Days had gone by since Carla and Peter said that they were done.
It had only been three days but for Carla, it seemed like dozens.
She had barley got any sleep because each time she nodded off, her dreams would torture her until she awoke again.
Jessica was no longer the one consuming Carla's visions, it was Peter and only Peter.
All of the things that he whispered to her whilst they embraced, echoed through her mind and Carla felt like there was no escape from it.
She'd try to drown all thoughts of Peter out by playing loud music and by throwing herself into her work but it wasn't working this time.
It didn't help that every time she looked down at her sofa, the place where her and Peter had last had sex, all it did was make her feel miserable.
Crazily enough, that sofa seemed to be the only place that Carla could find solace.
Her bed was too big, too empty, too lonely and even though the sofa held memories that she couldn't escape, laying on it somehow made her feel closer to Peter, somehow it put her at ease.
Wednesday was spent in anger. At herself, at Peter, at everyone who had attempted to speak to her.
Thursday was spent in tears. Over Peter, Nick and everything that had gone wrong in life.
Both days were also spent with a large amount of wine.
She woke up on Friday morning and stared at the empty glass that had been her only companion and Carla knew that she couldn't miss another day at work.
She knew that she had to at least try to move on.
She heaved herself up off the sofa and got dressed, determined to try and ignore the aching she had inside for Peter.
His reaction to her on Tuesday night had really surprised her and had only made her even more curious about the life that he now lead.
Why was he so private? What else was he keeping from her?
Carla couldn't understand how she could be so easily consumed by one man and it made her feel ashamed.
Ashamed because Peter had meant so much to her and now that she was without him... she felt like nothing.
She also felt incredibly stupid.
Stupid for hanging onto his every word and thinking that this situation would have ended up any other way than her being alone... again.
Those two days, sitting alone in her flat and ignoring Michelle's calls, Carla had tried to work out just when she had fallen so hard for Peter again.
It wasn't straight away she knew that for sure… whilst there had always been that animal magnetism between the pair from the start, Carla had always felt in control of her feelings.
She knew what the deal was and she thought that she could handle it.
She actually thought she would be able to sleep with Peter casually and have none of that emotional baggage brought into things.
It's crazy but is also true.
She couldn't work out exactly when it was when she had become so tightly wrapped around Peter's finger but she knew that it had happened without her knowing it.
Had she of known... had she had foreseen how things would have ended up she might not have let it get this far… right?
Carla has spent countless hours trying to get her feelings in order but as Thursday night approached she knew she couldn't stay this way forever.
Being this obsessed about someone wasn't healthy... no matter who he was and just how good he made her feel.
Anyways back to Friday and word had got around about Carla dumping Nick. She knew it as she walked to work and she saw Nick's brother watching her from a far. He was shaking his head at her trying to figure just out where things had gone wrong.
Carla knew that David wouldn't be the only one looking at her like that and she was right because everyone was wondering why she did it.
Why she'd let a man who loved her so much go?
Why she'd had such a sudden change of heart when at one point it was crystal clear that she was ridiculously happy?
Carla kept her head held high as she approached her building and also as she apologised for being "ill" on Wednesday and Thursday.
It was a rather unnecessary apology because everyone knew about her and Nick by now and they had all assumed that she was in pieces over the end of her relationship.
Carla couldn't stand the way her employees looked at her, in pity, with their eyebrows furrowed, in a way that made her want to run back towards her flat and never return… but she didn't.
She made sure she put one foot in front of the other and she made sure she didn't let a single soul know how broken she was.
She sat in her office and sounded off to her staff over nothing but she didn't actually get a single piece of work done.
She kept going over and over her last conversation with Peter in her head and wishing she had done things differently.
She wished she had told him about Nick, that she had said that the reason she ended it was because she couldn't think about anything else but him.
She wished when Peter had gone that she had run after him and begged him to stay… but she didn't.
She was way too stubborn for that.
That was Carla and Peter's biggest problem; they were both as hard headed as each other.
