Well this kind of developed a mind of its own and ran away with me while I was writing it, not where I'd planned to go with it at all... but I hope you'll still enjoy it?!
Costa was packed, thankfully. That was what she'd been counting on. Surely with this many people around Artan couldn't create too much of a scene, if he even turned up that was. She scanned the cafe and felt a little relieved when she didn't see any sign of him. She ordered herself a cup of tea and headed for an empty table right at the back, where she'd be able to see the door so she could see him coming.
She really wasn't sure what had made her think that this might be a good idea. She'd felt a whole lot braver in Bath, but being back in London and knowing she was about to be face to face with him again made her stomach churn. She stirred the cup of tea in front of her mindlessly, her eyes fixed to the door. She didn't think she'd be able to drink it without having to throw up, or her hands shaking so much she'd spill it everywhere.
Her heart was pounding in her chest as she watched the door, she spotted him coming from a mile off. He was still wearing the same khaki green coloured hoody he was last time she'd seen him. She saw him looking around, then pause for a second when he spotted her. He headed straight for her, not bothering to go and get himself a drink, and she wondered briefly if it was too late to change her mind. God she wished Charles was there with her.
He hesitated for a second as he reached the table, before he pulled out the chair opposite her. "Well, I've got to say this is a surprise." He commented, raising an eyebrow.
"Thanks for coming." She mumbled.
"Does your new man know you're here?" He asked. "What's his name, Charles?" He sneered as he said his name.
"He's not my anything." She sighed. "You made sure of that."
"Why am I here Molly?" He asked. "What is this?"
"I don't know." She ran her hand through her hair, trying to get her head straight. "I thought maybe we could talk, that maybe it might help. I don't really know what I was thinking, I mean we've never really been good at this have we?"
"I'm not sure there is anything to talk about is there?" She'd taken him by surprise, she could see it from the look on his face.
"How did we end up here?" She asked quietly, stirring her tea. "Because I've been over and over it about a thousand times and I can't make sense of it."
"What do you want me to say? That I screwed it up? That I'm sorry? That I wish things had worked out differently?" He asked. "Because I think I tried Molly!"
"I'm not saying that." She sighed. "I don't want your apologies. It's not like that is going to undo what you did to me. I just, I'm trying to understand. I need something, anything really to make this make some kind of sense to me so that I can move on from it. I need some closure."
"What do you want me to say?" He snapped. She was winding him up, she could see it in his face. "That it was all my fault? Because I'm sure as hell not about to. You screwed us up just as much as I did Molly, if not more. You couldn't just leave it. You just had to keep pushing, didn't you? After you joined the army, you came back and you looked at me.. Well like I was something you'd scraped off the bottom of your shoe. I moved across the country to be with you and then you never once thanked me for it."
"What was I supposed to do? Thank you every time you pushed me into the table or slapped me round the face?" She asked, dropping her voice to a whisper so no one would overhear. She could see the woman at the table next to them watching them out of the corner of her eye already.
"I didn't mean to." He shot back, he was gripping the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turned white. "Is that why you asked me to come here? So you can tell me how much I screwed up? Because believe me I'm not just going to sit here and take it. You played a part in what happened too."
"I never laid a finger on you!" She hissed. "I took it, and I tried and tried to help you because I thought it was my own fault. That the fact that I'd dragged you to the other side of the country had somehow entitled you to treat me like that!"
"You never asked Molly." His voice dropped, and he looked her in the eye for what was probably the first time. "You never asked what I thought, how I felt about anything. It was all about you and your career, about you doing something more with your life. What about me? I thought we were going to be a family and then you just kept pushing me away. I couldn't help it, I was angry and I resented you for it."
She bit her lip, forcing herself to take a breath before she said anything. She knew that part of what he was saying was true, she had asked a lot of him- and even though that would never excuse what he'd done, she needed to understand what had got him to that position.
"We could've been a family, Artan." Her voice dropped to hushed whisper. "Me, you and our baby. Don't you ever forget that you're the reason why that baby isn't here today."
"I was drunk, I didn't mean it." He said. "I know it's not an excuse, it was just the thought of you being with someone else, it made me so angry. It still does."
"You don't get to be angry." She snapped back. "You had your chance, I spent years of my life sacrificing myself to try and make you happy, even after everything you did to me and what did I get in return? So don't think that I'm going to let you ruin my chance at happiness with someone else."
"He's not right for you, he doesn't understand you like I do." Artan argued. "He'll get bored when he realises you're not going to sit around and be his trophy wife, and then what?"
"That's none of your business, in fact nothing I do has anything to do with you any more and the sooner you wrap your head around it the better." She snapped. "You can carry on trying to tell yourself that what happened was my fault if you like, whatever you need to do to help yourself live with what you did to me, but I swear to god if you come near me or Charles, or anywhere near my Mum and the kids I'll call the police. Got it?"
"But Molly, he doesn't know you!" He argued. "Look at him, some fancy army man with a big house and loads of money. He thinks he's better than people like us."
"He is better than you." She shrugged. "In so many ways that you'll never understand. He was there for me when I needed him, when you'd completely destroyed me. He helped me to realise that despite what you'd told me, I didn't deserve to be treated like that. So I owe him everything, I wouldn't even waste your breath trying to convince me otherwise." Her heart was pounding in her chest. Even now, the idea of speaking back to Artan like that horrified her. She had to keep reminding herself that they were in the middle of a packed coffee shop, and he might be stupid but he wasn't about to get himself sent to prison.
"Why did you get me to come here Molly? So you could preach to me about how fantastic this new man of yours is?" Artan sighed.
"Because I wanted to sit opposite you and look you in the eye." She said. "Because I wanted you to see that in spite of everything you did to me you didn't win, and I will be fine."
"Well." He sighed, his expression unreadable. "Congratulations I suppose?"
She stood up from the table, picking up her coat. "Goodbye Artan." She hesitated for a second by the side of the table. "I want to make it clear that this is it, you're never going to see me again." And with that she left before he had a chance to try and say anything else.