Your Lying Eyes

Your Lying Eyes Chapter 43

The next few weeks were the most difficult Anna had ever known.  She gradually moved her things from their house to Jason's.  Chloe doing the same.  

Howard tried over and over to get her to talk to him again, ringing her, texting her, even turning up at Jason's house, but she refused, saying that she had said all that she wanted to say to him.  She instructed a solicitor to start a divorce, but he refused to do so, hoping that the longer he delayed, that she would relent.  He knew that it would give him time to mend their relationship. Or at least he hoped so.  

She was being so determined.  He thought that he was dealing with a stranger.  She seemed so cold towards him, as if there was nothing he could do or say to break through the barrier she had thrown up against him.  As each day passed he felt more and more desperate.  The answer seemed no nearer and he began to realise that she was serious.  Like he had said to Gary, Nina had been the last straw.  Howard had never felt so achingly alone.  And it was all his own fault.  When he had Maisie with him, he felt slightly better and worse at the same time.  She reinforced his sense of loss.

Although she presented a calm and determined front to the rest of the world, inside Anna was devastated that their marriage had lasted for such a short time.  It hadn't even been six months since the wedding and he had let her down so badly again.  She had really believed him when he'd said that he wouldn't play around.  That those days were finally over.

For the first couple of weeks after she moved into Jason's house, she would cry herself to sleep at night.  Jason would often hear her sobbing well into the night.  He wanted so much to go into her and comfort her.  Tell her that everything would be alright and that eventually she would get over him.  He knew that telling her wouldn't help it to happen any faster, that she would have to go through this awful painful process.  She knew that he was there for her.  Many times over the first few weeks he would come into the room where she was, and see her sitting, quietly crying over him.  He would go to her, his arms open wide and hold her until she stopped, saying nothing just keeping her close to him, trying in some way to absorb some of the pain she was feeling.

She lost weight, her eyes had dark circles under them through lack of sleep. Her hair lost its healthy sheen.  It was an effort for her to hold a conversation with him or Chris.  Chris was becoming increasingly alarmed at her appearance.  Anna had always been so slim and slight, but now at times she appeared gaunt.  No matter what she and Jason prepared for her meals, she would play with the food on her plate, pushing it around and eventually put it from her having eaten one or two mouthfuls.

"What are we going to do about her Jay?" Chris asked him one day, tears of concern in her eyes.

"What we can," he replied.  "Keep trying like we are doing.  There's nothing else we can do."

"Your friend has a lot to answer for," said Chris, "I could kill him I could."

"He's looking pretty much the same as she is at the moment," said Jason.  "Gary told me that the day she told him she wanted a divorce that he shut himself away and drank whatever he could get hold of.  He's worried about him.  That's why he's still at Gary's house.  He doesn't know what to do about him.  The only times he's sober is when Maisie goes over with Chloe to see him."

"Don't expect me to have any sympathy for him," Chris muttered.  "After what he's done to her...," she stopped as the tears took over.

"Come here," Jason told her, taking her into his arms.  "It's ok, I know how you feel.  You want so much to help her but you can't.  All we can do is to be here for her when she needs us, and she will."

Chris wiped her eyes as she heard Anna coming down the stairs.  She'd been up in her room taking a nap.  She smiled at the two of them as she came into the kitchen and crossed to put the kettle on, making a drink for all of them.