Reasons Not To Fall In Love Read online

  in me; it was like he turned me into a giddy little girl just with one of his boyish, carefree smiles. Even with my husband standing less than thirty feet from me, I still couldn’t curb the attraction that I felt for my brother-in-law’s business partner. My fantasies and imagination of things I’d like to do to his body bordered on obscene for a few days after I’d seen Harrison. Finn was in for a good night tonight, because lust was building up inside me in preposterous levels.

  I gulped as I finished cleaning off the smudge and stepped back. A sexy little smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Thanks.”

  “No problem,” I muttered in reply, feeling my cheeks flush as I tried not to let my dirty thoughts show on my face.

  “Here,” Skye said from just beside me, causing me to almost jump out of my skin because I’d been so inappropriately lost in the moment with Harrison. We both turned and looked, seeing her holding out a clean pale blue shirt. “Should fit you, you and Brandon are both about the same size.”

  Harrison smiled gratefully and took it, immediately yanking his own shirt over his head. My eyes widened as I caught my first ever glimpse of his golden tanned chest and that fine spattering of blonde hair on the base of his stomach – the treasure trail that led to the good stuff. My dirty thoughts were back in abundance.

  Knowing it was wrong of me to devour his body with my eyes in front of everyone, I turned my head away. As I turned, I caught sight of Finn. He was exactly where I last saw him – propping up the booze table. Except now he wasn’t on his own drinking away his sorrows; instead, a girl who I used to go to school with was standing there talking to him. My eyes narrowed as I realised who she was – Morgan Henshall. She was one of Skye’s friends, so a couple of years older than me, but I remembered her for being a serial boyfriend stealer. If my memory served me correctly, she prided herself in being able to steal even the most committed of boyfriends; it was like some sort of game for her at school.

  They were laughing together; she was standing too close to him for my liking. I knew he was drunk, I could tell by the lopsidedness of his smile and the way his left shoulder was slightly lower than his right, it was always the giveaway. I wasn’t surprised he was drunk, he’d had his first beer at eleven o’clock so he’d been drinking already for a solid six hours. When he, rarely, accompanied me to a family gathering, he always seemed to drown his sorrows in alcohol. It was one of the reasons why I didn’t ask him to come with me often, and I think one of the reasons why he did it. I frowned at the pair, gritting my teeth in frustration.

  “I’m going to go say happy birthday to Evie.” Harrison’s hand touched the small of my back for a second and I turned my attention back to him and away from my husband who was clearly flirting with someone else while at my niece’s birthday party and standing in my sister’s garden. “Watch my food for me, huh? Make sure some little sod kid doesn’t come and nick my chicken nuggets.” He winked at me playfully and, just like that, the tension inside me diffused momentarily.

  “You’re such a child sometimes,” I joked, rolling my eyes as he walked off towards the scary-looking clown that was producing overly large, fake flowers from his sleeve. When Harrison turned back to grin at me, I took one of his chicken nuggets and ate it just to spite him. His eyes narrowed as he pursed his lips in silent scolding, before plopping himself down on the grass next to Evie and joining in the fun.

  My gaze travelled back to Finn as I sipped my wine. He was still talking with Morgan; she was currently giggling at something he’d said. Anger was making my feet twitch, and I longed to go over there and throw my wine right in his eyes and smile while it stung. Instead, I stayed back, watching, praying for her to walk away before other people noticed that my, supposedly loving, husband was trying his best to get into some taller, prettier, skinnier girl’s pants.

  I didn’t want to cause a scene; I also didn’t want people to look at me with that sympathetic ‘Aww, you couldn’t hold onto your man? You poor dear’ look in their eyes that they looked at me with last time I told my family that he’d cheated. But when Morgan put her hand on Finn’s arm and he leant in, giving her that smile, I saw red.

  Roughly setting my wine down onto the table, not even caring that it slopped over the sides and onto my hand, I stomped in their direction. When I got to them, Morgan looked up and her eyes widened in surprise before a smile graced her lips.

  “Bronwyn? It’s been years since I saw you! How are you?” she gushed, discreetly taking a step away from my husband and letting her hand drop from his arm.

  I forced a smile in return. “I’ve been good, thank you. I see you’ve met Finn, my husband,” I replied, putting plenty of emphasis around the last word as I slipped my hand in his and raised my chin.

