ALANA'S MISTAKE ✔

Chapter 37

That evening Noah went upstairs and did not come back down. Alana knew that she had no choice but to stay downstairs, to let him be. She knew after all these years of marriage that he was a man of few words and right now was not the time to press him into talking to her. That didn't mean to say it wasn't all she wanted - with every fiber of her being - to hear what he was thinking, to know what his thoughts were.

She could only begin to imagine how he must feel. Knowing she had caused that drove her into a dark, lonely place. She couldn't turn to him, he couldn't turn to her. They were already separated - the minute she told him, she knew it. The look on his face. In that moment something was destroyed, something that she just didn't know she had.

She stayed in the darkness of the living room, shafts of moonlight shining through the window, the curtains still wide open. It was getting cool and the TV was silent but still on. She found a blanket tucked into the gap between the sofa and the wall, one that Snow often wrapped herself in, soft and baby blue. She covered herself with it and began to weep.

The tears came thick and fast. All for one night with Elias. Usually she tried not to think about that night much, it felt like every time she did she was somehow cheating on Noah again. But tonight she couldn't stop her mind from wandering to it.

As her husband was upstairs, feeling god knows what, thinking god knows what, she was forced to think of how she had caused all this to happen. She ran through the night in her mind, playing it like a movie that made her sick to watch. There was Elias, and the feeling of being drunk, the feeling like she was free, able to do what she wanted.

Before that night she spent so much time wanting to feel those things - wanting to feel like she was free. Elias with his smile and his voice and the way he wanted her, she knew exactly how much he wanted her, it was like an energy she couldn't ignore. The first time she had felt his touch... She wanted him too. To feel what it would be like.

She shook her head, appalled at herself. She turned onto her back and felt the sharp corner of something in her back pocket. The three red envelopes. She pulled them out, dread rising. All of them were stuffed with the cream paper once again, overflowing with words and images. She scanned the pages and saw that it was more of the same. Declarations of love, pleading to meet, angels wings.

'I want your touch. I want to hear your voice. No one else will do, no one will ever come close. You live in my heart, every minute, every day.'

She shuddered. She just wanted to curl up in Noah's arms, to feel safe. I wanted to be free, now I want to be safe. Maybe I'm not so different to Elias after all; I want what I can't have. A wave of tiredness overtook her and she reached for the remote to turn off the TV then she pulled herself off the sofa to close the curtains. As she looked out the window into the darkness of the garden, the shadows of the trees casting over the silvery grass, a shiver ran up her spine. She pulled the curtains shut, curled up on the sofa and lay the blanket over her body.

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