Love Me Or Leave Me. Claudia Carroll

Чтение книги онлайн.

       Chapter Four

       Dawn.

      Still in total shock, but at that numb stage where you can somehow function purely on automatic pilot, Dawn took one final moment to have a last, quick look around the tiny little shoebox of an apartment she and Kirk had been sharing, ever since they’d first been married. A poky flat above an Indian takeaway in town that permanently stank of garlic and onions, no matter how many cans of air freshener she went through.

      The tiny part of her brain somehow getting her through the hell she was stuck in, reminded her that of late, the place been starting to drive her insane anyway. The constant stench of grease from the takeaway mixed with prawns well past their use-by date. And how noisy it got from about midnight onwards, when drunk revellers would nip in for a cheap vindaloo, then start calling each other wankers at the top of their voices on the street outside.

      For as long as she and Kirk had lived here, they’d always planned to move on, just as soon as they could properly afford to, but of late, all the chats they used to have about their ideal pad had fizzled out. Almost as though each of them silently recognized it was pointless, because this day would inevitably come.

      Just not like this, Dawn thought suddenly, shaking from head to foot, as the enormity of what she was about to do really hit home. Not this way. They’d been happy here. In many ways, they were still happy. Kirk was her best friend, her right hand, her go-to person. This would devastate him, but then he’d devastated her first, and like a child that knew no other way of expressing hurt, all she could do was try and inflict the same degree of pain right back instead.

      So are you really prepared to do this? she asked herself for about the thousandth time that miserable day. Just run away from the problem and not at least try to work through it?

      Yes was the answer. Because what he’d done had completely broken them forever. How could she possibly stay in this now? Just what kind of a doormat would that make her?

      Suddenly overcome by a crashing wave of exhaustion, Dawn slumped down onto their tiny sofa bed and tried her best to sit still for a moment, at least until her head stopped spinning.

      For a split second, her eye momentarily fell on a wedding photo on top of the bookshelf and she found herself dithering for a minute, wondering what she should do with it. Leave it where it was to remind Kirk that he had actually made a solemn vow that day? After all, he was the one who was forever saying that, ‘a vow was a promissory note against your soul.’ That that’s how much getting married had meant to him way back then. Okay, so most of the time he was stoned off his head when he did come out with it, but still, the sentiment was there. Or would she just angrily fling it into the bin, so he could gauge for himself exactly how she felt about what had just happened?

      She took a last second to really look at the photo. Her dream wedding. Or ‘that hippy-dippy, tree-hugging fiasco’ as her mother liked to refer to it. Hard to believe that it had been taken just a few short years ago. Has it really been that long, she wondered, her heart suddenly twisting in her ribcage as she thought back to that young, hopeful girl, so in love with this guy that she’d have happily walked through flames for him.

      Yet there she was in the photo, in that cheap little maxi dress from Penny’s, long bedraggled hair down to her bum, arms locked tight around Kirk, looking adoringly into his gentle, brown eyes. With their whole lives in front of them, rolling out like a red carpet.

      Feck’s sake, sure we’re just a pair of kids in this photo, she thought, sudden anger flooding through her. And the problem now is we’re all grown up, just in two very different directions.

      Dawn even looked a bit different these days. While Kirk still looked exactly the same today as he had in the wedding photo, the past few years had changed her dramatically. Well, she’d had to evolve a bit, didn’t she? After all, there was only so much tree hugging and chakra realigning a person could do, without realizing that was hardly going to pay the rent and keep them both in mobile phone subscriptions and Sky Plus.

      Besides, Dawn had by now been promoted to manager of Earth’s Garden, the health food store she worked in and was pulling in a not-too-shabby wage these days. So of course, she needed to look the part. Plus she’d recently discovered a tiny niche in the market for spelt muesli, to great encouragement from Kirk, who’d help out with the business whenever he wasn’t teaching his yoga class. And now she was importing it in herself and selling it through the store for a nifty return.

      NLE Enterprises, the two of them jokingly called her tiny, fledgling company. Nice Little Earner. Kirk had even talked her into donating a hefty percentage of their profits towards a goat farm outside Nairobi. Mind you, left to Dawn, she’d have been far happier using the cash to move to a better flat, but then Kirk did have a point. After all, one goat farm in Africa could keep a whole village going. And it was the right thing to do, the ethical thing.

      Wasn’t it?

      Anyway, these days Dawn acted and dressed like what she’d grown into, an up-and-coming owner of a small but steadily growing business. Out with all the hippy-dippy long, flowing clobber he used to love on her and in with neat work trousers and crisp white shirts from Zara.

      In the early days, Kirk used to laugh at her and tell her she looked a bit like she was going out to repossess a house, but she’d noticed even that gentle teasing had completely ground to a halt of late. Like he barely even noticed her now. Yet another sign something was up. Just her bad luck, she thought bitterly, that it wasn’t what she’d automatically assumed. The first conclusion any wife in similar circumstances would jump to.

      Dawn allowed herself one final glance down at her wedding photo. With almost digital clarity, she could remember how stung she’d been that day at all the nasty, sniping comments streaming incessantly from ‘her side’; her mother and sister Eva, not to mention all her mates from work. The way they kept on griping because nothing about the commitment ceremony had been right for them; all they could do was find fault wherever they looked.

      But right at this moment, if she could go back in time, Dawn honestly thought that instead of allowing them all to get to her, instead she’d have berated the lot of them from the bottom of her hot little heart for letting her go through with it in the first place. Jesus, she’d only been twenty-two years of age! She hadn’t the first clue what she was letting herself in for! Instead of moaning about the hemp wine, the lack of a DJ playing Beyoncé and the general crappiness of the sitar music, her mother and sister, not to mention all her pals, should have physically arm-wrestled her to the floor rather than letting her go through with it.

      As for her? She must have been out of her mind not to realize this day would eventually dawn. Just not in this way. And not for the love of God, like this.

      Peeling herself off the sofa, Dawn began to haul her packed suitcases as far as the door so she’d at least be ready when her taxi arrived. Then a quick, last minute spot check around the place, to make sure she СКАЧАТЬ