An Imperfect Circle (21 page)

It’s great to see Becky so happy with Rob. She’s laughing away with him and
Ian and she seems really comfortable and at ease. The twins and their friends have sort of segregated to their own side of the room and Matt seems fairly occupied with Shelly in his lap.

I’m fairly sure Andrew would count what they’re doing as canoodling.

As I watch the tender way with which Rob cups Becky’s face and places a gentle kiss to her lips, I realise I’ve been searching for something to fault with Rob and I’ve yet to find anything. Maybe that’s because there’s nothing to fault. I think I kind of like him. I like that he always makes Becky smile.

“
What’s that goofy look on your face for?” Karl whispers in my ear.

“
Are you saying my face is goofy?” I retort because he’s caught me staring at them kissing and I’m fairly sure that’s a weird thing to do.

“
No,” he laughs. “Your face is anything but goofy.”

“
Karl Carter,” I grin at him. “Are you trying to give me a compliment?”

“
I’m not sure,” his returning smile is almost bashful. “Would it work if I did?”

“
Probably not,” I admit.

“
I thought not,” he smirks. “You’re not like other girls. Never have been.”

“
Because I refuse to fall flat at your feet?” I mock him. It’s at this point I become aware that his arm is still around my shoulder and it doesn’t feel wrong. It kind of feels right.

And he still smells like wood stain and cinnamon.

“Because you don’t fish for compliments and you’ve always been just yourself, you don’t care what anybody else thinks.”

“
I do care what some people think,” I frown because the opinions of people like Bear and Becky matter a lot to me.

“
Am I one of those people?” He’s still whispering in my ear to keep our conversation private and it’s having an unnerving effect on me.

“
I think you are,” I realise aloud.

And it fudging terrifies me
. I can’t let myself start caring about what he thinks about me. He’d destroy me. Again. I can’t let that happen.

Karl must register the panic on my face because I’m immediately lifted in
a rather familiar fashion and I’m vaguely aware that he’s telling Ian we’re getting some air whilst I’m having my internal breakdown.

I need to stop being friends with him. After all, it’s only a matter a time before he thinks ab
out what getting close to me means. Being close to somebody he’s seen being defiled. He’ll ditch me again in a heartb-

“
Elise,” Karl sits down in a garden chair with me in his lap and cuts of my internal monologue. I hadn’t even realised we were outside. I can’t even feel the cool winter air on my skin.

I make to get up because I’m not in his fan club and I have no interest in sitting on hi
s knee. This obviously isn’t what Karl had planned because he holds me in place.

“
We need to talk, Elise,” he says softly.

“
We do,” I agree but I continue struggling and he lets me up, albeit grudgingly. He frowns at me but he can frown all he likes. I’m not sitting in his lap.

“
Me first,” I demand once I’ve sat in the chair opposite him. Now I’ve taken a few controlled breaths, the cold is seeping through my long-sleeved t-shirt and I’m getting chilly so I want to get this over with.

“
Put this on,” Karl demands. He does that thing men do where he grabs the bottom of his jumper with his arms crossed and pulls it over his head effortlessly.

I consider it showing off because I could totally do that too if I di
dn’t have breasts. He flashes that stupidly toned strip of stomach again and I glare at it intently.

Karl smirks as he tosses his jumper at me and I know he caught me staring… glaring at his stomach. It’s his own
fault for getting it out all the time.

“
Why should I put it on and let you freeze?” I scowl because it seems sexist.

“
For god’s sake, Elise. Can you for once just stop being stubborn and do as your damn well told,” he snaps.

“
No,” I frown. “You’ll get cold instead of me.”

“
Yes,” he sighs. “But if I get cold, I’m not going to have the headlamp thing going on.” He rakes his fingers over his face and sighs.

“
Headlamp?” I cock my head at him with no idea what he means.

He groans and puts his head in his hands.
“Please, Elise. I’m begging you. Put the bloody jumper on.”

I suddenly make the connection. It’s cold out and my
thin, clingy jumper isn’t much protection against the cold. My skin is goosebumped and my nipples are saying hello.

If I could blush, I would. Karl’s head is still buried in his hands and I appreciate the fact that, though he’s obviously noticed, he’s making a concerted effort not to look.

“Thank you,” I grumble because he was trying to be a gentleman and I was slightly ungrateful.

“
You’re welcome,” he mumbles back whilst I put all my energy into trying not to inhale deeply as his scent permeates my skin and overwhelms my senses. It’s like working with wood and Christmas rolled into one and I relax slightly now that I’m warm and my nostrils are filled with his personal blend of fragrance.

“
Elise, I don’t get why you keep freaking out on me.”

I sigh deeply because I need to get this over and done with.

“I’m sorry,” I breathe without looking at him. My chest is tight and it physically hurts to imagine not being close to him again.

This is a very good sign that I need some distance. I can’t let him hurt me.

“We can’t be friends any more.”

“
What?” He balks. “Why the hell not? What have I done?”

“
You haven’t done anything.” Yet, I add mentally. I can see he’s getting frustrated with me and that’s good. If he gets angry, this’ll be easy for him.

“
Then why the hell can’t we be friends? Will you just be honest with me,” he growls.

I grimace because that implies there was any chance I would lie. I know what he really means. He wants me to come out and say it.

“I can’t let you hurt me again,” I mutter, tucking my knees inside his ridiculously large jumper to keep warm.

