The Broken Ones

CHAPTER 15

Hello, everybody. Just a short teaser to ring in the New Year. Happy 2024 in advance!

.......

GWEN

One Year Later

December

The aisles are crammed with Christmas shoppers and I manouvre the supermarket trolley carefully between several warm bodies toward the chocolates section.

I am distracted by a woman at the far aisle in a stylish trench coat, belted loosely around her middle, her blonde hair fluttering like wings over her shoulders. Something about the tilt of her head looks familiar. I stop breathing. I look again and she's gone. A glimpse. That's all it takes. One glimpse and I'm back there again in the past, on the edge of a blade.

I've managed to avoid her for twelve months, despite living in the same city. Could I have imagined her? I've done so in the past, glimpsed a swirl of blonde hair and found myself staring into the blank, blue gaze of a stranger.

I am in the fresh milk and cheese section when I feel a prickling sensation, the kind you get when someone is staring at you, watching you with an intensity that isn't normal.

I turn, and Simone's there, a few steps behind me. Watching me. I was not mistaken. I feel a suffocating, sickening jolt. Recognition. And revulsion; ants crawling all over, scrabbling at my skin.

"Gwen." Her tone is cool.

"You." Flat.

We stare at each other for a beat.

Simone looks smart, business-like in a black skirt, court shoes and the black trench coat. Her lips are pink and glossy. My own are bare of anything bar lip salve. I know I look casual and the opposite of chic, my long hair pulled back in a low ponytail. Simone is as flawlessly beautiful as ever, with those icy blue eyes and perfect face framed by that glorious golden hair, and I marvel again at how such beauty could hide the rot inside.

"Long time no see." Her eyes sweep over me, up then down. "You look --- well." She sounds surprised. Maybe even a little piqued.

I shrug. It's none of her concern how I am. Once, maybe, when I thought she was my best friend. Not anymore. That Simone --- the Simone who I had loved, who'd had my back, who had been like the sister I never had ---is a memory now. Vague, too, like she was someone I'd known in another world, another lifetime.

She's watching me. Those blue eyes of hers. Sharp. Assessing. Trying hard to read my mind, like in the old days. A slight frown when she can't. I'm no longer that open, trusting Gwen that she knew. And it's all thanks to her.

"Well then," I say coldly. "If you'll excuse me --- " I sidestep her but her hand shoots out, grips my arm. Her nails, perfect ovals, are painted an iridescent pink, and dig like talons into my skin beneath my coat. 

"Come on, Gwen, isn't it time to move on? We're all adults here --- "

"Don't. Touch. Me," I say, my voice clipped and hard.

Her eyes widen and she takes a step back, her hand dropping from my arm.

"Look, Gwen --- "

"No, you look. Stay away from me. Stay away from my family."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about," I hiss. "I know what you did."

She goes still. "What I did," she echoes slowly. Then her brow clears and the tension leaves her face.

"Oh, you're talking about that little talk I had with Lucian." She laughs lightly. "It just sort of slipped out --- I ran into him at Starbucks quite by accident and he just looked so ill. I was trying to offer him some kind of solace" --- she shrugs --- "like, you know, it's okay, you lost a daughter, but you've got another living one." A careless shrug.

She's not telling me the full truth. There's more to it. I feel a chill. What else has she done? Do I want to know? I've moved on. I've carved another life for myself and Emma, out of the ravages of the past.

"You're together now, aren't you, you and Lucian?" Her mouth twists. "You should be thanking me for reuniting the love of your life with you, and poor little Emma with her biological father."

"You," I spit, "can go to hell."

"Gwen." She moves in front of me, blocking my trolley. Something in her tone makes me look at her. "Noah and I are getting married."

The shock of the news freezes me.

"How lovely," I say. "You two are a perfect match. A cheating bastard and a conniving bitch."

Her face seems to freeze over, and her eyes turn into blue shards of ice.

"I'm aghast at your language, Gwen. Clearly, divorce hasn't tempered your misplaced, very unfunny wit."

I say nothing. I just want to get away from her, her toxicity. I can feel myself trembling inside. I push past her, pus my trolley forward, and it grazes her on her hip. She takes a step back. "Oof, careful, Gwen." She's smiling; a glistening white smile. "Wouldn't want to hurt somebody now, would you?" She pats her tummy, rubs her palm over the bump.

She leans in, close, and watches me, waits for my reaction. Shark eyes, I think, cold, hard. She smells of perfume, musky and cloying. One more step and I could reach out and touch her. Catch her hair in my fingers. Pull.

We lock eyes. There's a brittle silence. It vibrates with her hatred.

"Six months," she coos, her eyes holding mine, glinting. "It's a boy. Noah and I are ecstatic. Aren't you going to congratulate us?" I stare at her, unable to form a single word. "Well, it's been --- interesting --- running into you. I've got to get back to Noah now. Give Emma a kiss for me. Bye."

I should think of a great punchline, make a cutting rejoinder and exit gracefully, but I'm in shock; all I can do is stand there, still as stone, as my once-best friend who hates me now gives me a final venomous smile, turns on her heels and click-clacks away.

The plastic of the trolley crackles beneath my grip. I look down. My hands, I realise, are white-knuckled, clenched into fists.