It came to Friday night and Carla couldn't have been happier to leave her office for a few days. She had expected to be spending the new few days alone but she was wrong.
Friday night was taken over by Michelle, who'd had enough of being ignored and was waiting right outside the factory at six pm when Carla had left.
"Oh… Hi Chelle." Carla said as she locked the door, showing no real enthusiasm to see her best friend stood there at all.
"Oh Hi…" Michelle said, shaking her head at Carla. "Is that all you ave to say to me?"
"I… dunno what you mean." Carla said, staring at Michelle in confusion.
"You've been ignoring my calls for the past three days and then I hear from Sean that you ended things with Nick." Michelle exclaims.
"Oh… right." Carla sighed, she knew she probably should have told her best friend about dumping her boyfriend but her mind had been preoccupied by something else… or someone else.
"Carla what happened?" Michelle asked, as Carla made her way down the factory steps. She hadn't been able to understand Carla's behaviour for weeks and now she had broken up with Nick, Michelle knew that she was definitely hiding something from her.
"What makes you think something happened?" Carla asked, suddenly so suspicious about what everyone around her knew because after finding out that Ken had spoken to Peter, she couldn't be sure who else he might have been talking to.
"You and Nick were happy… so how come you ended things with him? What did he do?"
"Nothing Chelle… he did absolutely nothing." Carla said, hating that Nick was maybe being blamed for the break down of their relationship when it was all down to her. "Why? Are people saying he did?"
"No…" Michelle said, "Not at all, it's just difficult to understand why you ended it when you two were so happy."
"Yeah… well maybe we weren't as happy as I thought…" Carla began, distantly at that because she really didn't want to have this conversation right now.
"Oh bullshit Carla… you n Nick were practically on cloud nine… all you could do was talk about him… well up until a few months ago that is." Michelle tutted, she had been onto Carla's change in behaviour for weeks now and was determined to get some answers.
"Look Michelle… what can I say? Yes we were happy but sometimes happiness is just not enough, sometimes you still have to do what's right." Carla said as she reached her building.
"But Carla I still don't understand…" Michelle began
"You don't ave to understand!" Carla cried, "This is nothing to with you Chelle... you just ave to be ere for me… you are me best mate right?" Michelle nodded at Carla because it was true, she was her best friend… even if she didn't feel like it at the time. Even if she couldn't understand things about her right now and even if she felt like she was hiding something huge. "Right then…" Carla nodded "If you're me best mate then get that I really… really don't want to talk about why I ended it with Nick… not yet, okay."
"Okay…" Michelle nodded.
She got why Carla didn't want to talk about Nick… and she just made sure that she was supportive.
She stayed over at Carla's flat and they watched movies all weekend but they didn't talk about Nick until Tuesday that is.
An exact week since Carla and Peter had argued and ended their affair.
Michelle had called Carla over to the pub for another girly day in but she had a trick up her sleeve.
One that she was sure Carla would thank her for later… If only she knew that what she had planned was the last thing that Carla had wanted.
Nick.
Nick was sat stiffly at the table, in one of his trademark suits, when Michelle brought Carla into the back room of the pub. Carla blinked twice and stared at Nick before turning her attention to her best friend.
"Michelle… what's… going on?"
"Well…" Michelle began, still thinking that she was doing both Nick and Carla a favour here. "I thought that maybe now you two have had a few days apart that you could talk about things… that what ever happened with you both you could work through it… together."
"I told you…" Carla began, trying to stay calm for Nick's sake because this whole thing really wasn't fair on him. "Nothing happened between us… I ended it and that's that… there was no argument, nothing… so this ain't gonna work Michelle."
"I told you." Nick said, shaking his head and getting up.
"I'm sorry you had to come ere Nick." Carla said apologetically as he walked passed the two best friends and left the both to it.
"Nick don't go…" Michelle called after him.
He didn't turn back, he kept walking, dignified as he left the pub.
Michelle sighed heavily as Carla slammed the door shut and turned to her.
