Page 12 of Tainted Love

‘Thank you. For coming here. For telling me.’ Digging deep for all the confidence I can muster, I straighten my back. ‘Goodbye, Gregory.’

I move past him as fast as my heels allow and head back to the landing. Once again, I’m thumping the lift button and willing it to come.

The fire exit door slams to a close, the sound of metal meeting metal echoing in the foyer, and I can feel his presence. ‘Scarlett?—’

‘Please. Don’t. You said everything five weeks ago and I— I’m not strong enough to do it all again.’

The lift pings and I finally drop my shoulders from my ears. Inside, I hit the button for the fifth floor and start to breathe.

But two hands crash against the closing doors, prising them open. He’s staring right at me. Into me.

‘Scarlett, I love you.’

My lips part as I stagger back against the wall of the cart. There they are. Those three words I’ve been desperate to hear. The words I imagined him saying to me weeks ago.

But he said he couldn’t. He said he wouldn’t.

‘Why? Why now?’ My words are barely audible.

He’s motionless and he looks… afraid. ‘I didn’t come here to say that. But when I saw you…’

I shake my head as an overwhelming sense of confusion, of pain, love and anger, bears down on me. ‘I can’t do this again, Gregory. I can’t. No one has ever hurt me like you.’

He drops his head towards his chest.God, I want to hold him.

‘Please, Scarlett.’

My world begins to blur as tears fill my eyes. He looks so vulnerable. A shell of the man I have fallen for. The man who has ruined me for all others. But… ‘Nothing’s changed. We didn’t end because of the case, or even because you made me leave. We broke because you won’t let me in.’ The lift doors tremble and begin to close once more.

He doesn’t stop them, and I hear his words, almost exhaled, ‘I can’t.’

* * *

Why? Why now? After everything.

The hot spray of the shower caresses my skin and washes the salt of my tears from my cheeks.

Nothing’s changed.It’s true. I still don’t know that darkness within him. The real darkness. The black that broke us. It’s still there and if he won’t share it, we don’t work. I’d spend every day wondering if it was the last. If he would do something deceitful. If he’d push me away. I can’t do it again. I won’t survive him a second time.

Water trickles down my face and into my mouth.I want him so much.My legs feel weak under the weight of his words, replaying in my mind. I press my hands onto the tiled wall in front of me and watch the water drain away.

What if?

Maybe we could make it work. Maybe I never know his darkest secrets but he accepts that I love him regardless. I convince him that he deserves to be loved, that he won’t hurt me just by loving me back.

No.It’s not enough. I need all of him. Living in fear of his next breakdown, incomplete, isn’t a way to live my life.

After drying my hair, I lie back into the soft sheets of my bed with a towel still wrapped around my body. He was supposed to be justifying his corruption, that’s all. It’s not fair of him to ask me to do this. Has he actually asked me to do anything?

Hours pass by as the questions whir in my mind, keeping me from the sanctity of sleep. My confusion and desire are losing the battle against my sensibility, and what I’m left with is frustration and anger. He can’t just fly to Dubai after everything and throw out those three words like, like, like I don’t know what. He can’t just do that. He said he’s not willing to let me in. Right before the lift doors closed, he saidno. And he sent me away; how could he love me and still send me away? And hedidlie. He can call it what he likes, but he bribed the CPS.

Did they really accept self-defence? Were we honestly cleared?

I close my eyes and try for sleep again but it won’t come. The alarm clock at my bedside, tells me it’s 05.55.I give in.

I dress in my swimsuit, then cover it with leggings and a T-shirt and head down to the ground floor.

I’m rinsing in the poolside showers when he steps out of the male changing rooms in a pair of swim shorts, the sight of his naked torso making me wetter than the hot spray.