"Hey," Maria peeked her head around the doorframe. "Have you-"
Carla held up a finger as she finished talking into the phone. "Okay Daniel, but if you do change your mind, we'd love to see you and laddo. Okay, love. Ta-ra."
"Sorry, but have you got a minute?"
"I'm surprised you've got any to spare," Carla said as she perched on the edge of the desk. "You've certainly been Miss Popular tonight."
"Tell me about it," Maria huffed, unwrapping her scarf from around her neck and tossing it unceremoniously onto the armchair.
"So, to what do I owe this pleasure?" Carla looked expectantly at Maria.
"Well, I haven't seen you since Beth were having a go at you over the beard oil," she swallowed her guilt down. "And I, umm... I just wanted to make sure you were alright."
"Because you were the one that switched them bottles, right?"
"What? Where's this come from?"
"Oh, it took me a while to clock it, I'll give you that. You certainly have perfected the innocent act over the years, 'aven't you?"
"Carla, you're overthinking things again."
"Yeah, like I overthought what you said about Liam on Christmas Eve, eh? About him not having a chance to be a dad?"
Maria shuffled her feet, trying to steady her nerves under Carla's intense scrutiny.
"I didn't want to believe it. That you would stoop so low to prove you were the better woman for Liam. But then things started coming back to me, you see. Little things, like how Liam told me that in them last few weeks before he died, he couldn't bring himself to sleep with you because," she chuckled humourlessly, "even though he were married to you, he felt like it would be cheating on me..."
"This is ridiculous," Maria placed her hands on her hips, her eyes darting about nervously.
"What's the matter, Maria? Run out of stories to tell?" She grinned as she scanned Maria contemptuously from head to toe. "What Liam ever saw in you, I'll never know. Always did say you had candy floss for brains-"
"Alright, Carla! I think you need to call that shrink of yours, 'cause you've clearly lost it!"
"Have I really?"
"All this? It's just your guilt messing with your head because you know, deep down, that you were responsible for his death. You, Carla. Just you. Liam never got a chance to be a dad because Tony killed him before he even knew. Because of you and your sordid little affair."
"It wasn't an affair," Carla shook her head sadly at the memory. "Liam wanted us to run away together. Start a new life, just him and me. He were begging me to just drop everything and leave with him that night," her eyes lined with tears as she spoke. "I was gonna do it, you know. I'd called a cab and everything. And then I found out you were up the stick."
"You're lying..."
"Oh, it's true, Maria. Ask Leanne. Believe me I tried to deny how I felt that night. But I loved him..." She lowered her gaze to the floor and wrapped her arms around herself. "I loved Liam. With everything I had. Which is why I gave him up. So he could be a father." Carla slowly blinked, focusing now on the woman stood before her. "Don't you see, Maria? When you so smugly announced that you were up the duff, well, that's when you sealed Liam's fate. It was you."
Maria recoiled back, watching as Carla approached her like a cat stalking its prey, her tear-filled green eyes hard and unrelenting.
"It was you who lied to everyone about carrying Liam's baby. You knew it couldn't be his. But I believed you. And I couldn't bear to take away his chance at fatherhood. So, you know what I did?"
"I don't..." Maria shook her head as she stepped back the more Carla approached.
"I went to see him that night. It would've only been hours before he died. And I told him I didn't love him."
"Carla-" Maria's back came into contact with the office door; she had nowhere left to run.
"The last words I ever said to the love of my life, were a lie. And I never got the chance to tell him the truth because I walked away, and then he was-"
With a growl, Carla slammed both palms against the door on either side of Maria's head, causing her to shriek in fright. "All these years, I believed I were responsible for Liam's death. I tortured myself day in, day out. Even when I were with Peter or Nick- the guilt never, ever went away. Because the look on his face when I lied to him that night - when I told him I didn't love him - burned itself into my memory. And all this time, it were you all along."
"No," Maria whispered, a sob escaping her lips.
"Oh, it's too late to deny it now," Carla sneered and stepped back, turning towards the desk. "The question now, little Miss Muffet, is what's next? Hmm?"
"Carla, I-"
She ducked as a glass tumbler shattered against the door above her. Without missing a beat, she quickly pried the door open and made a mad dash out into the Bistro, leaving a satisfied Carla in her wake.
"Tsk tsk," she tutted, walking towards the armchair, her fingers brushing tantalisingly along the scarf the hairdresser had left behind. "You can run Maria, but you can't hide..."
Author: dipdipdipmyblueship