Page 4 of Tears of Gold

Once I’ve got Elaine sorted with sweet tea and some biscuits to dunk, I make up a tray and go in search of Tabitha. My arms are close to breaking once I’ve been to her room and found it empty and then walked the corridors again trying to locate her.

She’s in the library sitting in the very chair Peter sat in the other night at Elijah’s disastrous birthday dinner. Lewis is sat turned towards the dying fire that looks like it needs a bit of oomphing or whatever it is you do to a fire that’s burning into orange ash.

“Hey.” I step closer and Tabs raises her gaze to me. She’s crying less than Elaine, but more than Jennifer which I’d say pegs her in the normal range of emotions. Not that I can talk, I have the emotional depth of a robot. “You okay, little sis?”

I kiss her hair and loop my arms around her slender shoulders in a squeezing hug.

“I’m glad you’re here. What the hell happened to your face?” She smiles, but it’s only small and it creates tears at the corner of her eyes.

“Of course I am. Eli is with your mum, and let's not talk about my face.” Tabs' own face freezes at the mention of her mum, but then her attention is caught by my ring finger, glimmering with small but dazzling diamonds.

“He finally asked you?”

“I asked him, actually.” I give her a moment to stare at the ring as she turns my hand to see it better. Her eyes flicker towards Lewis but then drop back to my new jewellery.

“Does this mean you are staying?”

“Looks like it.” The excitement of getting engaged has faded with the earth-shattering Fairclough news. “I want to take it off so I don’t upset your mum, but Eli won’t let me.”

It’s blinging exceptionally bright. The diamonds could have been of slightly less high quality and then it wouldn’t be so obvious.

Tabitha shakes her head. “No, you need to come in and own your place. Otherwise it will just be the same shit over and over again. Peter isn’t here now,” her voice wobbles, “and he’s always supported Eli, so you guys need to fight for what you want.”

It’s funny that when I met Eli, I never knew he and Peter had a bond as deep as they did. When we met, Peter was cold and aloof, and actually a bit of an arse. So I guess when I think about it, not all that different to Eli.

What I am learning quickly is that what you see on the surface with the Faircloughs, is not what’s underneath.

I’m going to become one of them. I will be a Fairclough. I made an unbreakable promise when I knelt on the floor of the Tate and asked Eli to be mine no matter my flaws.

So the woman who has hidden herself under the artwork of her mistakes on her skin is about to join a family where you can’t be who you really are.

I don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad.

Have I ever truly known who I am?

I just have to trust that Eli and I can find me together.

Two

When the door clicks softly, I’ve been laying on my back staring at the ceiling in my pink room at Bowsley for some time. I don’t know why I’d expected the walls to be white—for all remnants of my stay here during the summer to have been removed—but it is still pink. The girly white-framed bed is also still in situ. I’ve been recalling our nights spent in here and the evenings when Eli would appear and lean against the door, hesitating, unsure whether to come in… and now I’m going to be his wife. Life is crazy. End of.

My stomach gurgles as he comes closer. “You don’t have to be out here, you know.” I turn and watch him as he drops onto the bed and stretches by my side. “You can have a room in the main building.” Lifting gentle fingers, he tilts my chin so he can meet my gaze. “Or my room.” Leaning forward, he places a kiss softly on the corner of my mouth. “I’m sorry I left you for so long. Mother needed someone with her.”

“Don’t apologise.” I blink up at him and run a hand though his short hair, before lowering it and swiping my thumb across the fine trace of creases under his eyes. Not that you can really see them with the dark bruising blooming across the delicate skin. “What did she say about your injuries?”

“Not much. I told her I got mugged.”

“Sorry.”

He smiles as much as his bust-up lips will allow. “Sorry I got beaten by a guy who should be in jail? Or sorry I got my arse handed to me and you had to step in to protect me? I’m going to have to work on my manliness.” His fingers lift to the bruise across my right cheek. It doesn’t hurt that bad, or maybe I’m just numb all over. I don’t know.

“I didn’t have to step in. I couldn’t bear the fact you were being hurt. It was my fault.” If I’d reported Aiden for what he’d done to me years ago then he might not have been out roaming Brighton late at night and happened along our path. His fists and feet wouldn’t have collided with Eli’s beautiful face. I repress a shudder when I think what Aiden might have been prowling the dark rain-sloshed streets for. “He’s going to prison, I hope.”

Eli shifts closer, his body fitting alongside mine. “I’m going to make sure he does.”

“What do you mean?” I glance over his bust-up face in the darkness.

“I’m going to be your lawyer.”