  Her gaze darted to him and one of her eyes twitched as if this was a new revelation. Maybe she hadn’t noticed the ring that he wore on his finger… or maybe she had seen it but just hadn’t realised he was married to her friend’s little sister.

  “Oh, yes, we kind of already met. Finn was just helping me open my wine,” she lied, picking up her glass as evidence of his helpful act. “I’ll catch up with you soon, Bronwyn.” Without waiting for an answer, she sauntered off quickly, walking up to a group of Skye’s friends and immersing herself in conversation, discreetly checking over her shoulder at us.

  Finn squeezed my hand. “Uh oh, is someone jealous?”

  Jealous? That had to be a joke. Dropping his hand, I turned to face him, looking him right in the eye. “Jealous? I’m not jealous of a slut like that. But I am bloody furious that you’d disrespect me in front of my whole family by hitting on one of my sister’s friends at a birthday party!” I hissed, leaning in so no one would suspect we were about to have one of our famous blazing rows. “What’s wrong with you? Seriously?”

  He shrugged, reaching out and touching my face awkwardly with his drunken coordination so instead of the affectionate gesture he was going for, it was more like he smooshed my cheek roughly. “It was harmless,” he replied. “I’m just killing some time before we can go home. This fucking thing is boring as ever.”

  I gritted my teeth as my hands clenched into fists. I wanted to punch something, really hard, right in the centre of his flirtatious, drunken face. “It’s one thing to do this kind of shit in secret and me not see it or know about it, it’s quite another to have you parading around at my niece’s birthday party leeching onto my childhood friends and not even seeming concerned that my family might see!”

  He chuckled darkly. “I’m not parading around. I’m just waiting for this fucking thing to be over so we can leave. Kids’ parties aren’t my thing, you know that.”

  “Yeah, your thing is getting drunk and gambling our rent money away,” I snapped, slapping away his hand as he went to touch my face again. “Don’t touch me. Seriously, I’m so angry with you that I want to… to…” I didn’t even know what I wanted to do.

  A smirk graced his lips as he leant in. His beer breath blew across my face, and I silently wondered exactly how much alcohol he’d ingested. My guess would be, a lot. “Want to go blow off some steam and have angry sex?” he offered, winking at me.

  I almost choked on my scoff. “Screw you,” I muttered.

  His smile grew. “That’s what I offered,” he replied, hiccupping before letting out a large belch that caused the people near us to turn their noses up in distaste.

  I shook my head in frustration. “Why do you even bother coming with me to family parties? Seriously, all you do is whine about wanting to go home, get drunk, embarrass me and then sit on your phone playing online poker using my mum’s internet!”

  His eyes narrowed as he downed the last of his beer before slamming the bottle down onto the table. “I come because you make me come!” he retorted.

  “I don’t make you come,” I protested, gritting my teeth.

  He rolled his eyes as if I’d said something ludicrous. “Yes, you do, buttercup. If I don’t come with you then you sulk and don
’t talk to me for days, and when you get back you make sarcastic comments about how everyone missed me and asked about me, trying to make me feel guilty.”

  “I don’t do it to make you feel guilty; I tell you that because people always ask where you are.” Grinding my teeth in frustration, I shook my head. To be honest, it was easier for me when he wasn’t here. At least then I didn’t have to watch over him all the time, making sure he wasn’t too drunk and going to throw up somewhere, or say something inappropriate, or hit on my sister’s friends. I wasn’t even sure why I always asked him to accompany me to family gatherings – maybe it was because I was secretly hoping that one day he’d actually want to be accepted as part of my family and that he’d appreciate the effort they went to to include him. But no, it was clear now that would never happen. Finn wasn’t interested in being accepted by anyone. “Know what, just don’t come any more. Don’t come to your niece’s parties, don’t wish her happy birthday, don’t come to stay at my mum’s any more then.”

  “Your niece, not mine,” he corrected.

  My hand itched to slap his face. Biologically yes, she was my niece, but he had known her since birth, didn’t that count as family in his eyes? “Whatever, just don’t come to any more family events then, I’ll go on my own with Theo.”

  “Thank the fucking lord for small mercies,” he muttered sarcastically.

