t need to look at the contents; she knows what’s in there. Opening the flap, she draws out one of the folded pieces of paper. She knows what’s written on it; she knows what’s written on them all.

Did you think I’d never find you?

She can hear his voice saying the words. Her fingers flit over the next.

You can never run away, Frankie. You’re mine. I’m yours.

She can’t read any more. Bundling the envelope back beneath the desk, she goes to grab up the notes, but there’s a flash and the phone suddenly jangles into life.

Her heart ramps up, her eyes snatch to the handset on the desk where it sits, lighting up and drilling into the silence. Her hand grabs for it.

‘Hello?’

She glances at the window again. Is he out there? Crouching on her haunches, she peers above the sill. The village lane is empty.

‘Hello?’

An anxiety beneath her heart begins to flutter. The sky has that blank, dead look as though some sort of nerve gas has taken out every living thing.

‘Who is this?’

At the end of the line there’s the quiet purr of someone breathing.

‘Can you please answer? Or I shall put the phone down.’ She is aware of the begging shake in her voice. She thinks about saying his name, the one she hasn’t said out loud for years. Her lips press together to form the sound, but she can’t bring herself to utter the rest.

She hears the breathing change, the lips smacking slightly. There’s a quick intake of air.

‘Remember me?’

It slides like syrup.

The floorboard creaks, and her head snatches round to find Alex’s dazed face staring at her from the doorway and then down at the strewn letters. Her mouth drops open and her hands begin to scrabble as if in slow motion. He steps back, dazed, as if she’s struck him.

‘Frankie?’ His voice has an ache to it that breaks her heart. ‘Frankie? What’s…?’

And then he steps forward into her slow-motion world, only he’s not slow, he’s quick: dipping forward to scoop up one of the pieces of paper and reading the few words as his hand trembles and he drags its meaning into his brain. This is his nightmare. The thing he’s dreaded; the thing that she said would never happen. She can see his whole world tumbling in all the rifts and shadows crossing his face.

‘I-I can explain,’ she stammers, the phone falling from her hand. ‘It’s not how it looks.’

‘Yes. It is.’ The piece of paper drops like an autumn leaf, the words tumbling through the air in front of her. He stares at it and looks up at her in agony. She knows what it says. It burned itself onto her memory from the moment she read it.

I love you more than life and even beyond death.

‘This is exactly how it is, Frankie. This is how it’s always been. I’ve just been scared to face it.’

‘No, Alex, no!’ Her hands reach out to him. ‘It’s not what you think.’

‘It’s not what I think, Frankie. It’s what I see; what I know. It’s what I’ve known for a long, long time.’

‘None of this is true, Alex. Let me explain. Let me tell you the truth.’

But his head shakes sullenly from side to side.

‘I’ve been so