Hunger in my Heart

Chapter 21

Kimberley felt shattered; she suddenly felt that she didn't know Cheryl at all because she had no clue about this at all. Looking warily at Cheryl she wondered what else she didn't know, because there had to be more. Cheryl had obviously agreed to beard for Ashley in some manner because as far as the world knew Ashley was a cheating bastard and Cheryl the wronged spouse. The public hated him, but they certainly didn't know he was gay, mission accomplished, she guessed somewhat bitterly.

"Kimberley," Cheryl said urgently when Kimberley pried her hands out of Cheryl's grip and turning away and sat on the edge of the bed with her head in her hands.

Cheryl launched herself at Kimberley's back and wrapped her arms around her. "God Kimberley, I'm so sorry. I know I should have told you, but then I got caught up in Ashley's PR machine and I really didn't know how to extract myself from it. And honestly, what happened with Ash, it was for the best, really.

"Why would you pretend to take him back, why not just get a divorce when you did the story exchange, because it's pretty obvious that you agreed to it?"Kimberley asked still completely dumbfounded.

"That was the original plan, but then I started to rethink everything in my life and being publicly with Ashley gave me the opportunity to work things out in the protection of a marriage, it gave me time," Cheryl weakly explained. This is not how she envisioned telling Kimberley that the break-up with Ashley and the subsequent re-evaluation of her life had made her realize that she was actually a lesbian and more importantly that she was in love with Kimberley.

"Time for what exactly?" Kimberley could not figure out what Cheryl had to gain.

"Time to be by myself and figure out what I really wanted, figure out who I really was," Cheryl tried to explain, "Sundraj knows about this and we talked about it, he said if I didn't want to be single and out there then I should stay publicly linked with Ashley. If I had been single, every male that I was even remotely involved with for work or whatever would be linked with me, there would be endless speculation and all I would ever be asked about in interviews would be men, not me music." Cheryl knew she was explaining everything in a rush, but she had to make Kimberley understand. Gripping Kimberley tighter, Cheryl plastered herself to Kimberley's back.

"Also, this afforded Ashley protection as well, I never wanted to see him outed. It would ruin him and he is too emotionally fragile to handle it, so we agreed we would stay married but we were basically free agents to do as we liked. Our only agreement was to be discreet. The only problem is that Ash is not really all that mature and does stupid things, hence the second scandal. When that came to light I realized enough was enough. I was ready to move on by that point so we agreed to divorce." Cheryl tightened her arms around Kimberley, mostly because she was afraid she was about to get up and walk out of her life.

"Sundraj knows?" Kimberley exclaimed in disbelief. Well of course he would have to know, that actually made sense, she figured. Who else would set up the various photo ops? Because, now thinking back on things that was exactly what certain events looked like to her now, how could she not have seen this?

Suddenly a horrible thought occurred to Kimberley, if Cheryl hadn't been with Ashley all this time, who had she actually been with? Breaking away from Cheryl's hold, Kimberley paced around the room a bit before finally perching on the window seat across from where Cheryl still sat on the bed.

"Cheryl, if you haven't been with Ashley, who have you been with?" Kimberley asked while dreading the answer.

Cheryl frowned in confusion, what did she mean by that? She'd been with Kimberley most of the time, then she realized that Kimberley meant with with.

"No one," Cheryl said with a shrug.

"No one," Kimberley repeated stupidly.

"No."