Chapter Four

Sunday passed in a blur of productivity, but by the end of the evening, reality was settling in with a single text from Richard, reminding me that he would be home Wednesday and be round his Mum's.

I was both amazed and pissed off at that. Given what he had done, you know, the minor matter of cheating on me, and his few texts and calls after, that there was just radio silence since. Was our relationship not worth fighting for? I mean, yeah I was already checking out and I did shout at him to leave, but I did wonder what I would have done if he hadn't just upped and left on Thursday, maybe cancelled work to, you know, save his relationship perhaps. It made me consider the comment my Dad had made about my fiery nature. He didn't as much say it but I couldn't help repeat the thought of being a doormat. Was I so wrapped up in our relationship and our potential future that I could forgive him? Right now, definitely not, but until I saw Richard again a little niggle of doubt crept in and I hoped I could still be strong when he gets back home.

I was also pissed off with the contents of his message. No 'can we talk?' or 'how are you' or even another 'sorry for banging another woman, forgive me'. Just, his itinerary like I was his bloody PA or something. That brought me up short. This was normal for us. The ball of anger raised its head again at both myself and Richard. Why did I accept our lives falling into this routine where I managed his home life like I was his mother? And Richard, treating this as though Thursday never happened, like it didn't matter.

It was with all this rattling around in my brain, and the impending meeting with HR to officially accepting the US offer, that I didn't sleep well that night.

Monday morning rolled round and I bypassed my desk on the way in and made my way straight to Marc's office. Karen waved me straight through on my arrival and I quietly settled myself in a chair as he finished up a phone call.

"So. You still up for this? Haven't changed your mind right?" He asked with a little bit of humour, but I could see the worry in his eyes that maybe I would back out. It struck me then that he might be looking forward to having me onboard with this, like I was with him. I never wanted to let Marc down and felt a surge of happiness that someone needed me for support as much as I needed them.

"Nope, still in if you are?" I grinned back at him. The smile he gave me was blinding as he stood up from his desk and gestured for me to stand too.

"OK, I'm just going to do this once. This does NOT leave the room, understand?" I was slightly confused until he then grabbed my hands and did an excited jumping on the spot move and shouting 'yay!' that had me laughing out loud.

"OK, OK calm down." I chuckled. He moved back to his desk and grabbed his laptop and a stack of papers before motioning me to lead the way back out.

"Don't know what you mean." He smiled again. I've never seen him so relaxed and happy in so long. That feeling of being a shitty friend reared its head again. I was determined to change that.

"How was your weekend? Did you write down any more questions?" He asked as we walked down the hallway to the lifts on our way to HR's floor. I waved my notepad at him and gave him a run down of my past two days as we waiting for a lift and travelled to the fourth floor.

"What about you, get up to much?" I asked.

"Hmm, spent the time going through some banking stuff. All very boring but necessary. You've got this joyous task ahead of you too."

"Are you trying to put me off?" I joked.

"Haha nope. You've committed now. No getting out of it!" He was almost bubbling over with excitement, like a kid at Christmas bouncing on his toes as the lift ascended.

"What's up with you? You got ants in your pants?" I eyeballed him as he stopped his motion with a chagrin squint of his eyes as he scratched one of his ears.

"Yeah, sorry. Just excited y'know? Not every day you get to go on an adventure with your best mate. And get paid for it"

I dropped my gaze to the floor as a warm feeling welled up inside as I again realised I wasn't the only one needing the moral support. We were both putting ourselves out there and I swore I would start pulling my own weight with supporting my best friend. I'd forgotten in my own little sphere that this was all new to him too.

I raised my eyes back to him and subtly squared my shoulders, noticing his chagrin had morphed into worry. I didn't want him to think I wasn't up for this as much as he was.

I gave him a small shoulder bump. "You're just excited to bang some hot American chick." It was our way of acknowledging his worry without doing so directly. Marc's dating history was legendary back in the day, with many stories of his doing something entirely out of character to get in some girls pants. He gently shoulder checked me back, but didn't, as he always did in the past, run with my opening. Instead he shifted his paperwork and laptop into one hand and slung the other round my shoulder to bring me closer with a tight squeeze.

