Your Little Secret (24 page)

"I can't just – go," Amber whispered and fell back to the doorstep. "He wrote me letters, Lucy. Love letters and I only got them today. He knows I was back today. Why would he do this? I don't understand."

"Amber, he's gone okay. He doesn't want to see you; he doesn't want to be with you. He's with Eva now. You left him to be with Connor in this vulnerable state and he's gone." Lightning struck behind Lucy and the thunder roared above them. "We need to go now, Amber."

The words couldn't come. She had lost Ethan.
Lost. He's gone, he didn't tell her. The memories of the house behind her flooded her mind. His touch, flooded her senses, she wanted to feel his arms around her. She wanted to hold the hand that saved her. "He saved me. Now he's gone." Lucy ran to her and pulled her up by her arm.

"Come on!" Finding some strength Amber climbed to her feet and Lucy opened her car door for her to get in.

"He even changed the locks," whispered Amber as she stared into nothingness that surrounded her. This wasn't her home any more. Ethan wasn't here. Fastening her seatbelt she became emotionless. The tears stopped and she pushed the wet hair away from her face. "I'm okay," she whispered to Lucy as she slammed the door and sat in the driver’s seat. The rain fell hard against the car roof and Lucy ignited the engine.

"Let's go, have a girly night hey?
It's gonna be okay, Amber, I promise."

But what did promises solve? She knew full well her friend was only trying to help, but she was part of the issue. She knew that Ethan had left town, she knew that Amber was in a catch twenty-two, and she still led the lamb to the slaughter.

Lucy had told her friend to follow her heart, and when she had, it was too late. Lucy had gotten her to this point and she hated it. She hated that Ethan was gone, that Lucy knew, that Eva had won, and that Connor halfway down the country.

Amber spent the entire way home numb. She wasn’t sure if it was being caught out in the rain, or if it was just because she felt like her heart had been snatched from her chest. She didn’t even move when Lucy pulled up, turned the engine off and got out of the car.

“C’mon,” Lucy said as she opened the door and literally pulled Amber from the door.

Responding silently, Amber went to her house and let herself in. She said nothing as she walked each step slowly until she reached her bedroom. She didn’t move
, Amber just stood in the doorway remembering everything that had happened in this room. The darkened room was filled with so many memories, so many emotions and she was overwhelmed. She looked over at the bathroom door and remembered when Connor had walked out that final day he left to start his new life, but quickly it was replaced with Ethan and her sharing a shower and making love against the tiles.

Gasping for air, she literally staggered to the bed and fell onto it. She curled up into a ball, reminiscent of the foetal position and just pulled the pillow around her head, clinging onto it. She began to cry and sob, and heave on her grief and even continued when Lucy came into the room and wordless
laid down with her.

“
Shh,” Lucy attempted to soothe her best friend, but it was useless, Amber was passed the point of being saved. She needed a firm hold and a chance to let this out. She had to cry herself dry or she would never recover.

And Amber didn’t cease crying. This was her first night alone without Ethan officially in her life.

She felt lost, she felt broken, but most of all she felt the tears fall all night long.

The next two days were dull, lifeless. Amber didn't move from her house. She even stopped her only source of income by quitting her job. She didn't want to interact with shitty customers or shitty people. She just wanted to fall into an abyss of depression and allow it to wrap around herself.

Lucy had attempted to make her feel better that night she found out Ethan was gone. But she couldn't eat the Chinese she bought her or watch the movie. She just wanted to hide. Lucy left the day after promising to call but hadn't. Connor hadn't called either. No one called her and Amber was reminded that yet again, she was all alone in the world. If anything was right, it was when she said everyone left. No one stuck around to support her, care for her, love her. They all left when they saw a window of opportunity.

Her life was laughable. Amber Watson was nothing but a pitiable excuse for a human being. She got a degree she did nothing with, dreams she let disappear into a puff of smoke, a love life that would make anyone run and a family.

