Soooo hungover. Blah! Anyway, the soundtrack for this is Bloc Party's 'Luno'. Enjoy!
PART 85 – Exposed
‘Hannah, go faster!’ Jake urged from the back of her small Micra.
‘I’m going as fast as I can! It’s bloody five o’clock, its rush hour, she’s too far ahead!’ Hannah panicked as she darted her gaze across the road, looking for a faster route.
‘Don’t worry Han, you’re doing fine,’ John Paul calmly told her as he sat in the passengers seat.
‘Oh yeah, why would you want her to catch up with Evie, it’s not as if it’s in your interests to stop Craig’s marriage from crumbling!’
‘It’s not in any of our interests to see Craig hurt, or Evie for that matter,’ John Paul growled through gritted teeth at the aggravator who sat in the back seat of the car.
‘You should have thought about that before you slept with him!’ Jake argued back.
‘Will you both just pack it in!’ Hannah screamed as she had to slam on her brakes to avoid crashing into the car in front of her.
‘None of this is helping anything!’ she fumed as the car stood motionless, stuck in the stagnant line of traffic.
*
Evie finally pulled up to the roadside which was situated close to her destination, doing so in such haste, that she heard the tires scrape along the curb-side. She paid the minor damage no attention though, as she found herself preoccupied with thoughts of much more importance. What she had heard in the supermarket…it was…it was...words couldn’t describe the sense of betrayal she felt on hearing them. Craig had…he had kissed his ex…on the night of their wedding….
She clung on to the steering wheel as she thought about this. God, she hadn’t expected that, she had suspected something had happened, but nothing like that. Hell she was even willing to overlook it, if it had been a one off moment of madness from her husband, but this? He had…he had kissed someone else on their wedding night and it didn’t matter to her if it was a man or a woman, it had been someone else, someone who wasn’t her on the day they were supposed to be celebrating their love for one another, when they had vowed to stay together forever and be faithful.
Her mind then quickly wondered to the night in question; when had they had the opportunity to? As far as she could remember, either she had been with Craig most of the day or he had been surrounded by family and he wouldn’t have done anything then, when there were so many eyes on him. Maybe he hadn’t, maybe John Paul had made this up in some kind of warped attempt to win Craig back somehow? Maybe this was his pay back for not being allowed to see him at the hospital? Was he that petty?
And then she remembered something. Dread crept over her as she recalled walking down the path of the hotel’s garden to go fetch Craig; she had done so, so that he could say goodbye to her parents and when she found him in the secluded darkness of the garden, he hadn’t been alone.
‘Oh my god!’ she chocked out in horror; had she interrupted something, had she narrowly missed catching them out?
She felt sickness rise up through her throat on realising this. She had been so oblivious to it at the time but now that she looked back, it was glaringly obvious what had been going on; she could vividly recall both men’s expressions. Craig had seemed a little flustered, that he had been caught doing something and had been shocked to see her and John Paul, well he had this agonised, pained expression on his face.
‘How could I have been so stupid?’ she mumbled in a state of shock, before her mood changed to that of anger, ‘How could he have done this to me!’
Well there was only one way to find out! Evie threw off her seatbelt and with an equal amount of force, threw open the car door. Craig Dean had a lot to answer for and she intended to get those answers now.
*
‘So how are you Mr Dean?’
Craig looked up from the bar top, which he was wiping clean, to see that it was Leo Valentine who was addressing him.
‘I’m not too bad,’ he politely smiled, ‘Could be better, could be worse.’
Leo nodded his understanding of the statement.
‘I heard about what happened,’ he told him.
Craig looked at the man in dread; what had he heard had happened? He hoped it wasn’t anything to do with his hospital visit; he didn’t want anybody to know of his little (or big, rather) binge. It seemed pathetic to him, that he had stooped so low to do something like that. No, he didn’t want anybody to know that their local landlord had nearly drunk himself to death; the ridicule would be endless.
‘About the court case?’ Leo prompted him on receiving no response from the young Dean.
‘Oh yeah,’ Craig nodded in relief.
‘Terrible that the little sods didn’t get the full punishment, they’ll be out before long,’ he said into his glass, ‘But that’s justice for you, aint it?’
Craig nodded once again.
‘There’s no such thing,’ Leo continued, ‘What should happen, rarely does. Things that are meant to be, rarely are. One person’s version of justice is another’s version of injustice.’
‘W…what do you mean?’ Craig asked; Leo Valentine’s moments of drunken rambling rarely intrigued Craig, but the man did have his moments of being insightful and profound and this seemed like one of them.
‘I mean, for instance, what’s in my best interests, may not be what’s in yours. What I, dunno, desire to happen more than anything in the world may be what you dread the most. Justice is something that just doesn’t exist because it’s always accompanied by a great sense of injustice. Even the most terrible of men, the most criminal of them, when they’re tried and found guilty of a crime, well perhaps they had their reasons for their actions? Maybe they could justify their path of unlawfulness and punishment for it, well that’s an injustice to them.’
Craig still looked on, and he seemed more perplexed by what the eldest of the Valentine family was saying.