"I'm glad you are coming with me Kate," he said softly. The sudden lump in my throat prevented me from speaking so I leaned my head against his side and earnt another squeeze from him.

We soon arrived at HR, and Marc introduced me to a lovely lady called Mandy who was in charge of both our relocations. We spent the morning going through form after form to fill in for immigration visas, medical, taxes… the list seemed endless, but thankfully covered pretty much all the queries I had to hand.

Mandy handed a couple of thin glossy brochures to us both. "OK, here are the houses available. They've been kindly offered up by the Quileute Tribe at a reduced rental rate for the company. We've had both inspected and they pass, so it's up to you two who gets what one." She then pointed to the other. "This is for the company car. I understand you both have licenses, but don't own vehicles?" We both nodded. It was pointless in London when public transport was so abundant. "OK, well they are pretty remote so I've been told, it's about an hours drive from the warehousing unit to the offices in Port Angeles, and no real transport links. So, that means you both get to pick a car."

I barely had time to glance at the car one before Marc had pretty much torn it out of Mandy's hand. She smiled and rolled her eyes at me, muttering 'boys and their toys'. I wasn't fussed as it meant I could hopefully get first dibs on the better place to live.

The first property was a two bed apartment out the outskirts of a nearby Town called Forks. It was west of the Tribal land, but meant it was about 20 minutes closer to Port Angeles. It was nicely done up inside, and just screamed bachelor pad.

The second was just lovely. It was a two storey, two bed, white wood clad detached house set in a small plot of land. It was just off the main road into the Reservation, into La Push, but was set back a good half a mile from the road, surrounded by woodlands. I was already picturing reading a book on the wrap around porch in the summer months. I quickly flipped to the internal pictures, again, seeing it all nicely decorated inside. There was only one and a half bathrooms, but I was going to be living alone so it made no difference to me. The kitchen looked to be a decent size, slightly bigger than my house, but it had a separate utility room at the back; a luxury we didn't have the space for in our London home.

"You want the house I take it?" I lifted my head and found both Marc and Mandy watching me with smiles on their faces. I blushed a bit knowing I'd zoned out and missed whatever else they had said. In the interest of friendship, I, somewhat reluctantly, turned to Marc,

"Did you want to pick first? I don't mind." I hoped I sounded sincere.

"I'll take the apartment near the cutlery town if I get first dibs on the car?" He knew me too well.

"Sure, thanks." I grinned at Marc. "What are the options on the cars anyway?" If my Dad's opinion meant anything, I best take advice on any vehicle I plan to drive. Marc's face literally lit up as he launched into the pros and cons of the options available. Mandy once again rolled her eyes and excused herself to get some drinks, barely interrupting Marc's diatribe on the recent diesel emission scandal.

"...miles to the gallon and why are you smiling at me?" Marc switched tack with an amused frown across his brow.

"Just you, I haven't seen you this like this in a long time. It's nice. I've missed it."

"Yeah, I guess we both got boring in our old age. We'll have to go back to our old days, play hard and work hard." He grinned.

I snorted unladylike, "If you mean getting drunk every night, I'll have to decline, I can't cope with the hangover anymore. But, it would be nice to get our friendship back." I sighed. "Sorry I've been a shit friend, everything has just made me realise how tied up in my life with Richard I'd been and neglecting you. I mean, we hardly see each other outside of work, all because I just wanted to get home to play house with him." I frowned at that, more like playing mother to a child.

"It's cool, I mean, I've not exactly pushed you, maybe I should have. Don't shoot me, but Richard seemed to take great joy in controlling your life, I wondered if you even saw it, I guess not." He shrugged gently, worrying his lower lip. Normally I would have jumped in to defend Richard, but found myself stepping back. This was a prime opportunity to see an outsiders view on my relationship and said as much.

"I'm not mad. What else did you notice?"

"Remember when Carrie in accounts got married last year? You didn't come to her after works drinks thingy as Richard wanted you home."

I frowned further, I remembered that, and I was surprised at myself that I never questioned it at the time. It wasn't like we had something else planned, he just wanted me home.

