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“I’m so sorry, Anna.” He turns to me, and his eyes look misty with tears. He grabs my face with his hands as if ensuring I can’t look away and studies my face. “You are the most important person in my world, and he almost fucked that up. I can’t stand that he tried to hurt you. That he’d do that to you.”
I close my eyes and block out the memory.
“I knew what he was like, always looking at other women. But I wanted you too much to push you away. I fucking love you, down to my soul, and he did this anyway.” His voice breaks, and it grips my heart.
“He did this to both of us,” I add, placing my hands on his.
I might have been his intended victim, but the ramifications of his actions are far more significant: hurting his son at the top of that list.
“I only care about you. So much it’s terrifying. Anna, please forgive me.”
There’s nothing to forgive, but I understand the gesture of his words. I was at his house setting up for his party. Nothing can excuse his father for his actions, and it shouldn’t be up to Jeremy to make up for them or seek forgiveness.
“I can’t cope with this without you. That’s why I came here. I need to remember what we had before he fucked that up.”
“He’s not fucked us up. I love you,” I whisper as I grab his hand and clutch it to my chest. “I love you, Jeremy Archer, through everything.”
“I love you, too.”
I’ve spent a lot of my time wondering if things between me and Jeremy would have been different if it had been his father who left when Jeremy was little rather than mine. It’s a cruel thought, but then, so much of our story is.
Or was our story always destined to play out the way it did?
A week after our little trip to Cornwall, Jeremy came back to school, and things started to return to normal. Or, at least, the normal we’d started to get used to.
But Jeremy wasn’t the same.
And I felt alone like I’d never done before.
Sammy and I were barely talking. I hadn’t made up for the mess of things I’d made with her birthday and hadn’t even told her about everything that happened since the party.
She walks past me in the corridor now and doesn’t even look up to acknowledge me.
And Mum is still mad that I ran off with Jeremy and ditched school for the day.
We’ve never fought before, and I don’t think either of us is dealing with it.
It feels like everything is falling apart, and I’m powerless to do anything but watch it happen.
Convinced by his friends, Jeremy held a second party to celebrate his birthday. Party take-two was just as stocked with alcohol and food as the first, although his father was nowhere in sight.
It didn’t stop the bad memories plaguing me as I walked into the kitchen. I hadn’t been back since we ran out of there, and it was overwhelming.
“Hey, there you are!”
I’m staring at the counter, panic rising, and my grip on the glass in my hand growing stronger as I play out the memory.
“Anna?” The voice jolts me back to now, and I turn to see Jeremy. He’s got a paper cup in his hand and a wonky smile on his face.
He’s never been one for drinking, at least not in front of me before.
My smile is weak, but I force it. For him.
“Come on, stop hiding out in the kitchen.”
He bundles me back through the house into the main living room, where a sea of people bounce and jump along to the music blaring. His arm drops as he finishes his drink before some of his mates pull him into the crowd, engulfing him in their drunken cheers.
I try and join in, dancing on the sidelines, but it’s no good.
