Thanks to all who have read n reviewed this one so far... It was only going to be three chapters long but my mad mind had decided to take it a little further...
"Peter!" Carla cried, running after him as his pace had picked up. He was clearly outraged and he didn't look like he would stop for anyone. "Where are you going?"
"Where do ya think?" Peter said, shaking his head and continuing forward. "I want to speak to this Johnny…. Actually I lie… I want to kick his flamin head in."
"Peter… Don't!" Carla begged, running and stopping in front of him so that he couldn't go no further.
"Why not?" He asked, staring at Carla and breathing heavily. "Why on earth not? This guy sounds like a real scumbag."
He had thought about everything that Carla had told him.
That this Johnny had let her grow up the way she had even though he had suspicions that he might be her father and that the only reason he had told her was because he was being blackmailed.
He had sat in that horrible cafe with Carla and listened to her say that the reactions of her loved ones hadn't been up to much... He had guessed that this was what she wanted.
Some anger... Some passion.
Yes, Peter was sure that Carla had wanted him to react this way.
So why was she now asking him to stop?
Nothing about any of this made sense and Peter soon found that he was repeating himself.
"Carla... why not?"
"Because…" She began, taking a deep breath in and then shaking her head in anguish.
It was Carla's turn to repeat herself now.
"Because..."
"Because what?" Peter asked in despair. "I don't understand any of this… Why did you call me ere if you didn't want me to kick off? You must have known I'd get like this. Why did you tell me all that stuff about Nick's reaction? If you didn't want me to react this way, Why?"
"I did want you to react this way…" Carla said, unknowingly still stood in front of Peter with a hand placed on his chest.
He just stared at her for a moment, still not completely understanding what he was here for.
"I wanted this... I needed this... something other than words... I just… I needed someone else to feel like I did… confused, angry…" Carla began, almost breathlessly because she was trying to get out all of her emotions at once.
"I do…" Peter nodded, "I really do feel that way Carla… which is why I want to smash Johnny Connor's face in."
"N What good is that gonna do eh?" Carla asked, shaking her head and sniffing because she felt like she was about to burst into tears at any moment.
None of this was going the way she had planned.
She couldn't understand it.
She couldn't comprehend the way that she was feeling.
This was what she wanted, right?
For some one to be as angry as she was and to maybe even hurt Johnny… just a little bit.
So why was she now holding Peter back?
Why didn't she let him just go and lash out at Johnny and be done with it?
Nick.
That was why.
Nick was the reason that she was now stood, literally holding Peter back.
Carla knew that Nick knowing about her little meet up with Peter would wound him.
If Nick found out that Carla had gone to Peter for something that he just couldn't provide, it would sincerely hurt him and Carla knew that.
She knew it was cause him a whole load of pain and pain was something that she desperately wanted to spare Nick from… especially after what she had done to him with Robert.
"Well Peter?" Carla asked, when he hadn't responded to her question. He was still stood intensely in front of her, like at any moment he would charge forward and continue to go for her new found Dad. "What good would it do eh?"
"Well it'd make me feel a hell of a lot better for a start…" Peter nodded, although he knew full well that hurting Johnny really wouldn't actually do any good for... anyone.
He knew that violence really wasn't the answer and since living in Portsmouth, he had been trying so hard to not lead with his fists when he got so angry.
He was trying to be a changed man, a reformed character and Peter had to admit it alarmed him that spending only half and hour or so with Carla could have such an immense effect.
"And what about me? Do you really think you giving Johnny a good old smack is going to make me feel better? Do you think I'll feel like me again? Do you think I wont feel like a dirty little accident… do you think I won't feel like a horrible mistake?" Carla sniffed.
Tears were soon pouring down her cheeks and her voice had cracked towards the end of her sentence, which had made Peter gingerly reach out and gently wipe those tears away.
