Eternal Hearts (Incurable Hearts 2) (13 page)

“I’m trying,” she said as she began to cry.

“Not hard enough by the looks of it, go home and stay away from Ava”

“Oh for Christ sake, look at you” Henry said, now joining the embarrassing scene.

“Shut up, don’t judge me. You can drive me home if I am not allowed in, I haven’t got the taxi fare back”

I heard both my dad and Henry sigh loudly.

“Fine,
I’ll be more than willing if it means I don’t have to spend an evening with you” Henry replied, trying not to let her viciousness get to him.

“I should go too,” I said
, grabbing my jacket from the peg.

“Stay here, Henry has experience handling her. Plus you have a guest here too” dad said.

I don’t think he wanted me anywhere near Lizzie but I invited her, I felt responsible for getting her home safely, especially in this state.

“I won’t be long, I have to see her home. You can see to Jack for me and please be nice to him and get Uncle Alex and Jase to lay off him.”

I saw the moment I got my way, again, and secretly smiled to myself. I steered Lizzie in the direction of Henry’s car and waited for Henry to join us.

I had seconds to jump out of the way before she bent over and vomited at her feet.

“You disgust me, one night was all I asked for you to be sober. I stuck up for you to everyone in there and you have proven them right. No wonder my mother didn’t want you in her life”

I couldn’t help the words that came out of my mouth, she had upset me and I felt she had a right to know.     

“She didn’t want you either, remember,” she snarled.

It was like a blow to my stomach but I fronted up and let her see no weakness from me.

“Because she didn’t want me to have the same life she did, thanks to you we both lost out having our mothers around but even from her grave she does more for me then you ever did for her” I spat.

I would see her home safe then never try to have contact with her again. I said I had to try and I have, but no more.

By the time Henry joined us, Lizzie and I hadn’t spoken to each other. I gave him credit when he helped her into the back seat of the car like it was someone he loved. All the resentment I felt I was likely to just shove her in and close the door.

“She is a horrible, horrible woman,” I blurted out when we dropped Lizzie off at her local pub. She was adamant she didn’t want to go home and I didn’t care anymore to try and stop her.

She obviously had looked out for herself all these years, she could do it tonight.

“Now you can understand why Jasmine didn’t want you having her life at the time” he replied.

“Oh I do. I don’t hate her for giving me up, she done what was right at the time. I feel sad I can’t
get to know her now but you all keep her memory alive and that is good enough for me”

“She had that
effect on us, she was a remarkable woman your mother and I loved her very much. I miss her terribly. She would have been so proud of you. You have her strength, I saw what happened between you and Lizzie by the car. You reminded me so much of Jasmine, I remember her being like that”

“Well, everyone told me what she was like and I didn’t listen” I murmured.

“Hey, you always do what you need to do. Your mother did and it made her the strong woman she was”

The rest of the car journey was in silence. I wanted to put Lizzie behind me now, move on to a future with family who loved me.

“Where is Jack?” I asked Nat when we arrived home. The kitchen was empty now and Rose and Fiona were tidying up.

“All the guys are out back, we saved you some food”

I said thank you before heading out. The door was open slightly and I couldn’t resist listening to them talk, see for myself if they were being nice to Jack.

“She invited me, what was I supposed to do?” Jack argued.

What? He made it sound like I forced him to come.

“You should have said you had other plans you couldn’t get out of” dad said.

“You should have said anything,” Uncle Alex added. He sounded bored.

“Don’t talk to her, don’t even look at her, I think those were the words the boss said to you and my, here you are, on a date with his daughter. There has been a whole load of looking and talking tonight” Jase chimed in.

“Come on boss, we like each other” Jack defended himself.

“I told you to stay away from her, when she gets back you are going to make an excuse to leave. In time, maybe I’ll allow you to see her” dad said as if he had any right to stop us.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was only just calming down from the Lizzie episode. My anger reached boiling point I couldn’t stop myself.

“And what excuse are you going to tell him to say?” I asked, storming onto the decking where they were all sitting.

Every one of them looked instantly guilty like they should. Uncle Alex and Jase even had the nerve to lower themselves into their chairs. My dad stood up.

“I knew you said something to him weeks ago, I asked you and you said you didn’t, you lied to me,” I said, feeling the tears forming.

“I’m sorry Ava, I don’t think
you’re ready for boyfriends” he said, trying to excuse his behaviour. I couldn’t help but look at Jack and cringe, this was so embarrassing.

“How do you know that about me? How dare you presume anything about me, I can look out for myself, which is what I should have carried on doing”

I stormed back into the house past Fiona and Henry and went to my room. I couldn’t stop the tears, it hurt. Everything was going so smoothly, I finally found somewhere I felt at home and a bonus it being with my real dad, then in one night my mother’s mother turns out to be a drunk who can’t remain sober for one night for a granddaughter who she has just met and my father is acting like the godfather. I thought he gave me more credit. I didn’t have much here so my things fit into the two cases I had. I wasn’t running permanently but it was obvious I couldn’t stay here just now.