"What the hell Michelle?" she cried, "Why would you do that to me?"
"I was trying to help…" Michelle cried back hopelessly.
"How? How on earth did you think that getting Nick over ere and ambushing me like that would help?" Carla asked, knowing that this was probably her fault and that she should have told Michelle the truth a long time ago.
Michelle sat down at the table that Nick was sat at and shook her head before speaking again.
"I'm sorry…" she began, as Carla sat down opposite her agitatedly. "I just thought by giving you both a chance to talk that maybe you two could sort everything out between you."
"There's nothing to sort out though… I don't deserve him and I ended it. Simple."
"Carla… what on earth would make you think that you don't deserve Nick?" Michelle asked, "That guy worships the ground you walk on."
"Yeah… n that's why I had to end it. It wasn't fair on him. Now I know you want to help but you have to know that it's over between Nick n Me … I cannot stress that enough."
"Well I'm just finding that hard to believe to be honest Carla…" Michelle said, shaking her head.
"Why?" Carla exclaimed, unable to see things from Michelle's point of view.
She was unable to see how Michelle could have mistaken her miserable behaviour for being down to her separation from Nick and not down to her seperation from someone else.
"Look at your self Carla… you're pale, you've dark circles under your eyes, you've been a nightmare to be around over the weekend… at work you're even worse than normal, everyone says so... you obviously miss Nick like mad." Michelle said, smugly because she thought she was right.
Well… she was half right.
"Oh for god sake, I don't miss Nick, I miss Peter!" Carla cried, finally biting the bullet and deciding that she needed to reveal all to Michelle.
She couldn't cope with Michelle trying to get her to patch things up with Nick for a moment longer but Michelle didn't get it at first.
"Peter…" She said, shaking her head. "Carla that's ridiculous… Peter hasn't been around in ages n you've been so happy with Nick... how on earth could you miss him?"
"Well that's just it Chelle…" Carla began uneasily, not feeling so much anger anymore but feeling like she might burst into tears at any given moment. "He has been around…"
"What?" Michelle said softly, reading Carla's expression.
"He came back ere one night, we ran into each other outside my building and… well that's why I ended it with Nick." Carla explained, sure Michelle would get it now.
Michelle was quiet for a moment, quiet whilst her mind went places that she really didn't like. She knew the exact effect Peter Barlow had on her best friend and she knew that it wouldn't have taken much for him to have wormed his way back in.
"Carla… I ave this horrible feeling where you're taking this…" Michelle eventually said, "Please tell me that you and Peter just talked."
"I wish I could…" Carla began but then she shook her head. "Actually no I don't… I don't wish me and Peter talked because what happened that night… as wrong as it was… it were… beyond anything that's ever happened to me before."
"Oh Carla…" Michelle said, shaking her head again and moving closer to her. "Look I'm sure it was just a lapse in judgement…" She began but when Carla was the one who shook her head this time, Michelle realised this night Carla was talking about with Peter, wasn't her last.
"Yep…" Carla nodded upon reading her best friends reaction. "I've been cheating on Nick for months with Peter Barlow and now… well now he doesn't want anything to do with me."
"Wait…" Michelle sighed, taking in a breath and trying to process all of this new information in the best way that she could. "I don't understand… I mean where? When? Is Peter even back? I aven't seen him."
"No one has… well except for Si n His Dad." Carla explained, "He lives in central and well as for where n when… My flat… my office… all the time I wasn't with Nick if I'm honest."
"Carla…" Michelle said, speechless.
"I know it sounds cliché and all that but we didn't plan it, we just ran into each other, we had words and the next thing we were up in my flat… It were only supposed to be the once but then Peter came back and... Well ere I am now." Carla said with a hopeless shrug. After some deafening silence Carla sighed and said, "Say something… Chelle please."
"I honestly don't know what to say ere? I mean…if I'm honest… I think this is probably the stupidest thing that you've ever done Carla."
"Yeah…thanks… that's just what I needed to hear right now." Carla mumbled, that feeling of stupidity that she had been taken over by last week coming crawling back to her.