"He didn't…" He began, shaking his head at the mere thought of it. "He didn't say you were a mistake did he?" As he continued to think about this man say those very words to Carla, he very quickly felt the anger begin to pump through his veins.
Peter knew that the next words that came out of Carla's mouth could be game changing ones.
If he had heard that she had been called a mistake then that was going to be it.
If he found out that Johnny had said anything of the sort to Carla… Well then he would go crazy and there was no way that she would have been able to stop him this time either.
"No… He didn't say that… He just… made me feel that way." Said Carla. It was freezing cold outside, that horrible January weather that had always made Carla want to retreat inside but being stood with Peter's gentle hand rested on her cheek, made Carla feel ridiculously hot.
He eventually let go of her.
He had to really... especially since Carla wasn't his to touch so tenderly anymore.
He had messed it up... big time and he had no right to be touching her so softly when he had caused her the most pain that she had ever known.
He let go of Carla's cheek and put his hand by his side, knowing that if he hadn't done it there and then that he would have probably never ever let go of her.
Carla sniffed again but tried not to cry anymore...
One because Peter's touch was extremely overwhelming and two because she felt as if she had already shed too many tears of over Johnny.
"Look… I wont do anything that you don't want me to…" Peter eventually said, watching Carla who was still teary eyed and still clearly upset. "I just… I don't know what else to do… do you want to go back to the café?
"No." Carla said instantly. "I don't… wanna go back there." She shuddered as she shook her head and folded her arms.
She couldn't bear another moment in that dreadful place, the one where she and Rob used to find comfort.
Where they used to find real solace and where they had a warm place to keep safe whilst their Mum was on one of her drunken benders... or worse.
"Okay…" Peter nodded, dying for a cigarette right about now. He soon went into his pocket and pulled out a box of fags because once again, Carla had gone into quiet mode.
As Peter lit his cigarette, he leant against a wall that they were now stood in front of and he just watched Carla for a while.
He saw at the haunted look in her eyes and the dark circles that were beneath them and he couldn't help but bite his lip and say,
"Look at you..."
"I'm alright..." She lied and for a moment, she looked like she was about to start speaking again but as Peter inhaled, she just shook her head and looked down.
They shared a silence, one which was almost deafening but after rather a while and after Peter was more than half way through his cigarette, Carla began to speak again.
"He's got kids y'know… Aidan n Kate… My little brother n Sister… They've been working at the factory with me for months and months and I had no idea… He begged me not to tell em… didn't want them to know that he cheated on their Mum."
"Course he didn't…" Peter tutted in disgust.
Of course he wasn't one to talk about cheating but at this point, he really didn't care.
He didn't care how much of a hypocrite his behaviour made him, someone had hurt Carla and making her feel better was all that he cared about.
"Chelle n Nick didn't want me to say anything either… and Roy. They all said I should do what Johnny wanted… keep me mouth shut for the sake of Kate n Aidan…" Carla continued as Peter blew smoke from his parted lips.
"And what about what you wanted? Did any of them think about that?" He asked, tutting afterwards and not understanding why the people in Carla's life right now seemed to talk at her and not to her. "Did they?"
"No…" Carla shook her head back at him, she still felt guilty for talking about Nick and her friends that way but she couldn't help it… this was just the way that she felt. "They mean well I just… I don't know, maybe they just don't understand me as much as I thought… then again these days... I feel like no one understands me."
Peter didn't respond at first.
He kept quiet... and so did she.
She didn't want to say it.
She didn't want to admit that Peter was probably the only person who understood her.
Even now, after the cheating and all the time that they had spent apart, it seemed like Peter could still read her like a book.
"So… is that why you don't want me going after Johnny then? So his kids don't find out?' Peter eventually asked, the last bit of his cigarette in his mouth as he spoke.
"Oh they know…" Carla said, shaking his head. "I gave Johnny the chance to be honest but he refused… So in the end… I told em."