“You can’t go. I am sorry about Jack but he works for me, I thought he would only hurt you and with all that is going on you didn’t need the extra pain,” he said having followed me. 

“That is for me to decide, what hurts the most is that you lied to me. I don’t want to argue about it, I want to go back to London for a while. It is for the best, we can both get used to this in our own time” I said.

“Okay, I won’t stop you but wait till morning and
I’ll drive you myself” he offered.

“I think it is best if I go tonight,
I’ll ask Henry to take me. I’ll call you in a couple of days”

Just before I left the room I passed him my present I got him,

“Here, I got this for you”

He took it immediately and I left.

I didn’t want to say goodbye to anyone fearing they would try to talk me out of going. My dad didn’t follow me down, which was good, as it didn’t attract any attention. Henry noticed me by the door, I waved my hand to ask him to join me.

He didn’t understand why I needed to leave now but he saw I was serious, he whispered something in Fiona’s ear and walked me to the car.

Henry spoke after fifteen minutes of silence,

“I haven’t been to London for a while, Fiona likes to stay close to her boys and the grandkids”

“I didn’t think I would be going back this soon” I admitted.

“You don’t have to now, I can turn around”

“No”

“Tell me what happened, apart from Lizzie, I thought you were happy here with us?”

“I was until I overheard my dad telling Jack to stay away from me, he warned him weeks ago and he lied about it. Unless of course you already knew about it?”

“I didn’t actually Ava, Chris is a very protective guy, he was with your mother, and he is with his mother and all his family, even Jase and Anna. He will do anything to not let harm come to any of you. With you, you are his daughter, you are going to be the most protected one of them all” he said.

“That doesn’t excuse him for lying to me” I reminded him.

“Well, I don’t think he will be doing that again. Don’t forget he is trying his hardest, he has only looked out for one woman in his life and there were times when she frustrated him to no end, sometimes he didn’t make the right choices but he did get there in the end and didn’t make them again”

Henry made sense, this was a learning curve for us both. While his protectiveness may be an issue in the future, I suppose this is what every girl has with their father, it is just I am experiencing it now for the first time.

“He must think
I’m a brat?” I mumbled, realising I wanted to go back and make amends and sort this out.

“No he won’t, he will be angry with himself for behaving the way he did. He loves you Ava, by the morning this will all be forgotten about. I promise you that”

“Can you take me home please Henry” I said smiling again.

“Sure thing kid, here, phone him and tell him the good news. Put him out of his misery” he said
, handing me his phone.

I got his number up and hit call before I could think of how I was going to apologise for leaving. He answered on the second ring.

“Henry, is Ava okay?” he asked, I could hear the worry in his voice.

“It’s me, Ava”

“Ava, I am so sorry” he apologised.

“Me too, Henry is bringing me back if that is okay?” I asked.

It occurred to me that he might not want me to come back after earlier.

“Of course that is okay”

“We didn’t get very far so we shouldn’t be long” I said, looking to Henry for confirmation.

“Okay, we will sort this out and then forget about it”

“Sounds good to me, see you soon” 

I hung up and passed the phone back.

“See, I told you he would be made up. If you haven’t already learnt you have one hell of a dad there for you, and will do anything for you. You just have to let him fix his mistakes because he will make them, but he always learns from them”

“I know”

I was beginning to recognise the roads and knew we wasn’t far from home. I wasn’t looking forward to walking through the door and those first few moments of awkwardness but like Henry said, by the morning tonight will be forgotten about.

“Henry!
” I screamed as I saw the truck swerving towards us.

“Wha
t’s he doing?” he yelled.

There was nowhere for us to go until the idiot had passed and he wasn’t slowing down.

“Ava hold onto something” Henry instructed.

I wanted to close my eyes but they were stuck wide open. I am going to die and never show my dad how truly sorry I am. I should have stayed.

I was thrown forward harshly when we connected with the truck, before I knew it we were rolling down the hill on the side of the road. The cold air hit my face when the window smashed in on us. Something stopped in our way and the car came to an abrupt halt. I didn’t know what position I was in, my body felt like it was tangled in all different ways. I heard Henry shouting my name, my head was getting heavier. I couldn’t reply before my world went black.

Lizzzie

Once again I had ruined everything, I should have known I wouldn’t be able to hold down a relationship with Ava. She was my second chance to have any resemblance of being a part of a family again. All she asked was that I was sober, if it was that easy, tonight would have been a lot different. I could say I don’t know where the venom comes from but deep down I know
, I am not selfish enough to know it comes from jealousy. But, then I think to myself who the hell do they think they are? None of them are perfect, sure they have loads of money, but they have my daughter to thank for their luxury lifestyles now. Everything they have is because of Jasmine.

I never truly believed she would leave me out of the will
, the pain it caused was horrific, knowing my daughter hated me till the very end. In my rare sober moments, I understood, I wasn’t any sort of mother to Jasmine, I did however think she would help me a little. Instead, she left me nothing, her own mother, not a single penny.