I’m not a coward so I force myself to meet his eyes at this. We need closure and I want to see the expression on his face so I can remember it when I need to keep my resolve to stay away from him.

I’m expecting him to look guilty, or angry, or remorseful or something.

That’s not what I see.

What I see is complete and utter confusion.

“
Elise, when have I ever hurt you?” He chokes. He’s on his knees in front of me in a placating gesture. He looks genuinely mortified and I’m almost as confused because I know he remembers what happened.

“
I’m not angry with you about it, Karl,” I reassure him, looking down so we can maintain eye contact. No matter how much it hurts. “I understand. I’m still grateful for what you did.”

“
Elise,” he frowns, pulling my hands into his. “You’re making absolutely zero fucking sense, darlin’.”

I frown at him because he’s making this harder than it needs to be. This friendship needs to end. End of.

“Just tell me what I did to hurt you.”

Fine. If this is what he needs to be reminded of what
went wrong in the first place, we can go back to where it all went south.

I swallow my pride and grit my teeth.
“You didn’t want me any more.”

Karl’s gaze never leaves mine as he answers me.
“Elise, I don’t know what you’re talking about but I can promise I never stopped wanting you.”

I frown in confusion.
“But… after you saved me…”

He sighs and closes his eyes for a split second, squeezing my hands gently.

“That night,” his voice chokes up and he clears his throat and starts again. “Can we talk about that night?” His voice is a desperate plea so I just nod. We’ve already smashed the rule to pieces anyway.

“
I’m so sorry about what happened to you, Elise,” his voice is hoarse with raw emotion and all I can do in reply is nod lamely. He has nothing to be sorry about. He put an end to that nightmare.

“
You don’t know how many times I’ve wished I could go back and have a do-over. The signs were all there and I never noticed. I let you suffer and I could have ended it. I wish I’d killed him.”

“
It was never your fault, Karl. He was the one at fault and he’s dead now anyway,” I whisper. I wish that made me feel better than it does but it can’t take away what he did to me. “I can never thank you enough for saving me, Karl. I understand that it changed things. It made you see me differently.”

“
It didn’t change anything for me, Elise,” Karl snaps. “Nothing could ever have changed the way I felt about you.”

“
He made me dirty,” I whisper and I think I come close to shattering into a million tiny pieces with those words. I haven’t said them aloud in years but I’ve always felt it.

“
No he didn’t, Elise,” Karl rasps, pulling me and my little protective cocoon from the chair and into his lap so he can hold me. He’s sat on the stone floor and he must be freezing but I’m trapped inside his jumper and I figure my body heat is warming him so that’s better than nothing.

“
Jesus, is that why you stopped talking to me? Because you thought I’d see you differently?”

I look up at him again because I’m not the one that stopped talking to him.
“Karl… you said you didn’t want to talk to me,” I remind him.

“
What?” He growls, his thick eyebrows rising in surprise. It’d be comical if I wasn’t the closest I’ve come to crying in years. This hurts too much to remember.

“
I came round to talk to you before we moved,” I swallow, taking a deep breath so my voice doesn’t break. “Granddad said you weren’t handling it well and you didn’t want to see me.”

Karl is silent for so long and I can feel the strength of his frustration as if it were my own. His body has stilled and it’s like he’s barely breathing. His arms are around me but they’re as hard as stone.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He growls.

I don’t answer because there is nothing even remotely funny about this conversation.

He takes a deep breath and relaxes fractionally but he’s still tense. “Do you know why I came over that night, Elise?”

I shake my head. I’d never actually
known the reason. I didn’t care why he’d come. I just know he saved my life by doing so.

“
Mum died that night, Elise,” Karl says and his voice is barely a whisper. Five years on and the pain in his voice is as raw as ever. I know it still hurts to remember his loss.

“
That night?” I murmur. I had no idea. I didn’t find out until a few months into my therapy and I thought she’d died after we moved.

He nods solemnly.
“We were at the hospital when she… when she went.”

I shuffle around in his jumper so I can remove my legs and wrap myself around him because I can almost feel that he needs me to hold him for this.

“It was horrible.” He sniffles slightly and I feel him wipe his face with his hands. I suspect he might be shedding a few tears and it shreds me up inside. I’m right there with him only mine are soaking his shirt as I share his pain.

“
Granddad and grandma brought us home that night and I… I wasn’t doing so good. Ian sort of turned off. The twins were a fucking mess. Jake was crying his eyes out and there was this brand new baby we were supposed to be celebrating but… well, I wasn’t doing so good.”

“
Oh, Karl,” I sob into his shoulder. I had no idea he was going through this at the same time my life was falling apart.

“
I needed you,” he admits into the crook of my neck. “I climbed over because I needed you. You always made everything so much better.

I wasn’t ready for what I found.
”

I swallow deeply because
, even though he was breaking apart inside, and had just lost a wonderful mother, he still saved me.

“
So… so when your granddad said you weren’t coping with it… he meant... he didn’t mean me.”

He shakes his head.
“I lost my mum.” He shudders against me and I hold him tight and let him cry because I know he doesn’t feel he can do it in front of anyone else.

“
I knew you were going through a whole crap load of stuff. I didn’t need to weigh you down with my own lorry load.”

“
Karl,” I breathe through my tears. “I would have wanted to be there for you if I’d known. You were my best friend.”