"I also asked you out for drinks with the team a few times, you always decline, so we stopped asking you." Marc looked sad. "You withdrew into yourself, into work. The only time we really engage anymore was if it was related to your job. I didn't know how to reach you. I started to worry for you at home. I mean, you hear it all the time. Woman gets controlled like that, gaslighting, mental abuse, then it gets physically…" Marc eyeballed me and I realised he was asking if Richard was violent.

"No." I vehemently answered. "Richard might be a dick, more of a dick than I realised, but he never touched me like that." It scared me that from the outside, my relationship came across as abusive. I mean, I see now I did let Richard control parts of my life without realising it but it he never raised a hand at me. Mentally however… I started to see every off comment in a new light. Being tired didn't excuse the off handed comments about my cooking, or my clothes looking frumpy, or comments on the state of the house. Marc brought me out of my worries with a squeeze of my hand.

"Fuck him OK?" He said quietly. "You are done with the cheating bastard. You're going to move to the US of fucking A to do an amazing job which you'll just walk it because you are shit hot at what you do, and you'll have me with you. Together we're going to have an amazing time and you'll be single to bang all the hot American guys you want." I burst out laughing at his last comment, a twist on my earlier words. I couldn't think of words to say back, I mean, how did you respond to that kind of support, before Mandy walked back in with a tray of new drinks.

"All OK in here?" She asked, as she set the tray on her overflowing desk.

"Yup, Kate is going to have the house, I'll take the apartment. I'll take the Audi Q7, Kate'll have the Mercedes GLC…" Marc continued to list the spec for both cars as I grabbed the Mercedes booklet to see what the hell a GLC was. Woah, it was a large SUV thingy. It looked lovely, and I dread to think how much it costs but at least it wasn't the biggest SUV listed. I don't think I could even get in that one, let alone drive the thing. I guess Marc knows me pretty well.

I was brought again out of my internal musing by Marc nudging me and asking what colour I wanted. I didn't know whether to feel insulted as a feminist that that was all I could contribute to the discussion, or grateful Marc was sorting out the finer point but still let me have some input. I'll be honest, I'd probably be able to spec up a car myself, but it would take weeks of umming and ahhing and researching my options, I decided it was probably a good thing Marc was here with me and swallowed my pride for a moment.

"I like that blue." I said, pointing to a darker metallic blue. It looked a bit sporty, but classy at the same time.

"You OK to drive an auto, or do you want manual?" He added.

"Auto please. I prefer manual but I assume they will be a left hooker?" Marc nodded "I'm not sure if I could get used to the gears being on the wrong side."

Ten more minutes and Marc and Mandy had finished the car specs and loaded them on the internal company car leasing portal. Luckily Marc's spec for his Q7 was instock, mine would take a few weeks to be ordered, but would be ready before I left for the States.

"I'll have them arranged so they are ready at Seattle airport for you when you land. You'll have to drive them up to La Push, it's about five hours so just prepare yourselves for that trek."

Nothing like a five hour drive to get used to a new car in a foreign country. Eek.

"OK, next on the list, flights!" Chirped Mandy.

After a few more hours we called a time out to get some lunch, Marc offering to spring for lunch in the work's canteen. I called him cheap and offered to spring for some sandwiches in a little cafe down the road which he readily agreed to.

"I booked Mandy for the whole day, but I think we'll have it all sorted before then, so do you want to spend the last few hours this afternoon together to go through the personal stuff?" Marc offered. I nodded my yes as I had a mouth full of a chicken and bacon wrap. I wasn't looking forward to this part where we could easily miss something, but Marc tried his best to head off my concerns by reminding me he had done most of it already and would coach me through everything.

"Yeah, but that's the problem, you are still finding things and you're off in three weeks time."

He had a kind of bláse attitude sometimes, but only because I knew him like I did I not go into complete panic mode.

"It's fine Kate. Worse case, we do have phones and email to sort it out once over in Washington. Carrier pigeon if we must." I tutted in reply at his snark. If anything did crop up it would likely be small or turn out to not be worth the worry, however the planner in me was not keen on unwanted surprises. I was amazed Marc hadn't strangled me yet with my constant worrying.

