The Silent Suspect by Nell Pattison (epub e ink reader .TXT) 📕

a drink and a chat. It wasn’t busy as it was mid-week, but I glanced around to see if I knew anyone before choosing a seat.

Ten minutes later, Gem came through the door looking flustered.

Sorry, sorry, she signed. I never seem to leave the house when I mean to.

I laughed. It’s fine, don’t worry. Do you want a drink?

I’d deliberately driven that evening to avoid a repeat of the previous night. Red wine wasn’t my friend the morning after, especially with how much I’d drunk, and I’d been dealing with a fuzzy headache all day. Gem got us a lemonade each and sat down opposite me, fixing me with a searching look.

How are you?

I grimaced. I’ve been better. But I’ll be okay.

Of course you will be, she replied, but I need to work out how I can help you to get to being okay.

I squeezed her hand briefly across the table. Thank you, I appreciate it.

What are friends for? I picked you up after the disaster that was Mike. You picked me up after Peter died. I can pick you up again this time.

I nodded my agreement. Sometimes I needed reminding that I had been there to support my friends as much as they’d been there for me. Peter, Gem’s husband, had been killed in a car crash when she was pregnant with Petra. It had been a devastating time, but I had pulled together with a couple of her other friends to make sure we kept her going, through the rest of her pregnancy and those first few months of navigating parenting on her own. Petra had a lot of aunties whom she’d spent time with in her formative years, and we made sure Gem was able to rebuild herself and her life.

This won’t be as difficult as my experience with Mike, I told her with a wry smile. After all, I was the one who ended it.

That doesn’t mean you’re not hurting, she replied. It’s a big decision to make, ending a relationship, and it’s scary. I’m proud of you, though.

Why? I asked, confused. I thought you liked Max?

Oh I did, I do. He’s a nice guy, even if it didn’t work out. No, what I mean is I’m proud of you for knowing your own mind and acting on it, even when it’s hard.

I nodded, knowing what she meant. When I was with Mike, I thought about ending it so many times over the years, but I could never bring myself to do it. Partly, it was because I was scared of him, scared of what he would do, either to me or to himself. But it was also the fear that he’d planted in my mind that I wouldn’t cope on my own, that I wouldn’t be able to look after myself or maintain the flat by myself. Of course, now I knew that it was rubbish, and he’d spent years gaslighting me and making me doubt my own abilities, but at the time I hadn’t been able to see past that. My friends had noticed what was going on though, and it was Gem and Anna who had cleared Mike’s belongings out of the flat while I was in hospital, recovering from my ordeal of being locked in by Mike.

I’d seen Mike again last year and it had brought back a lot of bad memories. One thing it had shown me, though, was how much I’d changed, how much stronger I was now. I wasn’t going to stay in a relationship that wasn’t right for me any more, however hard it was to end it, because I knew it would only make things worse in the long run.

I explained all of this to Gem, and she let me talk for as long as I needed to. I poured out all the things that had been going round in my head all day – whether I’d made the right decision about Max, as well as my fears of being single forever and missing out on things like marriage and children.

You can have children when you’re single, Gem signed with a pointed look.

I know, and I’m not knocking what you’ve achieved, but you know what I mean.

She nodded. I do. But you’re only thirty-one, Paige. You have plenty of time to meet someone else and settle down. There’s no rush, and panicking about it is only more likely to cause you to end up with the wrong person. I wondered if she’d always thought of Max as the wrong person for me, and what the right person would look like. An image of Singh rose unbidden in my mind and I felt a strange churning sensation in my stomach, but I tried to ignore it. Right now I couldn’t work out what my feelings were for Rav; there was too much going on and my head was all over the place.

You’ll get there, Gem told me with a smile. The first few days after a break-up are always hard.

I’m so used to texting him, I told her, nodding at where my phone sat on the table, noticeably silent. I keep thinking of things I should tell him. I read an article this morning and automatically went to send him the link before I remembered.

You’ll get used to it soon. And maybe you’ll be able to form some sort of friendship, once you’re both used to it.

I grimaced. I don’t know. He was so upset yesterday. I really didn’t want to hurt him; he didn’t deserve it, but there wasn’t an alternative.

Give him time. Have you talked to him since then? I shook my head, and she nodded. Good, probably best to leave it a bit longer. She was about to sign something else when she grimaced at something over my shoulder. I went to turn round, but she put a hand on my arm to stop me.

I groaned inwardly as I realised what, or rather who, she’d seen.

Max has just walked in, hasn’t he?

She nodded. Shall we