"Good." Peter said with half a smirk and even though Carla was feeling totally wretched, she couldn't help but smirk back at him.
"Were you really planning on hitting Johnny?" She asked.
"Yes." Peter said plainly. "And I can't believe Nick hasn't done it yet either."
It was Carla's turn not respond this time.
She didn't reply to this comment.
She just kept quiet because she still didn't like talking to Peter about Nick.
She wondered how he had felt whenever he'd found out about Nick.
She wondered who had told him…
"Maybe it was Simon." She thought.
She wondered if he'd got mad, angry or even sad.
She even wondered if he'd shed a little tear… because she had done.
She hadn't told anyone though, no one knew.
A few days after getting together with Nick, she had been sat alone in her flat and she had somehow let herself think about Peter.
She let herself think about what they had shared and before she knew it a tear had escaped down her cheek.
She cried because at one point, she and Peter were so content.
At one point she felt like everything was almost perfect and she cried because she knew she would never get that feeling back.
"I'm sorry Peter." Carla sighed, breaking the silence in the end and shaking her head once again in disbelief.
"Sorry?" He asked, throwing his cigarette butt onto the ground below him. "What on earth for?"
"For this… it were selfish of me to ask you out ere like this… I just… didn't know what else to do." Carla swallowed, a nasty taste in the back of her throat due to the awful coffee from the cafe.
"Don't say sorry…" Peter sighed sympathetically, he rubbed his hands together in the cold and kept quiet again.
Even though he was driving himself crazy with the amount of questions he had.
He knew there was something else.
There had to be something else because Carla was still on edge.
She was still fidgety and as he stood by her, Peter knew she had something else to tell him.
"What did you tell your girlfriend about this?" Carla asked, staring at Peter closely and hoping he had been truthful.
She hoped he wasn't lying to his new love and that he truly had changed.
She couldn't bear the idea of being the reason that Peter would be lying again.
The idea that Peter's girlfriend could be sat somewhere, maybe believing that he was somewhere else because of her, made her detest herself even more than she did already.
"The truth… that I had a friend up ere that really needed my help." Peter said, wondering how Carla knew that he had a girlfriend.
"Simon…" Carla said, reading his curious expression. "He told Leanne… Leanne told Eva… n well everyone knows now."
"Oh right…" Peter nodded, half chuckling and half wanting to cry.
He didn't want everyone to know that he had someone else.
He didn't want everyone to know that he had supposedly moved on because in reality, he knew that he would never ever be over Carla.
He knew that she would always be the love of his life and as he stood before her, he wished that he could do more to help her.
She looked damaged…. Broken and as the cold winds picked up and made her shiver, Peter did too.
He shivered so much so that Carla shook her head and said,
"Okay… Y'know what... I'm just gonna come out with it… I didn't just call you ere to tell you about Johnny…" She paused for a moment and she knew that once she spoke again, it would change the way Peter thought of her forever.
She didn't want to tell him.
She didn't want to admit the terrible truth but she didn't know what else to do.
She needed to know how he did it.
She needed to know how he coped because right now, she wasn't coping.
"Right…" Peter breathed nervously, "So… why else am I ere?" Carla took a large breath and let a tear run down her cheek before saying,
"Because I need to know… I need to know how you did it… how you kept it a secret for so long and how you didn't end up going completely batty." Carla sniffed.
"Did what?" Peter asked, moving towards Carla who was crying properly now.
She clearly found it hard to control her self and as two passers by looked concerned, Peter took her gently by the arm and said,
"Maybe we should go back in the cafe…"
"No!" Carla cried, "I told you I don't wanna go back in there… besides… me going in there will only distract me from what I need to say and I have to say it… I have to know Peter."
"Okay…" Peter nodded, getting slightly concerned by the state that Carla was in because she was almost erratic. "What is it? What is it you need to say?"
"I…" She began, closing her eyes and not wanting to look at Peter as she said it, "I cheated on Nick."