The Road Trip: The heart-warming new novel from the author of The Flatshare and The Switch by Beth O'Leary (books to read now TXT) 📕

Addie

I don’t know what to do with myself. My eyes are pricking with tears. Dylan’s holding my hand so tight it aches as we watch Marcus walk away, his shoulders hunched. She’s a better person than you or I could ever be.

I’ve carried all that crap Marcus said about me for so long. How I wasn’t good for Dylan. As if I had something bad in me, like I was holding a live grenade. It tainted me even before Etienne tried to break me.

Now I think he was right, in his way. I could have hurt Dylan a thousand ways, and sometimes I came close – sometimes my foot slipped. Back then, when we all met, I could have been that woman, and maybe that woman would have loved a man like Marcus. Maybe that woman would have kissed Etienne back.

But I know who I am, now. I’m the woman who holds Dylan’s hand tight and looks up at the father he was always too afraid to introduce me to. The man whose contempt for the two of us is drawn on every grey inch of his face.

‘Well,’ I say to Miles Abbott. ‘I don’t expect we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, unless you’re going to take a leaf out of Marcus’s book and ask for your son’s forgiveness. But it’s been a pleasure to see you. As in, it’s been a pleasure to see you get totally demolished.’ I flash him a grin, then turn to Dylan. ‘Come on, Dyl. We’ve got a wedding crasher to catch.’

Dylan’s shaking as we wind our way through the corridors in search of the bridal preparation chamber. He tries calling his brother, but Luke doesn’t pick up, and that seems to make Dylan’s shaking even worse.

‘Hey, you’re OK,’ I say, pausing for a moment. Our hands are still linked. ‘You did it. You saw him and walked away.’

He draws his free hand across his forehead, eyes drawn tight. ‘I didn’t even say anything.’

‘You didn’t have to. Staying quiet is powerful too, especially since he was clearly expecting you to come to him cap in hand.’ I squeeze his fingers between mine. ‘Marcus and I have your back. And maybe next time you will say something, if you want to – maybe you guys will figure it out, the way you and Marcus are doing.’

He leans back against the wall, and finally loosens his grip on my fingers, letting our palms slip apart. ‘Does it bother you?’ he asks quietly. ‘That I . . . that I let Marcus back into my life after what he did?’

I think hard. It’s too important a question to brush over, though that’s my instinct at first.

‘Maybe tell me how it happened. After . . .’ I swallow. ‘After Etienne.’

Dylan’s eyes soften as I say his name. He reaches out to me. ‘May I?’ he says gently.

The corridor around us is huge, with a big arched ceiling and pink wallpapered walls, but the world suddenly feels small. Like it’s just me and Dylan. I step towards him and he folds me in, hugging me close. I can feel his cheek resting on the top of my head. The happiness is seeping into me in every place we’re touching – my crown, my chest, my stomach.

‘After I left you, I couldn’t get out of bed for a very long time.’

I pull back to look at him but he keeps me against his chest, so I relax again in his arms. My sore wrist hangs at my side, but the other arm is wrapped around him tightly.

‘I was . . . it was depression,’ he says. ‘When Marcus finally got me to the doctor, that’s what they said.’

‘You’ve suffered from that before,’ I say into his chest. I hear his heartbeat quicken against my ear. ‘Before we met. And when you were travelling. And sometimes . . . it came for you, didn’t it, when we were together?’

‘I didn’t – I thought . . .’

‘I knew when you got lost, Dylan. I know you. I was just too – too – I don’t know. Too scared, I think, to talk to you about it.’

‘Scared of what?’ he whispers, cheek shifting against my hair.

‘Showing you how much I cared, maybe. It freaked me out that there were parts of you I couldn’t reach, but Marcus could.’

‘He was there the first time, when I was a teenager,’ Dylan says, voice low. ‘He and Luke looked after me. My dad . . .’

‘Didn’t.’

‘No,’ Dylan says ruefully. ‘He didn’t. That’s caused me some issues, clearly.’

‘So Marcus looked after you? When we broke up?’

‘Not at first. I wouldn’t let him in. I hated him, and I couldn’t even tell him the truth about you, so he still thought you were – that you’d cheated on me, and . . . I couldn’t bear to be with him. I blamed him completely, at first, for me losing you. But in the end he just broke in. Dragged me out of bed, took me straight to the doctors and got me anti-depressants and CBT and therapy.’ I feel him smile. ‘I went to the counselling on the condition that he’d go see a therapist too. During that time, Marcus did some more stupid things – turned up on Grace’s doorstep and yelled all sorts of nastiness at her, punched Javier—’

‘Punched Javier? What for?’ I say, shifting my head to look up at him in shock.

Dylan rolls his eyes. ‘I think Marcus was acting out because the therapy was digging up things he couldn’t cope with, personally. But yes, Javier and Luke were having an argument about something and Marcus got involved.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘I know. So I cut him off. My therapist said she thought it would help, and . . . it did, for both of us, I think. So for the last year, Marcus and I haven’t spoken. Not until I called him and asked if he wanted to