Chim - Turn To Stone

Chapter 11

Eleven

I walked straight through the hallway and in to the kitchen, choosing to sit at the table instead of the living room. It didn’t really matter where I chose to conduct our little talk, every single room held a memory of some sort.

I instinctively went to the kettle and started to make us a cup of tea, and although I didn’t turn around I could hear Cheryl sitting at the table. “have you sorted the bills out” I asked her, noticing one of them was pinned up on the fridge.

It felt weird talking to her about mundane things, practical things that we used to talk about every day. “every things fine” she assured me, to which I had to laugh, although it was more out of irony than anything else.

“is it really?” I asked her, placing the mug down in front of her before sitting at the opposite side of the table. “you know what I mean” she replied averting her eyes to the ground.

“how did we get here Cheryl” I asked, running my hand through my hair, the uneasiness between us starting to get to me. I didn’t really expect an answer to it, of course I knew why we were in this very room, at this very time.

I pulled myself together mentally before lifting my head to look at her. Her face was wracked with guilt and nerves, she chewed on one of her fingernails which she only ever done when she was really nervous. 

“I need answers Cheryl. If I’m even going to consider moving on, I need answers. I need you to tell me the truth” I told her, fighting back the urge to cry. She nodded her agreement but I still wasn’t totally sure she understood. “I mean it, I need to here the truth, even if you think it will hurt me. It cant possibly be worse than some of the things that have been going through my mind”.

“I promise” she said to me. I could see her physically shrink down in her seat a little bit at the prospect of talking about what she did…about her affair, so openly.

“was he the first”?

That was the most important question, because although I hadn’t made my mind up on whether to attempt to salvage our relationship, I knew that if the answer to my question was ‘no’, I could never go back to her.

“yes” she said determinedly, looking me in the eye to let me know she wasn’t lying to me again.

“how did you meet him” I asked her, even though I knew. We had never discussed it, even when the picture of them two talking was in the paper.

“I went out with Nadine and, well he just kind of came over and started talking to us” I could see she was uncomfortable talking about him with me but I didn’t care, I needed to hear what she had to say.

“did you know then that you were going to sleep with him” I asked, bracing myself for her answer. It crossed my mind that I actually hadn’t really prepared myself for what I might hear.

“Kimberley, it wasn’t like that. He gave me his number and I threw it away, honestly I did. But then he got in touch with someone in management and they gave him mine. He wouldn’t stop phoning me so I answered it. I only invited him round to tell him that I didn’t want to go out with him”

I laughed at what she was saying, even though I believed her. Maybe she hadn’t intended to sleep with him that day, but whatever she intended, the fact was, that she did sleep with him and she let me find out in the cruellest way possible.

“so what went wrong” I asked, finding the anger inside me rising to the surface pretty quickly.

“the only reason I lied and said I wasn’t feeling well was because I knew you wouldn’t understand” she said, her voice taking on a bit of a pleading tone which angered me even more.