"I need to do some major clothes shopping before I go, I was going to borrow my Dad's car again and go to an out of town shopping place, maybe Lakeside or Bluewater. Did you want to come with? It would save lunging everything around on the Tube." I offered.

"As long as we can split up. You know I haven't got the patience to watch you try on a million pairs of shoes."

"Deal. I'm not that bad. Once I find something I like I just get it in multiple colours. I'm pretty simple like that." I huffed, wiping my lips with a napkin.

"Besides, wasn't it you that dragged me all around London a few years back trying to find that limited edition of slippers." I pointed a finger at him.

"It was a pair of Yeezys, and they made me a lot of money on ebay I have you know." He replied with mild indignation.

"Yeah, you used up all the profit buying Tube tickets finding the bloody things." I scoffed. "You barely broke even."

"That's beside the point." I had to laugh has his mock outrage. "When can you borrow your Dad's car anyway?"

I chewed on a piece of my fruit salad. "Not sure, he's pretty flexible. We can do it after work one night this week, or the weekend?"

"How about after work this week? I think they are open pretty late, we can get dinner too." Marc turned serious and his eyes dropped to the table for a second. "We could do it Wednesday, after Richard gets back… you know… if you need to escape after you talk to him?"

My mood took a nosedive at that, but it was a good plan. I hadn't thought past 'The Talk'. It was Richard's home too, I don't think I could stay in the same house as him. If he chose to come home from his Mum after we spoke, I couldn't stop him. That also reminded me that I needed to speak to Richard's Mum Carol soon. No doubt Richard hasn't told her anything. It would also be nice to have Marc there as a buffer… no, I shut that thought down. It wasn't fair on Marc and it was something I needed to deal with myself.

"Let me see. It's a good idea. If Dad can spare the car on Wednesday, we can do it then, I'll pick you up after 7pm, we can do dinner then shop." I pulled out my phone and fired off a quick message to the parental unit, getting my answer with in seconds. I swear that man is surgically attached to his phone.

"OK, we're on. Wednesday evening is it." I tried to smile at Marc but it dropped from my lips quite quickly. He smiled kindly at me.

"Sorry, Marc. I don't want to drag you into this. I think I'll be happier once this thing with Richard is sorted you know."

"It's fine, I don't mind, it's what friends are for, right?" He ducked his head to catch my line of sight. "Beside, I reckon I'm banking so much karma for this, you'll owe me big time." He grinned again, trying to lighten the mood. I gave myself a mental shake and sat up a little straighter in my seat.

"Yeah right, if you think I'm putting in a good word with Megan, you're off your rocker. She's more of a clean freak than I am." I scoffed.

"Damn, plan foiled. You know me too well." I flicked my balled up napkin at him.

"Come on Romeo, let's get back to Mandy and her joyous forms to fill in."

After lunch we spent a few more hours with Mandy, and thankfully covered all we needed to officially facilitate my move to the States. After we'd finished we made out way back to Marc's office to start on the personal stuff that Marc had started and he would walk me through.

I sat at the small meeting table in his office and spread out the information collected from Mandy, as well as my trusty notepad. Holy moly, this was really happening. I found it easy to just go through the motions; Marc was right, I was process driven and the action of actually doing something, even just filling out forms, took me away from the reality of this all. I was moving to the States. The fucking US of A, Oh god, I was really doing this!

"Too late to back out now sweetheart." Marc spoke up, not even looking at me.

"What?" My brain had kind of bluescreened. I needed a moment to reset.

He looked up from his laptop, and gave me a gentle smile. "Take five. Process it. It's a big thing, it's OK to freak out, but it'll be OK."

"How come you aren't freaking out." I almost squeaked. He laughed then.

"What makes you think I haven't ready?" He replied. "Besides, I've had longer to process this, and you are… you." He shrugged. "It's been a crazy few days, I'm surprised you haven't had a mini breakdown yet."

Was I really that predictable? Well, sod that. I took a deep breath and started to sort through my papers in front of me.

"OK, smart arse. Where do I start?" I'd barely got the words out before he flung a wad of papers at me.

