A Sense of Guilt ✔

Chapter 50

Shannon sat on her bed with her legs crossed, Joe's laptop balanced between her knees. She logged into her Facebook account and began to scroll through Mark's profile going back to when they were still together. She squirmed as she looked at pictures of herself clinging to Mark's hand or with her arm linked through his. She looked so desperate! How had she not seen it at the time? She then began to search for more recent pictures of him with Natalie and was satisfied to see he had the same bleary-eyed look on his face. At least she could console herself that Natalie hadn't succeeded in reforming him when she had failed.

Her finger hovered over the unfriend button and after briefly hesitating, she clicked on it. Mark would think she was being petty but to hell with him. She wasn't going to spend the next few months feeling miserable every time there was an update on Natalie's pregnancy. She quickly began to unfriend all their mutual friends - thankfully she wasn't close to any of them - when she heard Joe's key in the door. She closed the laptop and pulled on a robe before making her way through to the living room.

'Hey,' Joe said holding out her phone to her. 'Have you been sleeping?'

'Yeah, I went back to bed for a while,' she admitted combing her fingers through her hair. 'I wasn't expecting you back so soon.'

'I wasn't going to stay longer than necessary, I didn't want to go in the first place.'

She frowned wondering if he was just saying that. 'I told you to go, it's fine.'

'I should have stayed here, even Kat said so.'

Her mouth dropped open. 'Kat?' she said her voicing rising an octave. 'You told her?'

Joe looked away awkwardly. 'Only the briefest of details. She wanted to know how I broke your phone, I suppose I should have lied.'

Shannon took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. 'It doesn't matter, I guess it just feels a bit weird that you'd talk to Katherine about me.'

Joe let out a half laugh. 'It feels even weirder to me. But to be fair she was nice, well when we weren't arguing.'

Shannon sat down on the sofa, sinking back where one of the springs had come loose. She didn't want to think of Katherine being nice, it only made her feel worse about herself.

'Are you okay now, you've gone quiet,' Joe said sitting down next to her, and putting his arm around her shoulders. She shifted her position so that she was facing him.

'I removed Mark from all my social media,' she said and she saw the tension leave Joe's face. 'I kept thinking about what would happen when they have the baby. If I congratulate them I'll look passive-aggressive, and if I ignore it they'll think it's sour grapes.'

'You've done the right thing,' Joe said sounding relieved. 'There's no reason for you to be in touch with your ex.'

But you are!

She remained silent and Joe cleared his throat. 'Shannon, about earlier, I'm sorry for overreacting.' She looked up at him questioningly. 'About you talking to Mark, I was being an asshole.'

'Yes you were,' she said trying not to smile. 'He's top of my list of people I never want to speak to, if he hadn't hidden his number I never would have taken his call.' She paused for a moment as she contemplated going on. 'You can't say the same about Katherine though, can you? You still talk to her.'

Joe exhaled slowly. 'You're right, I do. I'm trying to phase her out but it seems cruel to cut her loose, especially after what I did.'

She held in a sigh thinking they would never get past this. 'But look at how you reacted to me having one brief conversation with someone I loathe,' she finally said. 'Don't you think I feel like that every time you talk to Katherine?' Not that she did, not really.