Naomi

"What am I gonna do mum?" I sobbed, standing on the doorstep, soaked to the skin as she opened it. The journey from London had been dire, as fucking usual. Neither Emily or I drive...me on principal because of the pollution, her because...well, it really doesn't matter why she doesn't any more, does it? So I got the train from Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads. Then a fucking bus, then a long wet walk. And that's after I spent 6 hours at Paddington on a bench overnight, because I wouldn't...no couldn't stay another minute in the flat. Whether Em...she stayed or not, I couldn't care less, but one more minute in the place where all my dreams were built then brutally shattered would have had me reaching for the vodka and sleeping pills (not that we had any sleeping pills, but you get the picture). I phoned my mum from the station and then turned my phone off. Despite my request...no order...for Emily not to phone or text me, I knew she would fucking ignore what I said. The eternal optimist, Emily Fitch.

I knew that from the first time we met. No matter how many times I cruelly blanked her at school or ducked away from talking to her, she just bounced back like a bright shiny, happy ball. Well, maybe this time she wouldn't be quite so bouncy. Cheating on me was something I just couldn't live with. I know that might sound a bit hypocritical, given my past 'indiscretion', but it was hardly comparable, was it? We were just stupid kids then. I was terrified of falling in love. Not just because it was a girl, although that was scary enough, but just the idea of giving my heart to someone so completely that she had total charge of my life was alien to everything I was then. Closed off, aloof, defensive. Safe.

Sophia had been a handy escape valve. Pretty, willing and more importantly, available. Available to fuck and forget. Pity I miscalculated that one huh? One brief twenty minute session snogging and fingering each other...well, me fingering her mostly. She had no idea what she was doing so I concentrated on getting her off and getting her out, as quickly as possible. Callous? Brutal? Yep...but even that, with the horrendous aftermath, wasn't comparable to this...

This being a calculated and months long affair. Emily hadn't just cheated, she'd smashed everything I thought I knew and trusted to pieces. If she had come home and admitted she'd shagged some girl up against the wall after a boozy office party, I would have been devastated. But I would have forgiven her...eventually. After all, that would be comparable with my Sophia mistake. But from what I knew from Katie and more importantly, what Emily hadn't denied when I confronted her, it went a whole lot deeper than that. She might be regretting it right now, but she hadn't for the months she had been sleeping with this fucking Izzie, had she?

I remembered again our anniversary, only last month. We had a lovely evening, eating her favourite spicy Thai food, drinking chilled Prosecco and giggling about what we were having for dessert. Because of course, I was having her for dessert, and she me. How could she have given herself to me like she had, that night had been some of the best sex we'd ever had (and it was up against some stiff competition), knowing she would be sleeping with another woman, whispering the same after sex words of endearment to someone else a couple of days later?

The more I thought about it, the madder I got. Part of me wished I had really gone for her, instead of putting on that cold, measured front. We both knew it was bullshit anyway. She knows me well enough to know when I'm at my most sarcastic and cutting, I'm actually shitting myself with fear. Because its fear that drives me.

But really, what was the point? She had an affair, I found out. Simple really. Nothing to save, nothing to rescue. Over and out.

But I kept that brittle mask on just long enough to fall into my mothers arms at the front door of our old house. I don't mean that little end terrace in Alfred Road, where we ended up at. No, once mum and Kieran got together full time, they clubbed together and bought our old house back. The pretty yellow chalet I grew up in and loved so much. Somehow, standing in front of it today, looking up at the drooping wisteria round the porch, it seemed even more nostalgic than usual. OK, I had some very happy memories of Alfred Road too, but this house held more. Not just childhood games in the garden, chicken soup with my mum in the big kitchen before she started her 'everyone move in' period, but those with Emily too.

"I think you should stand because I think you'd be good at it"

"It's catchy"..."Yeah...so is AIDS..."

"Come to the college ball with me..."

OK the last one was a tad bitter sweet, but you get the gist?

Anyway, mum was her normal, reliable, annoying self and swept me up in a hug Rob Fitch would be proud of (memo to self; must stop relating everything to the Fitches).

"Come in love...you're soaked" (no really?) "There's soup on the hob...I sacrificed my principles and bought a free range chicken...coz I know you love my chicken broth"

That was it...I collapsed and sobbed in her arms for a good ten minutes...

An hour later, showered, wrapped in a too big fluffy dressing gown and sitting at the kitchen table, I was persuaded to eat some of the heroic chicken broth my mum had made overnight. Even in my tearful, distressed state, I had to admit it was as good as it used to be. I even ate half a fat dumpling which she placed reverently on my steaming plate with the piles of chicken and vegetables. Chicken soup really is the answer to most things. Pandora was wrong about Hagen Daaz.

Just not the cure to this, obviously.

Mum was good enough to leave the post mortem until I had eaten half a bowl. I found out that I could actually eat after all. My intake of calories had been confined to alcohol and a disgusting cup of corporate coffee at Paddington up till now. Then, when I put down my spoon with a sigh, we looked at each other and she started the interrogation. Well, maybe that's too strong a word for what my mum does. She never seems to be putting the thumbscrews on, but she has a way of getting it out of me...eventually.

"So..." she said "Emily...?"

My eyes filled with tears and she passed me a handkerchief the size of a beach towel (my mum not going in for delicate things).