  Frustrated and angered even more, I shook my head knowing I needed to walk away from him. If I stayed there much longer then I’d start shouting, and then he’d start shouting, and then I’d start throwing things, and that never ended well. “Just go upstairs and sober up, I’m done talking to you.” I stomped off back to the table where I’d left my wine, picking it up and downing half a glass in two gulps.

  Eyeing me worriedly, my mum excused herself from her friends and walked over to me. “Everything OK?” she enquired.

  I nodded, forcing a smile so that she wouldn’t know that I was mere moments from bursting into frustrated tears. “Everything’s fine. Shall I go get the matches for the cake?” I offered, trying to change the subject. From the corner of my eye, I saw Finn stomp into the house with a beer in each hand. I had no doubt in my mind that he would spend the rest of the party in the house and playing games on his phone and then we’d ignore each other for the rest of the night before pretending like nothing had happened in the morning once he was sober.

  Mum nodded. Her furrowed brows told me that she didn’t believe that I was all right, but that she didn’t want to probe. I loved her even more for not prying because I didn’t want to admit that she’d been right about Finn all along, and that he was no good for me, and that he would hurt me in the long run. Leaning in, I planted a soft kiss on her cheek before heading into the house to find the matches and pretend like I didn’t feel like a worthless pile of dog shit inside.

  All I wanted, all I’d ever really wanted, was for Finn to just love me like he should do and for us to lead a normal, happy life together. Was that really too much to ask for? Apparently it was.

  August 2013

  The year following the birthday party was a hard one for me and Finn. Money was tight because Finn had written off the car in an accident, so we’d had to buy a new one, well, a new old one. As a result of having to pay out for the new car, spare money was few and far between, which meant that some things had to give.

  I was working extra shifts whenever possible, and Finn had to cut back on his drinking. With him not drinking as much, he stayed home more often in the evenings, but all that resulted in was us arguing more. By spending more time together, it became glaringly obvious that we were totally and utterly incompatible. I’d known it before then, of course, but somehow our relationship worked because it was almost as if we led two separate lives and just shared a bed and bank account. But with us spending more time together, I realised that I actually didn’t even like Finn any more. Every single little thing about him irritated me – sometimes even just the way he breathed.

  The year had been long and painful, but we’d reached the point now where we didn’t even argue any more. It was like it was too much effort, too much contact with one another. Even the physical stuff between us had fizzled out. Finn didn’t even try to instigate anything any more with me. In fact, it was coming up to our five months’ anniversary of no sex. I had a horrible, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that he was getting his kicks with some other girl, but I was too afraid to confront him about it.

  I sank to an all-time low. My confidence and self-worth bottomed out, and all I was left with was insecurities and a loathing of my own body, because clearly I wasn’t even appealing to Finn in that way any more either. If I were truthful, I’d have to admit that I hated myself. I hated myself for not having the courage to get out of this destructive relationship, I hated myself for letting him treat me this way, and I hated myself for thinking that I didn’t deserve better.

  The final straw came on a day that I wasn’t expecting. I remembered the exact time that my life finally seemed to slip back into place and the exact time that I finally grew a backbone and stood up for myself. It was at 1:13pm on a Tuesday in the first week of August.

  I’d just finished work at the diner. Dave, the fry cook, had accidently scheduled two waitresses instead of one, thinking that it would be busy. But the lunchtime rush had never really seemed to come, so Karen and I had flipped a coin and the winner – me – got to go home an hour early.

  As I approached my flat, I knew that something wasn’t right.

  Finn’s car was parked in one of the allocated spaces for our building. He should have been working until four. I frowned, fumbling with my keys, hesitating because part of me already knew what I’d find if I went inside. I stopped with my key just millimetres from the lock, unsure if I wanted to go in. The lonely, needy part of me wanted to turn around and walk off, to spend an hour somewhere else and come back at my normal time. Part of me was terrified. But there was another part of me too this time, just a small spark of the old Bronwyn, the one my daddy had raised into a strong, confident woman who knew her worth and place in this world. For a long time I thought that girl had been banished, but she reared her head inside me now, demanding that I walk into the flat and see what I knew was happening inside.

