Trace of Innocence | Sweet and Sour (Book 4)

Chapter 40

(No Control | Holding Me Ransom - 40 - Don't Let The Pictures Leave Your Phone)

A minute later, my phone lights up with a call from Jess. I stare at it, letting it ring for a good twenty seconds, before answering it just as it is about to divert to voicemail.

"Hi," I mutter.

"I'm so sorry," she says, without even a hello. "I didn't mean to be thoughtless. Are you really pissed off?"

I was all ready to yell at her, but her apology has thrown me off guard.

"I don't know how I feel," I mumble, staring out of the window into the passing traffic. "I feel too much to put into words."

"Try," she says gently.

"OK," I snap, suddenly furious. "I'm pissed off you weren't there. I'm pissed off you didn't bother to let me know you weren't coming. I feel like a dickhead for thinking that you would, and for looking out for you the whole time, only to discover you didn't. It felt like a massive kick in the teeth. And I feel like a dickhead for wanting you there when you obviously didn't want to be there. I feel stupid and embarrassed and let down. Will that do for starters?"

There is a pause of a couple of seconds. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling better for having got this off my chest.

"Harry, I'm really sorry," she says, fervently. "I honestly had no idea it was this important to you. I should have let you know. I literally only decided I wasn't coming after I finished work, but I should have told you then. I'm so sorry."

"What changed your mind?" 

"I was worried the media would be onto me, so I went online to survey the situation and read the articles from this week, and I saw we were all over the Daily Mail again. It scared me off if I'm honest; I didn't want the attention, not while we're still trying to muddle through all this mess. I'm sorry."

Paps, again. Will they be the downfall of every relationship in my life? This thought unnerves me.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" I ask, moodily. I mean, she could have been upfront with me about it, instead of letting me see her friends sitting in the crowd without her.

"I didn't think you'd realise I wasn't there," she admits, in a small voice. "I chickened out of the conversation with you because I knew you'd try and convince me to come, and I couldn't face the potential row. I'm trying so hard to keep things fun and casual between us. You always want to talk about us, and I can't, not yet."

I resist the urge to growl in frustration.

"Why? What's the big deal?"

"I'm not getting into this right now," she says, and her words are like a red rag to a bull.

"See there you go again, Jess!" I shout, not caring how petulant I sound. "You refuse to talk about it, yet it's the elephant in the room! I don't see how we can move forward when you stay so closed up all the time!" 

She doesn't even attempt to argue, so I barrel on:

"You won't tell me what you're thinking and feeling, and that's not fair! I'm being completely up front with you about everything - about where I'm going, what I'm doing, how I'm feeling! But you're giving me nothing back!"

As the words leave my lips a fear suddenly strikes me that maybe she is putting off breaking up with me for good, and I feel a strange emptiness in my stomach as I wish I could take my harsh words back, in case she decides she has had enough hassle from me and wants a clean break from all of this shit.