I’d like to say that I wish you both well, but I don’t. You used me ten years ago, and I stupidly let you use me again. I thought this time was different. I was there for you, holding you tight, wiping away your tears, and making you feel better, wanted, loved. Me. Not her.
I’ll give you a week, Sean. A week to see sense and come back to me. A week to see that she’s nothing but a spoilt, selfish, heartless princess who doesn’t care about anyone other than herself. If you don’t get in touch within the week, then please don’t ever get in touch with me again. Don’t contact me. When we work together, just pretend I don’t exist, because for all intents and purposes, you’ll be dead to me.
Carla
I surprise myself with how calm I remain. My heart’s galloping in my chest and my jaw feels so rigid, I struggle to speak.
I pass the letter to Ash with a shaking hand and look to Jim. “Who is she?”
Jimmie licks her lips before answering. “She worked with the producers. She was one of the sound engineers. They had a thing going on for a while, right before you two got back together. I had no clue about anything after that or about a baby.”
I let out a long breath. “You never knew?”
Jimmie looks like I’ve just kicked her puppy. “Georgia, you’re seriously asking me that?”
I feel like the biggest bitch.
“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even asked that.”
“I’ll tell you what I do know, though, and you are not gonna believe this …”
I raise my eyebrows and shrug, urging her to go on.
“That night you got busy with Cam in his office, something went on between Maca and her at that football match they performed at in France.”
“Oh my god, yes. I remember hearing something about that too,” Ash pipes up from beside me.
“What the fuck ladies? And neither of you thought to tell me?”
Ashley shakes her head, and the rapid movement is making my head spin again. “It was nothing bad, George. From what I remember, she made a pass at Maca, Maca told her to fuck off, and then he changed their flights. That’s why the boys came home early. It was months later that I heard about it, and you two were all loved up and pregnant again by then. It was trivial, a couple of the girls from the label gossiping when I was there waiting for Marley to get out of a meeting one afternoon. I think she was there at the meeting and that was why the two office girls were chatting about it.”
I stand and hold out my empty wine glass to Jim, and she tops it up.
I want to throw the glass, as well as the bottle, against the wall. I want to punch something. I want to cry, but I’m not sure why. I don’t even know for sure what, or even if, he did wrong.
“That’s pretty much what I heard,” Jimmie’s voice brings me back to the conversation going on around me. “And like Ash said, by the time I heard anything, you were pregnant. It was a non-story. Plus, I know what you’re like. I didn’t want you getting upset about it or turning up at the studio, ready to knock seven kinds of shit out of the girl.”
“Girl? How old is she then? Is she young?”
My paranoia is getting the better of me. It’d always been my biggest fear when I was with Sean. He was surrounded by so many women. So much very willing temptation surrounding him. Younger, slimmer, prettier.
“George, get a grip, will ya? No, she’s not a girl; she’s about the same age as us. He wasn’t interested, George, she was a distraction. I remember talking to him about her the first time around. She meant nothing to him. The second he was back with you, it was over.”
“He got her pregnant.”
“Yes, by the sounds of it he did, but she got rid of it from what I just read.”
My heart broke more at that news, than at the thought of Sean cheating on me. He could’ve had a child. Then there would’ve at least been something left of him.
“What about the second time? When I lost the baby? He said in that other letter that he came for me because he knew if he didn’t that Cam would. Is that even true? What happened between them? Was he sleeping with her while I stayed at my mum’s?”
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know, George.”
I let out a long breath and sit myself back down in a beanbag.
“Holy fucking fuck. Who would’ve thought, all these revelations were sitting in this ol’ box.” Ashley lets out a long whistle as she finishes speaking.
“I have no clue what to make of all this. I’ve put him on such a pedestal for all these years. He was the loyal, faithful husband, while I was the cheating whore of a wife, but he was just as guilty as I was. Then, to top it all off, he tells me to be with Cam. I mean, what the fuck? What do I do with all this? Everything I thought was us, me and Sean, really wasn’t.” I start to cry. I fight it and fight it, but I lose, and I’m so fucking angry with myself for crying that it makes me cry more.
“I’ve felt so much guilt. I convinced myself that I lost Baby M because I fucked Cam. All these years, I’ve felt so much guilt over what Cam and I did, for moving on so soon, and for going back to Cam. It was all pointless.”