She threw the sponge she had previously used to clean the floor in the other room into the bin with a grimace before making her way back to where she had left Ashley, barely acknowledging him as she removed their child’s vomit from the floor and only briefly glanced up at him once to check he remained where she had ordered him to. Cheryl gently pushed the door closed behind her and sat on the empty seat of the sofa next to her soon to be ex-husband, her ministrations dazed him slightly as he looked up at her from where he had his head in his hands, no doubt half-asleep due to the large consumption of alcohol he had taken in only a couple of hours previously. Ashley attempted a small grin at her but her unamused expression forced his pleasant smile to fade as he quickly glimpsed around the room, eager for a distraction from talking to her about what he had originally planned.
‘You haven’t changed much in the house,’ he told her, his eyes resting on the set of framed photographs of Caden on a shelf, she shrugged lightly, almost succumbing to his small talk before her memory reminded her of why they were sitting together to begin with. She clasped her hands together on her lap and studied him from her side perspective,
‘Ashley why are you here?’ She asked, wringing her hands together as she thought of the possibilities for his late night visit. His actions of staying in her house had made it clear that he wasn’t simply here to bring Caden back.
‘I got a call earlier about you filing for a divorce.’ He confirmed her suspicions with a solemn nod of the head as she heavily deeply,
‘Ashley...’ He cut her off before she could say anymore,
‘Why? Just tell me why.’ He asked her, an air of desperation around his tone that made her heart suddenly feel heavy as though out of control. She moved her head away from his direction as he tried to catch her gaze with his own that she flatly rejected. She averted her attention to the softly lit lamp in the corner, the only source of light casting a dim glow over the room as her mind pushed out Ashley and focused her mind on why it wasn’t bright in the first place. She was quickly shaken back to reality as Ashley rested a heavy hand against hers that remained linked together, she immediately shook his hand away from her own and faced him with a small frown emitting from her.
‘You broke my heart and it’s been over three years, I just want to be me again, not Cheryl Cole that hasn’t got around to getting a divorce yet.’ She stated, wrinkling her nose at the smell of the strong alcohol that he was giving off across her living room.
‘But...’ Ashley trailed off and rubbed his head with his fist as his vision blurred over slightly as he struggled to explain what he needed to say. ‘But we could be together?’ He managed to say and she shook her head quickly,
‘Ash no. You know as well as me that would never happen, a divorce just proves it. You’ve moved on anyway, you think I don’t read the stories all of your slags are still selling?’ Cheryl asked, the latter part of her sentence blurting out without much thought to it as she cast the direction of her eyes downwards. ‘You think that is good for Caden? You honestly want your son growing up, learning to read and realising what super dad the England footballer is really like? How you hurt his mother so badly before he wasn’t even born and hasn’t changed? You want him to look up to that? Because I don’t want that.’ She continued, her voice beginning to crack through the emotion she was containing as she thought of how her son would be affected. The one thing she had always tried hard to prevent despite their unconventional past. She became aware of his arm reaching over to her, no doubt in an attempt to comfort her but she swiftly dodged it,
‘Stop trying to touch me.’ She ordered and he complied with a nod of his head and retracted his arm away from her and back into his own personal space.