"I'm sorry Carla but… you've just sat there n told me that you've been having an affair with your ex husband for months… I don't know what else you wanted from me." Michelle said, but sympathetically because she could see what all of this was doing to Carla.
Even though hearing about Peter made Michelle feel like Carla was making a huge mistake, she couldn't help but feel relieved.
Carla's odd behaviour over the past weeks had made her best friend so concerned, that she thought she was maybe gambling again or doing something worse so hearing it was just an affair, made Michelle feel a little at ease about things.
"So…" Michelle began after a while of sitting in front of a silent Carla. "Come on Carla… you ave to tell me more about this."
"I know... I just don't know where to start." Carla said.
"The beginning... I mean... does Peter know about Nick?" Michelle asked.
"Yes, I told him about Nick when I saw him outside my place… I thought it would make him angry… I thought it would make him leave but it only seemed to make him more determined to stay… like he wanted to show me exactly what I was missing being with Nick, As I said it was only supposed to be for one night… I woke up and he was gone... then a week later, he turned up at the factory. I tried to be angry with him but seeing him there… in front of me like that… Michelle I can't explain it... he has this power... we ave this power... the man is irresistible."
"So… what? You just started an affair, then n then?" Michelle asked.
"Well…" Carla sighed, "Long story short… the next time we saw each other… I know it sound stupid but we both talked n we made rules."
"Rules!" Michelle exclaimed, earning a nudge from Carla in the process.
"Yes rules…" She nodded, "We were both only supposed to be in it for the sex… it weren't supposed to be about us… we weren't back together or anything like that."
"Oh please…" Michelle said with a dramatic roll of her eyes. She knew both Carla and Peter and she knew full well that they would never, ever, be able to just have a physical relationship.
It was common sense, so how come they couldn't have figured it out for themselves?
"I know… I know…. But at first… it seemed like it worked. Maybe we were both being naïve or stupid… or both I dunno but at first we just had a lot of fun together." Carla said biting her lip.
"Yeah I bet you did." Michelle said with a raised eyebrow and just a hint of a smile this time because once again she knew Carla and Peter, maybe just that little bit too well for that matter... Well enough to know that the sex between the pair of them was a whole lot more than fun. "Go on then… continue."
Carla took a deep breath and started telling Michelle absolutely everything.
She hadn't wanted to at first but talking to someone about Peter did make her feel a bit better about things.
Michelle just let her talk, she didn't want to interrupt too much and even though she still felt like Carla had been stupid, she knew that the situation with Peter definitely sounded like it was too sublime to turn down.
"Anyways… a couple of weeks ago … he came over to me flat and we… well... anyways it were honestly one of the best times we've ever had and he told me that he wouldn't stop… he told me even if I didn't see him for some time that he would always come back to me… I didn't get it at the time… but I guess it was a warning."
"A warning?" Michelle asked, intrigued because the way Carla was telling her what happened had really made it sound like a captivating story, one that she simply had to know the ending to.
It didn't occur to Michelle that at this moment in time, the story of Carla and Peter had been horrendously interrupted.
"Yeah… I didn't hear from him for a week and it got me going crazy… I couldn't eat, sleep or think about anything else so I went n did some digging, I'm not proud of this but I asked Ken about Peter and it turned out… he was in China… with Jessica." The way Carla had said Jessica's name had made it almost jump of her tongue in spite. She still hated the thought of this woman even after a week and a half knowing about her.
"Who is the hell is Jessica?" Michelle cried loudly.
"Peter's girlfriend." Carla said. Michelle's draw dropped open and Carla didn't wait to continue. "I guess I ave no right to be complaining that he had a girlfriend but at the time I was fuming… I was jealous and then... I did something slightly insane…"
"What?" Michelle asked, still totally captivated by everything that she was hearing.
"I went to the airport… I found out Peter's flight details and I went n waited for em."
"Carla!" Michelle shouted, shaking her head because she couldn't believe it.