"You start with those. Once you've filled them in, we'll go through the rest of your list."

We spend the rest of the day working out various bank forms, medical record requests, informing various agencies… the list seemed endless but by 6pm, we'd pretty covered everything. Everything else related to selling the house; Marc was in a position to rent his out and had already appointed a lettings agency to act on his behalf. My only option given Richard being a monumental dick, was selling up. As much as he may argue it, unless he could afford to buy me out, the only option was to sell. I needed to speak to Dad again to get Barry's details. I fired off another text to him, and he replied as I was waiting for the lift on my way out at the end of the day, saying he would have his details to hand for when I picked the car up on Wednesday. Perfect.

Monday evening was spent cleaning out more clothes for charity. I figured this was going to be a brand new start so was going to make the most of it, and this was an excellent excuse to freshen up my wardrobe. Apart from my work clothes, and some casual attire I realised all of the other clothes destined for charity were stuff normally wouldn't pick out for myself. I frowned at this, remembering when I'd purchased some bits here and there. They were all purchased on Richard having the last say. When did I become that woman that dressed how their partner wanted? I realised I always veer towards my casual bits, jeans, T-Shirts out of work, and these were when Richard would always make some bitchy comment about dating a hobo.

I sat back on my hunches in my place on the bedroom floor, fingers playing with a hem of a god awful shirt I'd pulled out. I could see now that all the little digs here and there did a number on my self esteem. To keep the peace I'd let him dictate what I wore. I wasn't a push over, at least I never saw myself as one, but it sneaked up on me. Richard could throw a tantrum when he wanted, sulking like a little kid if he didn't get his way, or he was proved wrong. I found it amusing at first, but that morphed into annoyance once we moved in with each other, and I now realise that I bent over backwards more than I should have to keep him happy to avoid this behaviour.

The anger was building again, but I tapped it down. I wouldn't waste my free time getting angry at him when he wasn't here. It didn't stop me bagging up the unwanted clothing with more viciousness than warranted. I went to bed that night stewing in my revelations, angry at myself this time for letting myself be cowed by that dick.

Tuesday passed in a blur of additional forms to complete with Mandy, breaking up the rest of my day by going through my current workload with Lucas and Megan, dividing up my active account base and giving them the lowdown on the quirks of some customers I deal with. I was confident they would be fine, but it was an odd sensation to have to walk away from my work and watch someone else do it instead. I think Lucas was getting sick of me by the end of the day and politely told me to go home through gritted teeth. I hoped I hadn't pissed him off too much as we had the rest of the week together before I was thrown into my new role.

I was feeling lazy when I got home after 7pm, so I ordered a Chinese take out and in between scoffing salt and pepper chicken, I made sure all my music was loaded onto my phone and iPod, as well as getting my Kindle up to date. It was going to be a long ass flight to Seattle, and a long ass drive to my new home, I would need some entertainment. Thankfully, work had sprung for business class seats and I was so looking forward to being able to fully recline on an airplane. What a novel experience!

By 10pm, I was getting ready for bed, but felt extremely wired and unsettled. Richard would be back tomorrow, and assuming I got out of work on time tomorrow at 5, it would give me enough time to get home, before going around his Mum's place. I still hadn't figured out what to say to him exactly which was only ramping my nerves up more, only that we needed to sell the house and that I would be in contact with him once I'd spoken to Barry. Until I saw Richard, I wasn't sure if I could still stay in the same house as him, and I was annoyed with myself for letting him make me feel unwelcome in my own home without even being here! My mind was digging up the worse case scenario, and I wondered if it wouldn't be too extreme to hide some of my more irreplaceable belongs. I've no idea where this fear came from, but then again, I never thought he would cheat on me, so who knows what he would do.

I did however do a quick sweep of the bedroom and pull all my stuff into the spare room (made much easier with my few remaining clothes). My mild paranoia wouldn't settle until I did. The bed was still unmade from my decontamination spree, but fuck him, it could serve as a reminder for him if he chose to stay here than stay at Carol's place. There was no way I was going to sleep in that bed again. He could make the bed for a change.