Out Of Time | A Shelby

twenty four

The knock at the front door startled Arthur but not as much as the way it flung open with such a force that it chipped the paint on the wall as it smashed against it.

"Arthur, oh my gosh, what happened?"

Nancy rushed through the door into Arthur's home just after the sun had risen the following morning. She had distress painted across her face and looked like she hadn't slept all night, dark circles underneath her eyes like black shadows.

"Hey," Arthur hugged her as she threw herself at him, squeezing him tightly and burying her head into his neck, "I'm alright, Nance, I'm fine."

She pulled away from him and held his face in her hands, her eyes wandering over each individual cut and bruise that stained his skin.

"Why didn't you tell me you were home? I waited up all night for you and I saw Esme this morning on my way to get some milk and she said you got back last night, I came straight here."

Arthur smiled sheepishly and shook his head, taking Nancy's hand inside his own and pressing his lips against it.

"I'm sorry, I just came straight back here because-"

Footsteps echoed in the hallway as Linda reached the bottom of the stairs. She walked into the kitchen without hesitation, her face a blank canvas but inside she felt smug.

"Sorry," Linda smiled, "Am I interrupting?"

Nancy's eyes flickered from Linda standing in the corner like a looming shadow back down to Arthur who was avoiding her piercing gaze.

"Arthur?"

Her voice was like a child's. It sounded upset and afraid, like she'd been lost and had nowhere else to turn, like all options had been exhausted and now she'd run out of energy.

All of which, was true.

"Nancy it isn't what you think, I swear-"

"Why is she here?" Nancy said, interrupting Arthur with no regrets.

He sighed loudly and turned to look at Linda over his shoulder.

"I'll let myself out."

Everybody stayed silent until Linda closed the front door behind her, and for a few long moments after, the silence remained.

Arthur's mind was racing back and forth, round in circles thinking how he could possibly explain this to Nancy. He had intended to tell her what had happened, but he didn't expect to have to tell her like this.

The way she looked up at him with her doe eyes increased the guilt he already had growing inside him. He watched as she composed herself, taking deep breaths to steady the pumping of her heart. Arthur could tell she was trying not to cry.

"Nancy, darling..." Arthur took her hand again, rubbing small circles on the back of it with his thumb.

She looked up at him, her eyes telling him to get on with what he had to say.

"Linda and I got into some trouble at the races, we're both alright, but when I saw her there and the way everything happened, it felt like there was a door left open that we needed to close properly."

"What are you saying? That you don't know if you still want to be with her or not?"

Arthur sighed and chewed his lip, wondering how on earth he could answer her question without making things worse. He didn't think that was possible.

"It's not like that. There was some things we both agreed were left unsaid, things we needed to talk about to get closure, I suppose."

"Closure? Or testing the water?"

Nancy was in pain the longer Arthur spoke. Each word he said felt like a bullet piercing through her skin and she wasn't sure how much more of it she could take. It was hard enough seeing Linda in the workplace, let alone in her partner's home after she'd been wondering if he was dead or alive for the past twenty four hours and counting.

"Nance, there was certain parts of Linda and I's marriage that we needed to speak about. Things that might've taken things in a different direction, the unknown."

It pained Arthur to be so brutally honest with Nancy, but he knew it was the only way he could be. Since seeing the way Linda broke down with Vincent's drawing in her hands made him feel like the worst excuse of a man on the planet. He felt like he'd let her down, like he'd lied to her, like he'd not tried hard enough with their marriage and like he wished he'd have done better.

Arthur was being pulled between two thoughts: had he ever really stopped loving Linda, or was Nancy the saving grace he'd needed this whole time?

Nancy looked down at her hands, nodding solemnly as she slowly processed what Arthur was telling her.

"Okay," she whispered, blinking as a tear rolled down her cheek, "I think I understand what you're saying."

She rose to her feet and pulled her jacket across her body, folding down the collar and smoothing out her hair, flicking it over her shoulders and holding her head high.

"Don't go, Nancy, please."

"What reason is there to stay?"

Arthur stood before her, one hand that was outstretched now fell back down to his side. He couldn't give her an answer. He had loved Linda in a way that he never understood, and it was reciprocated in the same way. With Nancy, he was never left in the dark. All his questions were answered and he never felt as if there was any wonder about any aspect of their relationship.

Despite this, there was a hold that Linda had over him. He wasn't sure whether it was the unknown about their marriage that made him want to find out what their potential was, or whether it was something greater than that.

The truth was, Linda was the first woman Arthur ever loved. He fell for her quicker than the blink of an eye and now he had started to realise that the pain of falling out of love took a lot longer than it did to fall in the first place. With Nancy, it was a slow burning desire that he had to fight with himself over to allow him to even delve into the pleasure for a second, but with Linda there was never any fight.

"What happened, Arthur?" Nancy began, shaking her head, "I thought we were on the same page with everything? I thought that this was what you wanted? Me, Vincent, a family?"

Nancy wasn't wrong. Arthur wanted all of that, but the doubt in the back of his mind about what could've been with Linda if he'd taken the chance and raised a family with her was too heavy for him to dismiss. He just wished that the timing of his feelings had been more sympathetic to him.

"Maybe nothing's wrong. Maybe our worlds are just spinning out of time."