‘In other words, some people may do things that others consider to be wrong, when in fact they don’t. Doing right by yourself isn’t necessarily doing right by another, but what’s the right to do there? Do whatever makes you feel happy or do what makes others around you?’
Craig still stared at the man who sat perched on a stool in front of him before finally speaking.
‘Leo,’ he said, ‘Let me buy you a drink!’
‘Oh…’ the man looked slightly puzzled by this response, ‘Well okay then, you know me, never one to refuse a free drink!’
Craig chuckled as he grabbed a pint tumbler from a shelf and positioned it under the nozzle of the beer tap. Just as he was about to pull down the handle, he found himself distracted by something; a loud thud. He looked up to the source of the noise, the front door, and saw a very angry looking Evie stood there.
‘Hi,’ he smiled nervously as he took in the sight of her, ‘I thought you were going shopping, where’s Jake?’
He continued to stare at her, willing her for a pleasant response; by the looks of her face, whatever she had to say to him would be anything but. He quickly glanced at Leo Valentine, his attention was on the angered woman stood by the door, as was everyone else; she may have not spoken, but she had definitely commanded everyone’s attention with her silence.
‘Evie…?’ Craig began as his wife’s silence tipped him over the edge of feeling comfortable.
‘You!’ she yelled out, ‘You slept with him!’
Now Craig was unable to speak; those four little words were enough to paralyse him, as if the dread which accompanied the thought of Evie finding out about his secret had flooded his body with a paralysing poison. He could hear the gasps from everyone around him but he was powerless to shut them up.
Evie stood and stared at her petrified husband and shook her head in disgust; he wasn’t even attempting to deny it. She knew that starting this argument in the middle of the pub wasn’t exactly the most ideal place, but he had made her feel so humiliated by his betrayal that it only seemed fit to humiliate him in front of the rest of the villagers.
‘I…erm…’ she heard him struggle, ‘How…did…how do you know that?’
It wasn’t the best response in the world, in fact, it was pretty awful. Shouldn’t he be making an attempt to cease this situation from happening out in the public eye? Yes he should, but instead, he couldn’t help but ask how she had managed to find out; he was certainly only three people knew and he and John Paul were two of them.
Just as Evie was about to reveal the answer to his question, the door to the pub swung open once again and revealed exactly who had told her.
‘Evie wait!’ Jake exclaimed on seeing the blonde woman.
‘Too late,’ Craig whispered to himself as he watched Hannah and John Paul follow Jake into the pub.
Evie turned around to look at the newcomers, giving the man who stood at the back of the group a hard and cold stare before turning back to look at Craig.
‘You slept with him!’ she yelled once again, only this time now pointing towards the accused man.
Craig and John Paul exchanged panicked looks as the pub’s customers could be heard making disapproving noises amongst themselves.
‘And you kissed him; you kiss him on our wedding night!’
‘Evie…’ Craig began but was interrupted.
‘Don’t try to deny it!’ she screamed at him, ‘It came straight from the horse’s mouth!’
Craig once again looked at John Paul, who looked back guiltily.
‘You told her?’ he quizzed him confused as to why the man, who had urged him to get on with the rest of his life without him, had gone out of his way to sabotage it.
‘I didn’t mean to...’ John Paul called back with an apologetic look on his face.
‘But I’m glad he did!’ Evie raged, ‘When were you planning on telling me you weren’t in love with me? When were you planning on telling me you were gay and wanted him!’
‘Evie…I do love you…’
‘Oh don’t give me that crap!’ she spat at him, ‘Don’t you dare tell me that you love me! I cant trust a single word you say! You cheated on me barely hours after we got married! You kept so many secrets from me, all the way through our relationship and you expect me to believe you when you say that to me! How stupid do you think I am?’
‘I don’t think you’re stupid, I never have!’ Craig protested, but it was a pretty weak argument.
‘Yeah? Well you must have if you thought I’d never find out about it!’ Evie retorted.
‘Find out about what?’ a new voice joined the argument.
Craig spun his head round, as did the rest of the participants of the little conflict which was unfolding in the lounge of the pub.
‘Well?’ Frankie prompted her son. She had just emerged from the kitchen and was probably one of the only people in the place who hadn’t been made aware of what had been going on.
‘Your son’s been sleeping with his best friend!’ Evie informed her, accompanied by an incredulous laugh, ‘He’s been cheating on me with John Paul!’
Frankie stood with her mouth agape before slowly turning to look at her son.
‘Craig,’ she began, ‘How could you?’
She then quickly turned to look at the other guilty man, ‘And you, John Paul, I cant believe you’re doing this again!’
‘Doing this again? I did nothing in the first place!’ John Paul protested.
‘Don’t you dare stand there and say that Frankie,’ he urged her angrily, ‘Not when you practically forced me to come and speak to Craig after the funeral. You knew I didn’t think it was a good idea but you insisted!’
‘Only because I thought he might have needed his old friends around him,’ she replied back before addressing the rest of the group, ‘I swear that’s all it was.’