  Somewhat unconsciously, my hand unlocked the door and my legs carried me over the threshold, closing the door behind me quietly. Everything looked normal inside my flat, just as I’d left it this morning before going to work. The only thing that was different was the three empty beer cans on the table and the half-drunk glass of wine with the harlot-red lipstick mark around the rim.

  My back stiffened. A little whimper left my lips as my fears were confirmed. Finn had brought someone back to our home for sex. Luckily, Theo was spending the day and night with a friend tonight, so I didn’t have to worry about him for a little while.

  A bang and a girlish giggle came from the direction of my bedroom, and I closed my eyes, taking a couple of deep breaths preparing myself for what I was about to see. My legs shook as I made the twenty-eight steps to my bedroom door. As my hand closed over the handle, I could hear them inside, heavy breathing, and her moaning my husband’s name breathily.

  My heart was in my throat as I turned the handle and wrenched the door open.

  There they stood, Finn and some pretty, blonde girl that barely looked legal, pressed up against my bedroom wall in a passionate embrace. Her shirt was off, exposing a toned, sculpted figure that I’d never had, even before childbirth. His hands were on her pert little arse, and hers on the buttons of his jeans. Judging by the shocked and horrified expressions on both of their faces, they hadn’t heard me come in.

  Even though I’d known what I was going to see, the shock of being confronted by Finn with another girl actually made my mouth pop open and the air whoosh out of my lungs at once. I’d never actually caught him cheating before, never seen it with my own eyes, only the evidence after or rumours. Seeing it was worse than I thought
it would be. And the disrespect that he would do it in our home, in our bedroom, hurt more than I could have imagined. It was like a slap in the face how low he would sink and how little he cared about me.

  Finn immediately stumbled back from the girl and shook his head, holding up his hands innocently. “This isn’t what it looks like,” he protested, his voice tight and panicked.

  I swallowed around the emotions that seemed to be trapped in my throat. I would like to have said that I was angry or distraught at catching my husband moments from banging someone up against a wall, but I wasn’t actually angry that he was about to cheat. Foolishly, I’d gotten used to his cheating ways, I didn’t expect much else from him really. What I was extremely fucking angry about was that he had the nerve to do it in our home. That disrespect cut me deeply and tasted so bitter in my mouth that I actually wanted to spit to get rid of it.

  “Who’s that?” the girl asked, looking from me to Finn. Clearly he’d neglected to tell his lay of choice that he was married.

  Finn shook his head quickly. “This is all a misunderstanding. We were just talking. I was just showing… er…” He motioned towards the mortified-looking girl and frowned as if trying to recall her name. “Um…”

  “Cheryl!” she hissed, picking up her discarded shirt from the floor and yanking it down over her head.

  Finn nodded quickly. “Cheryl, right,” he muttered. “I was just…” he gulped, clearly having no lie on hand to make this right. He turned back to me. “It’s not what it looks like.”

  “Who is that?” Cheryl asked again, angrier this time.

  “I’m his wife. Did he neglect to tell you that he was married with a child?” I asked.

  Her face paled. “But you said you were widowed.” She looked at Finn in disbelief.

  I kept my gaze glued on Finn as I sank my teeth into the side of my cheek. He’d told her I was dead. The pain of that was crushing. He recoiled, shaking his head, his lips flailing as if trying to come up with some bullshit lie to get him out of this situation. When it appeared that he had nothing to say for himself, I turned to the girl.

  “Go home,” was the only thing I could think of to say to her. I couldn’t be angry with her if he’d fooled her too, in fact, I actually felt a little sorry for her.

  She blinked a couple of times and then nodded, straightening her clothes as she practically ran from the room with tears in her eyes. I turned back to Finn, not even knowing what to say. I had a million things running through my mind, a thousand things I wanted to scream at him – what a cheating scumbag he was, how I hated him, how he was a useless husband, and how low he made me feel because I wasn’t enough for him and that he felt the need to seek physical attention from other girls.

  But instead I said nothing. As usual I kept it all bottled up, partly because I was afraid that once I said those things I would have to acknowledge the truth of them and do something about it, and partly because I was afraid of the consequences of admitting that we were broken beyond repair.

  “How could you do this again?” I finally whispered. But as I spoke, my anger seemed to build like a storm inside me, all of the hurt brewing up from years of being treated like dirt at his hands and for not being appreciated for everything that I did for him.