Girl A by Dan Scottow (easy books to read in english .TXT) 📕

the bottom of the drawer. He placed the pad on the bench and fished around once again for something to write with. Finding one of Daisy’s thick colouring pens in fuchsia pink, he poised, ready to pour his heart out.

Beth… he wrote.

Closing his eyes for a moment, he pictured the scene where they first met. Or at least where he had first seen her. It took him a few weeks to pluck up the courage to actually speak to her. But he had first spotted her in the university library, second week of term.

Her hair had been dark brown, almost black back then, cut into a short pixie. She wore thick-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses.

Charlie admired her for looking different to all the other girls on campus. Having her own sense of style.

In hindsight, he now realised this was an attempt to alter her appearance. She must have been terrified of being recognised. Her clothing was plain. She wore baggy blue denim dungarees over a dark sweatshirt. She had been sitting on her own reading a book, something lofty, but the title and subject escaped him now.

Charlie could see her clearly, as if it were yesterday.

Two small, translucent, plastic, cherry-shaped earrings dangled gracefully from her lobes. Charlie had been transfixed by them. The light from an adjacent window shone through them, causing green and red shapes to dance over her cheek. Over the years at uni they would become Charlie’s favourite thing that she wore, as they always reminded him of the first time he had seen her. These, along with the small silver key which Beth always wore on a chain around her neck; a twenty-first birthday gift, were two constants.

Two things which were quintessentially Beth.

He hadn’t been able to stop staring at her. She didn’t notice. Didn’t glance up from her book once.

Over the following days he saw her many times, always sitting at the same spot. He eventually realised he was returning to the library each day simply to glimpse her.

But she never looked up. Never knew he was watching her.

Which made her more attractive.

Charlie was used to girls noticing him. So Beth’s failure to do so made her a challenge for him.

He pictured those cherry earrings. Did she still have them somewhere upstairs? He wondered how long ago she’d stopped wearing them. Wondered sadly why he hadn’t noticed.

In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to see his wife in those stupid plastic earrings.

And his heart broke a tiny little bit.

30

Sitting in a lay-by, Beth cradled her head in her hands. How had it come to this? She had driven the winding lanes around her home for an hour, before pulling over. When the grief had hit her. The sudden realisation that life would never be the same.

That the man she loved may never look at her in the same way ever again.

Of course, she had fantasised about that moment, many times. Offloading her terrible secret. The one thing she did her utmost to make sure Charlie would never find out. She didn’t know what she had expected. She had always imagined that he would be angry for the deception, but then embrace her tightly, telling her he still loved her. She was still his Beth. Nothing would change that.

But the look in his eyes in reality… was far different.

Anger. Hatred. Suspicion?

When he had told her to go, she hadn’t quite believed it at first. His lack of empathy for how hard it had been for her to confess to him felt like a betrayal. It hurt. Real, physical pain.

An aching in her heart that she had never known. Not even when her father had refused to come to court to support her. Nor when he had shouted she was no daughter of his and spat at her.

But she hadn’t loved him. He was a weak, pathetic excuse for a man, so she hadn’t expected anything from him. Charlie was different.

Or so Beth had thought.

‘Stupid, stupid, stupid!’ Beth screamed, as she thumped the steering wheel hard with both hands.

When she had failed to reveal the truth to Charlie within their first year together, she had decided she should never tell him. To have kept a secret for so long was bound to upset him. So she knew in her gut that it had to remain just that. And she had done so well.

Even when she had wanted more than anything to pour her heart out, to scream it in his face. She’d held back. And after she became pregnant with Peter, that simply sealed the deal. She would take her identity to the grave.

But Charlie had backed her into a corner today. She had run out of excuses to not get the police involved. A note threatening their children, and their dog’s blood spilled on their driveway.

No rational person would think attempting to tackle the situation alone was the sensible thing to do. And so she’d been left with no choice. The truth, as hard as it was, the only option.

She pulled her phone from her pocket, dialling Charlie’s number. Straight to voicemail. She hammered out a text asking if she could come home. Demanding he call her.

The waiting drove her insane.

She longed to see her family; to hold her children. How dare Charlie tell her to leave? It was her house. He had no right. Anger replaced her grief.

For better or for worse appeared to be another broken promise.

She started the engine and headed for home. As she drove, she thought of Charlie. Tried to picture his eyes when he laughed. All she could see was his expression as her words sank in.

I am Kitty Briscoe.

Shock, followed by disappointment, then something darker. Far worse.

She wanted to make things right. She shouldn’t have left. Should have demanded that they talk it out. That they hug. She should have insisted they go for ice cream as a family, and then a walk on the beach.

Anything but walking out the door.

A feeling she had not experienced since childhood overwhelmed