‘Hang on,’ Craig finally spoke up after a few minutes of silence and stared at John Paul, ‘You didn’t actually want to see me again, you were jut going to…to ignore the fact that I was back?’
‘Only because I thought it’d just bring on a whole lot of trouble,’ John Paul explained.
‘Ha!’ Jake spat, ‘Looks like you were right!’
John Paul, choosing to ignore the snide comments made by the man who stood next to him, stared at Craig before continuing in his explanation.
‘I knew that it wasn’t a good idea, because whenever we’re around each other, we’re never short of being a disaster. We’ve always been that way.’
Craig tried his best to take this in, but found it hard. Did John Paul regret everything they had ever had together? It certainly sounded so. He couldn’t believe this, he had never regretted a thing, even though most of their past relationship had been wrought with heartache, he wouldn’t erase it from his past if he had the chance, not if that meant erasing John Paul from his life.
‘You…you think we were a disaster?’ Craig quizzed him as he tried to keep his hurt and anger in check.
‘I don’t think that’s really the issue here Craig!’ Jake scolded him through gritted teeth, ‘The fact that you’ve cheated on your wife, the woman who was having your child is.’
A new wave of guilt flooded Craig, here he was feeling hurt that the man who he had deceived his wife with hadn’t actually wanted to initiate any contact with when he returned to Chester with his fiancé, and she was stood feeling devastated that it had all happened in the first place.
‘I bet you were glad,’ Evie finally spoke again, in an even tone which gave no hint of emotion.
‘Glad, glad of what?’ Craig asked her.
‘That it happened, that we lost our baby,’ she said with tears now glistening in her eyes.
‘Evie, no! Of course I’m not glad!’ Craig cried out.
‘Yeah, you probably felt relieved. One less person to deceive I suppose, you didn’t need to worry about lying to your son as you went behind his mothers back!’
‘S…son?’ Craig chocked out.
‘Yeah,’ Evie nodded as tears fell down her face, ‘You were right all along. I went to the doctors just before Christmas for my scan; remember the one that you couldn’t make?’
‘Probably too busy with him,’ she added in viciously.
‘And I found out but I kept it to myself because I knew you wanted it to be a surprise, even though you were desperate for it to be a boy!’
‘I suppose it doesn’t matter now anyway,’ she shrugged, ‘Poor kid never really had a chance. God, I’m relieved he didn’t make it in to our sham of a family, not when his daddy would have been to busy ****ing other men to take any notice of him!’
‘Evie,’ Hannah gasped in response.
‘Well he deserves it!’ she exclaimed before looking him up and down with a filthy look, ‘He probably caused it; off having dirty disgusting sex with him and then coming to me! God knows what diseases he might have given me, god knows what damage he had caused his own son!’
‘What!’ Craig and John Paul cried out in disbelief of what the petite blonde was accusing them of.
‘That’s ridiculous!’ John Paul called out, ‘It only happened the one time!’
‘Do you really expect me to believe that!’ Evie attacked as she moved closer to the rival to her husband’s heart.
‘I know what your sort are like,’ she sneered, ‘Filthy and disgusting, full of diseases!’
John Paul could feel his anger rise within him and he fought to stay calm.
‘My sort?’ he growled out, ‘Well my sort don’t need to stand and take this crap from your sort!’
‘Don’t try and make yourself out to be the victim in all of this!’ Evie laughed out, ‘You’re the one who caused all of this. You couldn’t stand to see that Craig was happy, that he was in a nice normal relationship, that he had everything going for him as your life turned to crap!’
John Paul pursed his lips together in a bid to prevent what he really wanted to say from coming out. He then moved his gaze away from the woman who was defiantly staring at him, and looked towards Craig expectantly waiting for him to put Evie right, to come to John Paul’s aid, but he never; he just stood there in silence. Partly out of anger towards Craig, for letting him down, and partly out of anger towards the woman who was belittling him in front of the entire pub, John Paul turned to Evie and let loose something he knew would shut her up.
‘Happy, you really think Craig was happy with you? Well you should have heard our little conversation on New year’s Eve, that might change your mind.’
‘What?’ Evie asked, now quietly in her shocked and confused state.
But John Paul didn’t answer; instead he looked towards Craig and shook his head. Craig knew what was going on in his mind; he was cursing him, calling him pathetic. He watched as the fair haired man began to walk backwards.
‘I’ll leave it for Craig to explain, I’m already far too tangled in this mess for my liking,’ he said flashing a look of complete loathing towards the man who stood behind the bar.
And with that, he left. Craig watched him walk through the door of the pub quite certain he’d never walk back through it. Then he watched Evie. She was staring at him with fresh tears rolling down her cheek and looked bewildered. She then snapped out of her trance and began to move, going in the opposite direction of John Paul; she was heading to go upstairs.
He didn’t know what to do; he didn’t have a clue about which he should go to first; whose heart was in more urgent need to be attended to; the man who he truly loved or the woman who he had truly hurt and deceieved.
***********
Author of 'The Last Journey' and it's sequel 'Travelling Back'. And the now in production, 'Don't Look Back', a JP fic!
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