Sitting in the car as drunk as I was, I could feel Ava and Henry’s repulsion towards me radiating from them. The nice, kind woman in me wanted to scream out, scream at the top of my voice that I need help. I begged to be free from alcohol. Each time I opened my mouth, nothing came out, they weren’t mind readers I know, but surely they could see my silenced pleas for help? However, the drunk, bitter cold woman in me hated them, was overturned by jealousy and to make matters worse, I could feel myself dying a little more each day and I don’t care.

Nothing in my life can be spoken of with pride, I could take no credit for Jasmine’s accomplishments, apart from giving birth to her I done nothing for her. I would have thought giving birth to her would have got me a few thousand pounds though.

There is always a reason why a person drink, I have been asked numerous times if I drink to take the pain of bad memories away, I laugh at them, they don’t understand and they wouldn’t understand if I told them the main reason I drink is so I can numb the pain of the few good memories I do have. Why would you want that? It doesn’t make sense, I can hear them asking.

To me, my life was perfect when I met Danny, he was the sexiest man I ever met and when he asked me to go for a drink with him, I thought he couldn’t be asking me, why would he? He could have any girl he wanted. I remember stumbling out a reply whilst feeling the rush of blood flow to my cheeks. The next night, we went for a drink and something to eat, and every day after we spent together. It took two days to fall over the hills in love with him and within two months I fell pregnant with Jasmine.

When I was eight months pregnant, we married in the registry office with two random strangers off the street to act as our witnesses. After I gave birth, Danny had got us a house and when I left hospital I thought life couldn’t be anymore perfect. He adored our daughter, he adored me and when we settled in, it wasn’t long before we made friends with the neighbours. They would often come round for drinks on the weekends. Throughout the week Danny would work long hours, and throughout the weekend we would all have fun. It always consisted of alcohol, take out and on the odd occasion, something to smoke to give us the giggles.

It soon became clear that our house was the designated house to meet up on weekends, to let go and forget about the weeks work. Jasmine used to get a lot of attention and when some of the neighbours bought their kids, they would play in her room then fall asleep. Looking back, it wasn’t acceptable to make her live like that but at the time, she was in no danger and we were having too much of a good time to notice we needed to spend some proper time with her, reading to her, do things she like to do. Of course, when she wasn’t at school she was with us, we were a family and she never went without, well, until Danny left us.

Over the years that followed, our lives didn’t change too much, but Danny’s and I relationship was spiralling out of control. Ever since the first time he spoke to me, I couldn’t believe my luck and even now, I try to grasp on to the little happiness we did have. My paranoia and jealousy drove him to drink more and more, his sneaking around and disregard towards me made my insecurities worse, it was
a vicious circle with Jasmine standing bang in the middle of it.

Both Danny and I were selfish and blindsided to the pain we caused her. I would like to say we ended the marriage amicably, but as usual I clung to the hope he would love me and stay with me forever. I remember the last time I saw him, it was Christmas Eve, we had friends over for drinks to celebrate the festive period, after the drink ran dry, everyone left and we started arguing, I couldn’t tell what you about. Jasmine was in bed asleep or so I thought, I didn’t realise she heard everything.

We had been arguing more and more and added with the alcohol, they got more heated. That was the first time I thought he was going to hit me. I knew how to wind him up but I also knew how to soothe him afterwards, that night was completely different. The rage in his eyes was like he was a different man, when I ran to our bedroom and locked myself in, I expected him to follow and try to apologise. I wasn’t expecting him to leave, I stayed in the room and eventually I fell asleep. When I woke and went downstairs it was early in the morning, the mess we had created was disgusting, it was Christmas day morning and the tree was on the other side of the room and I hadn’t got any of Jasmine’s presents out or put them under the tree. It was still early, Danny could still come back, I had time before Jasmine woke up to sort the room out. A drink first, just to settle the nerves I told myself, and then I would get everything in place.

Before I had chance to begin, Jasmine was standing horrified in the living room doorway. She looked like her whole world had been crushed, I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was only the beginning. I reached for the bottle and poured another drink, I couldn’t stand to see her pain so I told her where to find her presents. That was the first time I let her down, I should have put on a front, wore a smile, told her to go back to her room while I sorted the gifts out and pretended everything was okay. But, I didn’t and after that morning, her father never came home and my heart never repaired.

Everyone used to comment on how much Jasmine looked like me, all I saw was Danny. I didn’t blame Jasmine for his leaving, over time I hated him mixed with hope he would come home. Jasmine’s and I lives weren’t atrocious but it wasn’t as it should be, she mostly took care of me. When I drank too much, she would make sure I was okay and cleaned me up if I made a mess. No wonder she left me nothing, I was no good as a wife, no good as a mother. Actually, I am no good in general.

When I noticed Henry was driving me home, I panicked, I didn’t want to be on my own. I had no chance of Ava staying with me after everything I said tonight so I had them drop me off at my local pub, much to their disgust.

As soon as the car stopped I opened the door and headed for the pub. No doubt I would never see them again, so there was no point in saying goodbye, I didn’t want reminders of their ashamed faces haunting me for the rest of my days, little did I know it wasn’t something I had to worry about for long.