Starting Over

Chapter 12

Ellen knew that Jan had picked up on her tension, the way her shoulders had hunched, every hair on her body stood on end. She wasn’t scared of them, Charlotte and Sara, but she suddenly feared her two worlds colliding. Whilst she was here with Jan she could be the new strong Ellen, but these two represented all that she was, all that her life had become....

“Oh my God Ellen!” Charlotte was first to speak, the oldest and the most dramatic of the three. “We’ve been worried sick! What have you been doing?”

Jan stepped away and let her be enveloped in hugs from her two sisters, giving her the time he knew she needed. Ellen accepted their hugs, their concern, then stepped back to look at them.

“I’m fine, I enjoyed my holiday, things happened, I had the chance to stay...what do I have to come back for?”

Sara’s eyes widened, “us? Family.”

Ellen smiled, “I’m thinking of me Sara, for a change. So much has happened...” She felt the encouraging hand of Jan in the small of her back and turned to look at him with a smile, “Sara...Charlotte, this is Jan, my friend...”

The three shook hands, but Ellen didn’t miss the scepticism on the faces of her sisters.

“So you’ve upset Mum and Dad for another man? After everything they’ve been through.”

Jan held up a hand in front of Charlotte’s face, “Whoa. Let’s not say something we’ll all regret in the heat of the moment. Are you staying somewhere?”

Sara nodded and mentioned a hotel a few blocks away.

“Right, next door is a bar, Bar de Guillermo. You can all meet there in an hour. Calmly, ok?”

Ellen was never more grateful for Jan’s influence than that moment, but she could see Charlotte struggling, she wanted to lash out, that was her all over. So Ellen grabbed Jan’s arm and swerved towards their apartment, confirming “one hour, see you then!” Over her shoulder.

They were both silent as the lift took them up to the top floor, and they were in the apartment before Jan asked, “Are you ok?”

Ellen turned to him and slid her arms around his neck, “will there ever be a time when you won’t know the right thing to do? I do want to stop having to thank you!”

He raised an eyebrow and grinned, “You don’t have to thank me!”

Feigning a sad look, she moved her hands to lift the hat off her head, then to the hem of her vest, “there was me about to thank you in great detail...”

Throwing the vest in his face, she headed across the lounge to the bedroom, kicking off her sandals then skirt as she went. Jan’s face was a picture as he mimicked her actions running to the bedroom behind her.

Later he sat up in bed; Ellen curled into his chest and kissed the top of her head, “are you going to stop avoiding talking about them now?”

She sighed, he saw through every one of her defences, glancing up at him with a smile she asked, “How did you become such a bloody know-it-all?”

He ran a finger along her nose gently, affectionately, “I don’t know, I just feel like I know you, that I can see inside your head!”

“Really?” she asked propping herself up on her elbows, “so what am I thinking now?” She stared at him intently.

His eyes widened and a naughty smile burst from his lips, “Ellen! You are a very naughty girl, and if we weren’t on a tight time frame I’d do the same! Now we’ve got twenty minutes to get ready!”