"I know, I know it's totally ridiculous and slightly on the stalkery side but I wasn't thinking straight. That's what that man does to me Chelle." Carla sighed, still unable to believe she had gone as far as waiting for Peter at the arrivals gate.
"So what does this Jessica look like? Bet she's not as gorgeous as you." Michelle said, in a way like she was suddenly rooting for Carla and Peter. Like this was some high school rivalry and not something Carla had been suffering through on her own.
"She's stunning Michelle." Carla said, swallowing hard and resisting the urge to cry. "Red hair, blue eyes… curvy... everything I'm not and when I saw her my first thought was like… I cannot compete with her."
"Oh Carla…" Michelle sighed, "This is no competition… I mean from what you've told me it sounds as if Peter is still crazy about you and this Jessica was probably just a distraction or something." Carla didn't say it but she hoped that Michelle was right, that Peter was a consumed by her as she was him and that he was somewhere dumping Jessica right now.
"Well what ever she is… my behaviour made me see that I had to end things with Nick. I couldn't do it to him anymore." Carla said, remembering how upset she had made Nick and how he had cried.
"So how come Peter doesn't want anything more to do with you then?" Michelle asked, remembering what Carla had said at the beginning of the conversation.
"Long story short, Ken told him I was asking about him… he turned up at my place last week and he was fuming… he was so angry Michelle… one of the rules we'd had was that we wouldn't discuss our personal lives… he were always so private about his and so the idea that I had brought his Dad into things had really riled him up. Anyways I mentioned Jessica which seemed to get him even more annoyed… we argued and I told him that I was done with him… that was it… he just left… n I aven't seen or heard from him since."
"Wow…" Michelle said, glad that everything about Carla's recent behaviour now made sense. "I gotta admit… as wrong as you and Peter is… it all sounded pretty exciting."
"Wrong?" Carla said shaking her head at her friend. "That's just it Michelle… even after all of this… I can't help but feel like me and Peter were meant to go down this path."
"Carla… I know he's been away for a while but you can't forget why you ended things with him in the first place." Michelle reminded, not that she needed to.
"Of course I haven't Michelle… I know he hurt me… more than anyone has in my entire life other than Fr… well I don't need to get into that but I still can't stop my self but obsessing over Peter… I don't want to feel like this… I'd give anything to be able to brush it all off and say I'm done… but I'm not done with him… and I don't think I ever will be." Carla sniffed and felt tears run down her cheeks as she spoke, Michelle sighed again and put her arms around her best friend to offer her some comfort. "
"So… ave you called him then?" Michelle asked, after a long and supportive embrace with Carla.
"No…" Carla said, pulling away from Michelle and wiping her eyes. "I don't think he wants to hear anything I ave to say… he were really pissed off at me Chelle."
"Yeah n he's probably sat at home thinking the exact same thing about you babe." Michelle said shaking her head. "How is this ever going to get solved if the pair of you wont talk to each other eh?"
"I dunno…" Carla shrugged, "All I know is that... I feel like he has drained the life right out of me... I feel like I'm suddenly incomplete... I need him Chelle"
"Then you really need to speak to him Carla." Michelle insisted as her mother in law, Liz McDonald came into the back room suddenly.
"Carla… there's someone out front asking for ya." she said breezily, not reading Carla's swollen and red eyes.
"Me?" Carla exclaimed, looking at Michelle who shrugged vaguely before looking back up at Liz again who said,
"Yes you." Liz then walked out of the room and made her way back to the bar as Michelle said,
"Come on... let's go n see who it is... then then after we'll get you a large wine and try to sort this situation out eh?"
"Okay." Carla nodded, getting up off the chair with Michelle and going with her to the bar.
Liz was stood talking to the person who was waiting for Carla and pointed at her and said,
"Ere she is..."
"Are you her? Are you Carla?" The person said.
She was a woman and she was staring at Carla in awe.
She was a stranger to Liz and Michelle but not exactly a stranger to Carla, who had seen her before.
It was Jessica.