She was beginning to sober up, could feel the faint retreating of the alcohol in her system, her body absorbing it, breaking it down. She wondered vaguely if she’d be able to do that with her thoughts … all the noise in her head, just push it down, swallow it, let her body absorb it.
Or maybe that was exactly what she’d been doing for years.
Like that night with Bella.
She swallowed. How could she have done that to her? Pretending not to remember a thing. Shutting the front door and retreating inside to her parents. Needing to be the good girl because her parents couldn’t cope with anything else. Staying on the straight and narrow. Studying hard. Going to university. Securing a training contract. Working at a solid law firm. Meeting a nice man. Marrying him. Having a baby.
Ticking every damn box.
But that was the problem right there – she was putting herself in a box. She was containing her feelings and dreams in small, square shapes that had been drawn by someone else.
Now she wondered: What happens if I open the lid?
‘Robyn?’
She was sitting on a boulder set back from the cliff edge and hadn’t heard Fen approach.
The moon bathed Fen in a natural glow, so her skin looked porcelain.
‘What are you doing up here?’ Robyn asked.
‘I saw you leave the cove. You looked upset. Is everything okay?’
‘Bella and I had a few words. Not a fight, exactly. Just … something I needed to hear.’
Fen was quiet for a moment. ‘Bella’s having a rough day.’
‘I know. She told me the two of you broke up. I’m sorry.’
‘I didn’t mean for it to happen out here. Not on Lexi’s hen. It’s all such a mess.’
Robyn said, ‘Sometimes there isn’t a right time or place.’
Fen moved towards the boulder where Robyn was sitting and lowered herself down. ‘Can I ask you something?’ Fen said, turning to look at her. ‘Why did you and your husband separate?’
The question surprised Robyn. ‘He cheated on me.’ It was such an easy, neat answer. She’d said it a hundred times: My husband cheated. And people would squeeze her arm in sympathy, or call him a bastard, because they understood her hurt and anger and betrayal.
What they wouldn’t have understood so easily was that when Robyn had discovered he’d been having affairs, she had felt relieved. It gave her a way out. It was clear and obvious and understandable. That was way she’d always liked her emotions to be.
Neat. Neat. Neat.
She found herself admitting to Fen, ‘I was pleased he cheated. I felt relieved.’ She took a breath. ‘I wasn’t in love with him. I don’t think I ever have been.’
‘No,’ Fen said quietly, that single short word containing a truth that she felt Fen had somehow known.
‘If he hadn’t cheated, I think we’d still be married. Even though I don’t love him. God, that’s a terrible thing to admit. I’m so weak,’ she said, her head shaking. ‘I would still be married to someone I never truly loved because I’m not brave enough to make another choice.’
All around them, cicadas sang. Fen sat quietly at Robyn’s side, waiting. Leaving space. And so Robyn found herself opening into it. She told her about losing her brother when she was a teenager. How she’d watched her parents shatter, as if their hearts were only ever made of glass. ‘I just want life to be easy and good and gentle on them, because they can’t take any more. And tonight … tonight I swore at my mum, and she’s at home looking after my baby and I should be grateful, but instead I was mean and spiteful, and I know she doesn’t sleep well and she’ll be worrying about this and—’
Fen placed her hand over Robyn’s. ‘Breathe.’
One word.
She filled her lungs with air, allowing her diaphragm to expand. Then she exhaled slowly, shoulders releasing.
She drew in another for good measure.
She was acutely aware of the heat of Fen’s hand over hers. Something in the air shifted, became still. Her heartbeat quickened in her chest.
Neither of them spoke.
Robyn didn’t want to stir, or move, or speak, or do anything to alter the feeling that was lighting her whole body from within.
Fen kept her hand on Robyn’s as she asked, ‘Did you say anything to your mum that wasn’t the truth?’
Robyn thought for a moment. Shook her head.
‘Then perhaps that was what’s needed?’ She posed the question so straightforwardly that Robyn found herself thinking she might be right.