Runaway Bride: A laugh out loud funny and feel good rom com. Mary Baker Jayne

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СКАЧАТЬ back.’

      ‘But it’s a breakdown, can’t you see that?’ She sounded scared. ‘You’re not acting rationally. Please. Tell me where you are and let me come get you. You don’t have to face anyone, just come on home where I can take care of you.’

      ‘Sorry, Laur. I love you, but… no. I’m staying here, just until I find somewhere I can start again. You can advertise my job whenever you want.’

      ‘Never mind your bloody job. You’re not safe, Kitty. You need to get home.’

      ‘I am safe, I swear. And if you care about me, you’ll respect the fact this is where I need to be right now. Tell the boys I miss them, okay? I’ll ring you when I can.’

      ‘But—’

      I hung up.

      Nan was next. I made sure to withhold my number before I called.

      ‘Hello?’

      ‘Hiya Nana. It’s Kitty.’

      ‘Oh, hello, love,’ she said, sounding pleased to hear from me but not at all surprised. In the early stages of Alzheimer’s, she tended to get a little confused about anything too recent. My sudden disappearance might already have slipped from her memory.

      ‘Are you okay?’ I asked gently.

      ‘Can’t complain, can’t complain. Just the old pain in my leg, but it’s bearable. Oh, did I tell you I saw Rita yesterday? She was asking for you.’

      ‘Who’s Rita?’

      She tutted. ‘You know. Rita, her with the fancy man. She used to mind you sometimes when you were a baby, don’t you remember?’

      I couldn’t help smiling. ‘Oh. That Rita. Er, yeah, course.’

      ‘When are you coming to see me, Kitty? I haven’t seen you or your dad for ages.’

      I winced. ‘Dad’s… not here, Nan. Remember? He died last year.’

      ‘Oh. Yes,’ she said vaguely. ‘Yes, he did, didn’t he? We had corned beef sandwiches at the wake…’

      This had been happening more and more recently. And it hurt like hell, every time. Nan forgetting Dad was dead almost made me forget, and then the grief hit me all over again, fresh as the day I’d lost him.

      God, I missed him. If he was here, there was no way I’d be forced to rely on the kindness of strangers in campervans. Ethan might’ve been the golden boy in most people’s eyes, but Dad had never trusted him; never liked the possessive way he’d behaved around me.

      ‘I just rang to tell you I’m on holiday,’ I said to Nana, my voice choked. ‘I’ll be gone a little while. I’ll call whenever I can, okay? Love you very much.’

      ‘Love you too, my chicken. Don’t forget to send us a postcard, will you?’ Nan had a massive collection of postcards, everywhere from Bridlington to Brisbane, insisting on one from every friend or relative who’d been away in the last fifty years.

      ‘I’ll do my best. The post isn’t very good here.’

      ‘Where are you, love?’

      ‘Um… Iceland,’ I fabricated wildly.

      The sound of her musical doorbell trilled in the background.

      ‘Who’s that then?’ I heard her levering herself to her feet, and a minute later the front door opened with a click. ‘Oh, Petra! Now guess who I’ve got here on the phone? She tells me she’s in Iceland.’

      Mum! Of all the times she could’ve called round. I hurriedly hit the End Call button.

      My heart was still pounding when Jack arrived back from his walk with Sandy.

      ‘Something wrong?’ he asked, noticing my pale face.

      ‘Just a bit of a scare. Nearly had to talk to my mum.’

      He came to sit on the bed, stroking my hair to calm me, and I rested my forehead against his chest. ‘Don’t let it get you too upset, eh?’ he said softly. ‘You’ll make yourself ill again.’

      ‘I’ll try.’ I focused on my breathing, forcing myself calmer, and my heart rate started to slow. Jack’s hand on my hair helped me feel safe.

      ‘Kitty, can I ask you something personal? I know we said we wouldn’t, but…’

      ‘Depends what it is.’

      ‘Why are you so scared your mam might find you? You’re an adult. She can’t make you go back if you don’t want to.’

      ‘You don’t know her,’ I muttered darkly.

      ‘You’re afraid of her. Aren’t you?’

      His eyes were so soft and understanding. It might be a relief to confide in someone.

      ‘Not exactly afraid,’ I said. ‘It’s just, Mum… all my life she’s – well, she’d call it looking after me. My dad used to call it managing me. She managed him too, till he’d had enough and left her when I was eleven. After that I got a double helping.’

      He frowned. ‘Managed you in what way?’

      ‘In every way, when I was a kid. Picking out my clothes – all my clothes, even when I was a teenager. I remember once I was allowed to go out shopping with my friends and came home with this dress I’d bought out of the pocket money Dad had given me. It wasn’t revealing or anything: just a nice summer dress for the hot weather. But she made me take it right back. Not because there was anything wrong with it, but because I’d picked it without consulting her.’

      ‘Sounds like a bully.’

      I shook my head. ‘It was more complicated than that. See, with the clothes, it wasn’t that she didn’t want me to pick them. It was that she wanted us to do it together. Be our mum-and-daughter thing. And she was like that with everything, even down to the food I ate. Long after I left home.’

      He looked shocked. ‘Seriously, she controlled your food?’

      I tried to fight it but I couldn’t help it. I felt embarrassed. Jack was obviously appalled by what I’d just told him, and I knew that really, I should be too. And yet I felt the same way I had all my life: this desperate urge to shrug off behaviour that I knew, deep down, was unacceptable. To make excuses for the very person who for years had made me miserable.

      Because she loved me, I’d always told myself, echoing the words she so often said when I challenged her. Everything she did, she did because she loved me. Tough love, right? That was the only real love. To protect someone from pain, you had to hurt them. Over and over and over.

      ‘Yeah,’ I said to Jack, the affirmative dropping from me with a great effort of will. ‘Whatever fad diet she was following, I had to do it too. I’ve been a vegan, a fruitarian, a macrobiotic… she just had to share every little bit of my life.’ It was a relief to finally let it all out. ‘God, Jack, it was suffocating СКАЧАТЬ