I Will Follow You: She knows what he's capable of. But who will believe her? A GRIPPING domestic thriller debut by Bryan Blears

Author:Bryan Blears [Blears, Bryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-08-07T16:00:00+00:00

18

‘I had no idea,’ Skylar said, comforting me as I finished my story. ‘You poor, poor girl. I had absolutely no idea. Did you tell anybody? Anybody at all?’

‘No, I didn’t. It’s difficult to explain. Even though Elliot had done something bad to me, I didn’t want to do anything bad to him. I guess…I guess that’s what people like him rely on.’

‘And you felt like you had caused the issue by coming to see me that weekend.’

‘Well, not exactly,’ I said, recalling the sudden terror with which Elliot’s rage had appeared, out of nowhere. ‘But Elliot’s explanations did make sense. I had the issue, not him. And if I didn’t trust him, well then, I had the option to go with him to Infinity.’

‘So, did you ever find out if he’d… you know?’

‘Cheated?’ Harvey was eating dinner in his high chair. I wondered what Elliot’s friends would think of a dinner of chicken nuggets and potato waffles.

‘No. The thing with a relationship like ours, any relationship really, is that you have to have some trust. I didn’t have any evidence that he had been up to no good. So, I let it go,’ I said, sighing. ‘Like so much else.’

Skylar drew in a deep breath, gazing at the living room carpet. ‘I think I understand a bit more,’ she said, ‘about what you must have been through. Not all of it, you know? But I can, like, see the tip of the iceberg, if you know what I mean.’

‘Thank you. That means a lot.’

‘There’s something else you should know, Poppy.’ She ensured that Harvey was out of earshot, and then leaned over to me. ‘I’m afraid that I wasn’t honest with you, or Mum and Dad. About Kieran, and about…you know.’

‘No, I don’t know. What are you talking about?’

‘He…isn’t Kieran’s,’ Skylar whispered.

‘What!?’

‘I know. I know. It’s kind of a long story.’ Not Kieran’s? How was that even possible?

‘The short version is, I slept with somebody else.’

‘But my main question is, why? I thought things were going great between you two.’

‘It seems as though we’re both capable of pulling the wool over each other’s eyes on that front,’ Skylar said. ‘The thing was, that by the time I decided that I didn’t really like Kieran, Mum and Dad were already enamoured with him. So… staying with him felt like, the right thing to do. I should have been more honest about how I felt. But I was young and immature. I confessed to Kieran, believe me – that wasn’t an easy thing to do. But, somehow, I managed to hide the horrible truth from our parents.’

Suddenly, something clicked into place. ‘So that’s why, when you got pregnant, he suddenly wanted nothing more to do with you.’

It was Skylar’s turn to look guilty.

‘Well of course, Kieran wasn’t going to support a child which wasn’t his. But I couldn’t tell Mum and Dad that, could I? And you know when a lie runs out of control and grows and grows?’

‘I know all too well.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.