And she now knew what rock bottom looked like.

The scary part was that it looked exactly like reality. She wasn’t at the bottom of a big black well; she was still in her house with no lights on, barely anything electric running, the heating shut off, and emptiness swallowing every surface possible.

Dragging herself out of her bed, she sat on the edge and leaned forward until her elbows met her knees and she was literally curled up on herself, looking numbly out of the window at the little bit of scenery she had. It might be a beautiful sunset, but Amber no longer found a love of it. Nothing enthralled her anymore; she just wanted every day to pass by quickly and without any more damage being caused to her already fragile body.

She wasn’t sure how much more she could tolerate, but she was sure that a slight knock would send her barely holding on heart crashing to the floor ready to shatter into millions of irreparable pieces. She hated thinking that lies and deceit, love and lust had gotten her to this point. She had brought this on her fault for falling for men that were just full of futile words. Like the dreamer her father had teased her for, she fell head over heels for two men and waited too long to choose. Ethan was gone, and Connor was up to his old tricks and it had only been two days.

She looked at her phone, still tossed onto the bedside table and finally made her way down the stairs. She hadn’t touched it in days, but she picked it up and took it with her. Maybe today would get her an answer from Connor if she continued to be a masochist and ring him all over again.

Going down the stairs, she knew she should eat, she needed to, but she had no appetite. Amber knew this wallowing pit of blackness couldn’t last forever, but a part of her prayed that it
would consume her soon so she wouldn’t have to deal with life anymore. Soon she would lose her house, her car, soon after her dignity, and she was well on her way to be able to starve to death.

Sitting at the kitchen table, Amber stared at the engagement ring before her. Connor vowed to make her realise he was serious about making her an honest woman, but she panicked that he would never want her when he saw what mess she was right now. Who wanted a pathetic excuse of a woman as a wife?

She began to laugh at herself a little, only stopping when she heard her phone ring out for the first time in days. She sat and stared at it for a moment, not moving much, just looking at the caller ID – Connor. He was finally calling her and she felt a light burst from within her, her blood warming up a little, her heart struggling for a pressure beat.

Snatching the phone up, she answered. “Hello,” she whispered into the phone, unable to project her voice much more than that.

“Amber,” Connor’s voice sang down the line at her. “Baby, you are literally impossible to get hold of, baby. Where have you been hiding?”

In
bed
, didn’t fall from her lips. Only lies did.

Amber could only listen as Connor babbled on about work and how much he missed her. She loved hearing the sound of his voice; she just wanted his arms to wrap around her. "I just want you home," she whispered as he spoke mid-sentence.

"Baby," he cooed in a hushed tone. “Are you okay?" Amber heard rustling in the background and a crunch as Connor ate some snack.

"I miss you. I miss everything about you. I miss the way you would hum me to sleep, or stroke my cheek when I was sad. Yeah, it's only been a few days, but I can't do this, Connor. I can't do this at all. Everything has changed, Connor, everything. How do I live without you?"

"You'll be fine," Connor mumbled and Amber sighed a huge sigh of frustration.

"I'm not fine, Connor. I'm not fine at all. I feel like you don’t even want to talk to me right now."

"Of course I do, baby, it's just that my friend from work is over and he's waiting for me in the games room, y'know George that I told you about before?"

"Yeah I get that babe, but you called me. I'm missing you. Yorkshire isn't the same without you."

"And London isn't the same without you. I'll try visit soon, Amber, okay? You sound like you need sleep. Go see Ethan, have a gossip and a drink." Hearing his name, Amber put her hand to her mouth and swallowed a lingering cry.

"Sure," she barely whispered and Connor wrapped up the call.

