When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books to read now .TXT) 📗

lives that we didn’t have before. Although me and Johnny said we loved him all the time, Harry could never say it back. But that was OK, it didn’t matter because he showed us his love every day.

Then one Saturday morning while we watch Johnny play in the playground there is more than “I love you.” There is, “Gigi, come to London. You and Johnny, come and live with me.”

This is the part of the movie where Hugh Grant looks up at the woman from under his eyebrows and smiles and his Englishness—his dimple and hint of a laugh under every sentence and puns and understatement and table manners and shirts with real cuff links—they shoot her through the heart and she leaps into his arms.

But I’ve got a kid and I’m a real person so I say, “Get the fuck out of here,” and shove him.

He takes my hand. “They want me back in London and I’d like you to come with me.”

“You’re serious?” I pull my hand away, thrilled and terrified. “Because, if you’re fucking with me, it’s not funny.”

He pulls me into him. “They’re promoting me, sending me home. I want you to come with me, you and Johnny. But you need to see it first. See if you’re sure. We won’t do it if it’s not right for you.”

How long is a heartbeat? How long is a breath? A fraction of a second to choose a different life. Before I can stop myself, before I can even think of the words, I’ve said them.

“If it’s with you then it’s right.” Harry pulls me to him. I close my eyes and breathe him in. I’m not sure what I’m doing.

I do it anyway.

4 champagne, smoke, diet coke A Wednesday in August 2016, 12 p.m. London, Grand Euro Star Lodge Hotel, Room 506

Luckily, it’s impossible to drown in a European half bathtub. I found this out when I woke up in water, shivering and pale. Added bonus, though, the cold water constricted my muscles so my thighs looked, just for a minute, not good, but not horrifying. I fell asleep curled in a ball because that’s the only way to sit in half a bathtub and it was painful to stand up, especially around my middle, where my scar’s still red and raised. I grabbed my rented towel and, of course, it was half the size it should have been. I pulled on my clothes and got under the covers. It took me a long time to stop shivering.

I check the time. Noon. I order a pizza and two bottles of red wine. You can’t get wine delivered with your pizza at home. Another check in the pro column for life in the U.K. Dammit. Shit. A sudden pang of regret and anxiety. I forgot to pack Johnny’s bag for soccer camp today. I can see the shin guards where I left them, lying at the bottom of the stairs. Of course, Harry wouldn’t have remembered. That’s fair enough, since his wife just walked out on him. No snack either. Three days in a row that I forgot. An image of Johnny searching through his bag at break time, hungry, tired, knowing that there’s nothing in his bag while his friends pull out evenly cut carrot sticks and digestive biscuits. He loves those, kept asking me to buy them and I didn’t get why he wanted stomach medicine until he showed them to me in the store. That’s got to be, hands down, the worst name ever for a cookie.

I can’t do anything about it now. I don’t even feel guilty. In these last months I’ve disappointed Johnny so many times in so many ways that he doesn’t get upset anymore. He’s just accepted my shitness and hugs me anyway. Like those baby monkeys taken from their mothers in that experiment you learn about in high-school biology. And the baby monkeys, looking for a mother, any mother, kept trying to hug the wire monkey covered in a towel, kept sitting with her, clinging to her, loving her, even though she never responded. Even though a towel could never be fur.

I look down at the phone. There’s a red dot over my email app. Harry.

You’re not answering my texts. Have you blocked me? I’m so worried, where are you? I’m calling everywhere looking for you. Please tell me you’re safe. It’s been hours. If you don’t want to tell me where you are please just tell me you’re safe. Please call. I love you. P.S.: I can’t find Rocky’s medicine.

The TV’s still on. The Housewives have left for their Boca Raton weekend getaway. Nicole says, “I want to hear birds chirping, I want to see sunshine all the time, I want to feel the warmth on my face, on my boobs…” It’s been a cold, hard winter in Jersey.

I hit reply. Watch the cursor blink.

I’m waiting to feel something. Panic or hysteria, regret, sadness or longing, rage. I thought that’s what would happen, some great outpouring of pain that would prove to me how much I love them. Some involuntary impulse to get on a plane and never come back, or to go back to the house and pull my babies close to me and vow to start over. I thought something would happen if I walked out and left.

But I’m calm and my heartbeat is steady.

I watch the ladies order tequila by the pool. Then they go grocery shopping in five-inch heels for that night’s dinner. Later they get wasted and compare nipple covers for their strapless tops, a must-have for looks where you can’t wear a bra. It gets heated when Dina wants to bring up the rumor to the twins about Rino and his mother-in-law and the fact that Amber knows and that they don’t trust her. But Nicole doesn’t want to hear it. I wonder if Rocky’s screaming with tiredness right now and if Johnny’s hungry. I wonder these things and