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

stupid.’ His tone is soft and tender. ‘All you had to do was tell me, that’s all.’ He casts a hand at the strewn paper, at her there on her knees in front of him. ‘This isn’t you, this isn’t who you are. You didn’t have to reduce yourself to this.’

His tenderness is killing her.

‘Alex, listen! You honestly have no idea… You don’t know what you’re saying! Listen to me, please!’

‘No, I’m done listening. I don’t know who you are anymore. I don’t know who we are.’ He turns to leave.

‘Alex!’ She’s up off her knees in an instant. ‘Alex. Don’t go.’

He pauses with one hand on the door.

‘I couldn’t tell you, I was scared—’

He blinks. ‘Tell me what?’

Her brain stumbles and falls. He’s giving her a chance: one chance. The truth feels like a foreign country where the language ties her tongue in sounds she can’t make.

‘I’m being followed. Stalked… A few weeks now. A man. He doesn’t show himself but I know he’s there. These started coming at the same time – and then that parcel yesterday.’

Alex’s face stays completely still. He doesn’t move. He looks at her and she looks at him.

‘Give me a chance to tell you everything, Alex. That’s all I’m asking. One chance.’

He pauses. His nod is almost imperceptible.

‘I’ll tell you all of it. I promise.’

And the fiction begins to fall from her mouth… Drip, drip, drip…

The truth, whatever it is, can’t live here. There’s no place for it. She has a life now, she has a future that she needs to keep together. And the past? The past is hers. It’s a secret and private place that’s full of pain and anguish and loss that she just can’t face.

And with it, an almost unbearable love.

Chapter Four

Then

She’d been watching from the bedroom window, waiting for him to walk down the road. As he turned the corner, she dashed to the mirror to make sure her eyeliner was on point.

Practising a sideways glance, she gave her reflection that slide of her eyes that always made him laugh, and then smiled at the result. He didn’t stand a chance.

She could hear some of the girls as they thundered down the stairs, squawking and giggling; they’d spotted him too and were running around to alert the others. She wasn’t included. None of them were speaking to her, but who cared? She really couldn’t give a toss.

The doorbell went and her heart went with it. She pressed an eye up against the windowpane, glimpsing the top of his dark head as her stomach did a complete three-sixty. She was glad they all hated her; she didn’t need any of that lot. She had Martin now, only none of them knew it. Sixteen weeks. Sixteen weeks two days and… she looked at her watch and did a quick calculation – Five hours and eighteen minutes since they’d done the quiz night. Someone mentioned that the new volunteer was going to be there. He’d sat opposite her – God, he was clever. Cleverer than all the other staff. He’d winked at her when no none was looking, then in the break had come up behind her in the kitchen and put his hand on her back. The jolt of electricity went right up her spine and made her gasp. He’d asked her name and told her he thought she was beautiful. He’d said it just like that: all matter-of-fact. Not creepy: like it was obvious. ‘You’re beautiful.’

She shivered at the memory as another cacophony of shrieking echoed up from the hallway and Jude’s voice bellowed, telling them to be quiet. She closed her eyes in irritation. That lot hadn’t worked out what had been going on right under their noses.

She could hear the deep boom of his voice and Jude’s more measured tone. She was obviously going to tell him what had happened as part of the afternoon shift handover. So what if she’d given Natalie a slap? She’d deserved it. She shouldn’t go around into other people’s rooms, should she? She hadn’t hit her that hard, really, but somehow she’d managed to smash through the coffee table. At the sight of blood, the others had gone wild and Nat was carted off to Chester A&E. Jude wasn’t even giving him a chance to get his coat off before she started bumping her gums about how ‘challenging’ Frankie had been that morning. Stupid cow – like Martin would listen to anything she had to say.

‘She’s part of the system, Frankie,’ he’d said. ‘And right this moment, so are you. The system’s too powerful to fight. Once you’re eighteen it’s different, they can’t control you anymore. Then you’re free. Free to be with me.’

They’d laughed and she’d kissed him. She’d go and live with him on his canal boat. That’s what they’d planned. She sighed. Eighteen. It was nearly a whole year away. It felt like a lifetime.

Trying to quell the mounting excitement in her stomach, she stepped back, catching sight of herself in the mirror again and smoothing her hands over her hips. The weight of Martin’s belt and buckle hung heavy in the loops of her jeans. It was their little way of touching each other when they were apart.

Running her fingers around the top of the belt, she had a sudden memory of his hands in exactly the same place and a quiet thrill thrummed through her stomach. He’d started sneaking into her room when he was on night-duty. Martin wasn’t like anyone she’d ever met before. He’d shown her how to look at things differently: to see things as they should be seen. He didn’t just see the bigger picture; he saw the whole landscape, the seas, the moon, and the stars. He saw beauty in a world of ugliness. The truth was, she’d been like a stone and he’d brought her to life. Colours looked different, the streets felt different, she was different. She would have jumped off a cliff if he’d asked her to.

She