Running upstairs, she pulled on a hoodie, track suit bottoms and switched on her iPod. Taylor swifts '22' came on and she snorted. "Not a time for dancing Tay." Amber began to frantically search her bedroom cupboards. She wanted alcohol and there was none. Ethan must have taken it all. He knew her all too well. Changing the track to a hard rock song she left her house and walked to the local corner shop. Picking up a large bottle of cider, she paid the Asian clerk and he handed her the cider in a blue bag. Walking home, through the village she grew up in, she felt physically sick. She was alone. She was born alone and now this was it. She couldn't think of anything else that would help. She needed to drink away this pain, let it glide away through her veins with alcohol. This time, Ethan wasn't here to save her.

Stopping at a bench, she sat down and let the still recurring rain drench her body. She was a shadow of the girl she used to be. Unscrewing the cap of the cheap dirty alcohol she took a large gulp and let the burn slide down her throat, right down to her empty stomach. The last time she ate properly was at Connor's, and she now wished she had never gone home.

"This is for Ethan, the man I loved and lost," she lifted the large bottle with both hands to the air and gulped some more. Feeling her phone vibrate in her pocket she shifted to answer it. Running her finger along the answer line she lifted it to her ear.

"You're not supposed to answer unknown numbers,” the threatening female voice she knew all too well was on the other line.

"Eva. What a not so pleasant surprise," Amber scoffed, and drank some more.

"
Ergh, Lucy said you were a mess. Missing my Ethan are you?"

"
Your
Ethan, huh?" Amber said, placing the bottle on the ground. She didn't care if she got arrested for street drinking. "He's never been yours, Eva Pinder. Never." Eva's laugh echoed through the phone, and Amber no longer felt smug. She couldn't run Ethan's life for him, no matter how much she missed him. Wiping her face she sighed. "What do you want Eva?"

"To see how my best bud was doing, is that a problem?"

Laughing, Amber smirked. "Fuck off, Eva. You rang me to gloat, to remind me that I was now here all alone, depressed, miserable and you got it all. Just like everything else you wanted. You took the only man that ever truly cared away from me and captured him. You've broken my heart. So keep him and keep him safe. He's the best human being I've ever met. And if I hear you've hurt him, I'll find you and I’ll hurt you. Clear?"

She hung up the phone, her weak hands trembling and just wanting to be wanted by someone. Feeling like rock bottom was about to give way and send her deeper into hell, Amber made a bold move. She unlocked her phone and dialled a number she hadn’t in month.

“Mum,” she sobbed down the phone. “I really need you.”

“Well this is a surprise,” her mother’s tone came down the phone at her. “Now you need us, you remember where we are.”

“You haven’t called me!” Amber barked down that phone, unable to keep her hurt on lock down anymore. “It’s a two way thing, and you forgot about me long before I did you!”

“Don’t start, Amber,” her mother shot her down. “Now what do you really want?”

Wiping her face, Amber took a steadying breath, deciding to be her mother’s daughter and just hope her mother would catch her. “I fell in love with two guys, mum. Connor, he’s offering me everything to make sure I have a perfect future, but Ethan, he’s the one. I don’t know what to do. It’s all going wrong for me.”

“It seems to me that you got yourself into this mess, and it’s up to you to get yourself out of it,” her mother told her back, her tone voice of emotional input. “Clearly you led two guys on, and now you’re stuck in a rut you’re looking for someone to make the decision for you. Well, Amber, wake up and realise that you’re in the wrong and you need to face up to your poor decisions.”

Amber couldn’t take anymore and hung up on yet another person. That was why she never called her mother for any help anymore. That was why she lived without her parents and was on her own. She was originally her mother’s poor decision after sleeping with no contraception, and it appeared that poor decisions run through the Watson clan.

It just didn’t help Amber right now to know that.

Especially since she had always heard everyone say you'll burn in hell for your killer sins, but if anyone asked Amber, she would passionately tell everyone that hell was the coldest place in life. She may have made bad choices in her life, but this hell was cold and derelict. It tortured her soul, stole her happiness and made sure she felt the loneliest person to ever walk the earth. There was no fiery heat here, or flaming bowels of hell that she had grown up believing in. No, this place was long and dead and never ending.