"Take your time love" she said softly, reaching over and stroking my face "I know it's hard...but you need to get it out...I know you...you've been holding this all in up till now, haven't you?"

I had...so I started to tell her, interrupted by several bouts of helpless sobbing. When I'd finished laying out the whole sorry mess, she leaned back and frowned.

"Well...that has surprised me. I was expecting something quite different. If you'd said that she'd had a one night thing after a boozy office party or something, I would have said that sort of stuff happens from time to time with couples, usually when you've got too used to each other and someone spots you aren't completely happy...but this? It's so unlike Emily. She was...no is... completely in love with you...I never saw anyone look at another person the way she does at you. Besotted, from the very first time you brought her home. Did she give you any sort of explanation for why she did it, love?"

I shook my head. My eyes were sore and red and I didn't trust myself to speak. Just getting the story out had exhausted me all over again.

Mum nodded her own head in disbelief.

"She had no reason...no fight between you...no terrible thing to get back at you for?"

I started at that. Anger flashed in my eyes.

"No mum. Just because I fucked up once...years ago, doesn't mean this was my fault yet again. I've never hurt her since...well, since Sophia... and I never would...ever"

She reached out and put her hand over mine. I flinched at the first bit of skin on skin contact I had had for what felt like days, but let her stroke the back of my hand.

"I didn't mean...oh shit, you know how clumsy I can be with things like that. I didn't mean you had done something, just that you've had your ups and downs in the past, when you were at separate uni's and things were difficult for a while? Remember that time when you had that girl...Rebecca... phoning you up over and over, not getting the message that you were in a committed relationship? I remember Emily was really upset that you didn't deal with it as firmly as she wanted you to?"

I shook my head again, harder this time.

"No mum...nothing like that. I learned a lot from that. Emily was still very touchy about what happened with Sophia. I had no feelings for Becky at all. She just mistook friendship for attraction. In the end, I turned her down flat in front of Emily...made her cry...and I felt like a bit of a shit over that, but Emily got the message. I was...no I am a one woman girl"

I bit my lip and wiped my eyes for the five hundredth time.

"Pity Emily turned out not to be..." I croaked

"So, she had...is having an affair? Do you actually know its still going on love?" mum asked softly.

"Yeah" I said bitterly "Well, it was up till last night...bit of a give-away, tasting another woman on your cheating partners lips"

My mum flinched at that. Even for her, that was a bit graphic.

"Yuk..." she said, wrinkling her forehead. "Not nice..." She made a face and started to stand " Right then...first things first. You need sleep and somewhere you can recover...it will take time love, but you will recover, I promise"

I shook my head yet again.

"Not from this mum, not this time...she's broken me...and I don't know if I can ever be fixed again"

Mum leaned over and gripped my hand hard until I winced.

"Now listen to me, daughter of mine. You WILL get over this...not today, not this week, but in a few weeks time, you will be able to function again. You will NOT let this ruin your life, do you understand? Emily has done a terrible thing and you may be right that things will never be OK between you ever again. But you're young...only 23. and life does go on sweetheart, as trite as that sounds. One day you will be able to think about the good times you had together instead of the bad. Listen to this daft old bat, love...even I had my moments in the past..."

I shuddered theatrically and managed a weak smile at her earnest expression.

"Please mum...no explicit memories of your experimental youth?...I might throw up that delicious broth if you do"

We shared a careful, delicate smile before she ushered me off upstairs to what was now my bedroom. It was different now, of course. No brass bed head with childish fairy lights. No multi coloured throw over the top of the crisp duvet cover. But enough of my old space remained for me to have a fresh cry before lying on the bed and eventually falling off to sleep.

XXX

It must have been several hours later I woke up. I'd like to say I felt better, but I settled for rested. My eyes weren't so sore and after I'd rubbed the sleep out of them, I sat up and stared around the room. My little overnight bag had been brought up and put at the end of the bed. I got up and padded to the bathroom, using the loo before washing my face and using the spare toothbrush to clean my teeth. I ran my fingers through my bed hair and took a deep breath. Every time my mind started to wander towards the 'E' word, I crushed the thought and frantically tried to put other, mundane things into my head. Impossible of course, but today was the first day of healing...and I had to begin now. There was no way I could air brush Emily out of my life, but I could and would throw myself into practical things to distract me. I might be the same girl who wandered around in an alcoholic daze for months when Emily was punishing me over Sophia, but I hoped I was a bit wiser now. There were things to do, things to arrange, Separating yourself from a failed relationship was hard, but I knew what I had to do.

I dressed quickly, putting on just a touch of makeup to counteract my deathly pale face and opened the bedroom door. I could hear voices...no a voice from downstairs and braced myself. Probably Kieran, back from college, I thought. It would be good to see his crumpled and world weary face again. Someone else I could rely on to cheer me up with his wry humour and deadpan delivery.

As I got to the top of the stairs, I realised I was wrong. It wasn't Kieran. My mother was on the phone to someone. I couldn't hear what she was saying at first, but then I heard a name...and froze with my foot on the first step.

"I know, Katie love...well, you do what you can, and I will too down here. Somehow we've got to sort this mess out between us"

The handset clicked as my mum put the phone down. I gritted my teeth and thumped down the rest of the stairs, not caring about stealth in the least now. When I got to the bottom, my mum was staring up towards me, her face a mixture of guilt and defiance.

"What the FUCK do you think you're doing mum?" I hissed spitefully.