Splintered Memory - By Natascha Holloway Page 0,39

was cold, and we both had our chins tucked into our scarves and coats. When we got back I asked if you wanted to come in for a coffee or something, and you said,” but Emily didn’t get to say what he’d said because he said it instead.

“Just for coffee though,” Matt said quietly. It was all coming back to him now. It was all coming back in a dreadful torrent of remorse and regret.

Emily nodded, but she wasn’t looking at him.

Matt now remembered coming up to her flat, and how that conversation had ended. He also recalled being the one to initiate everything that had happened between them, and he started to feel increasingly sick.

“I think I’d better go,” he said.

“Wait!” Emily said standing up, her eyes now firmly upon his face. “If you remember coming in, and what you said, then you must remember,” but she stopped talking as her face flashed bright red with embarrassment.

Matt’s own face flushed too as he understood what she was alluding to. He remembered her telling him that she was a virgin.

He couldn’t believe it. When he’d walked into this room minutes earlier to leave, he’d honestly thought that he’d been drunkenly taken advantage of. He now knew though, that he’d been the one doing the taking advantage last night.

A few awkward moments of silence passed, but then knowing that all he wanted to do was to go home he said; “I’m really sorry.”

He turned back towards the door, and Emily appeared by his side with the key. She unlocked it for him and let him out, but as he left he heard her begin to sob loudly. He considered knocking on the door so that he could console her, or at least apologise, but as he hovered at her front door all he could think about was Charlie.

Matt walked away from the door quickly, and all but ran down the stairs and onto the street, his head banging the whole time. The only thing slowing him was the mounting feeling that he might be sick at any minute, but as he walked home as quickly as he could flashbacks from the night before hit him in waves of pure shame. Flash after flash of drunken sex with someone other than his wife.

Another tidal wave of guilt hit him and he closed his eyes firmly, physically flinching at the memories that were pouring into his brain. What have I done he asked himself?

He reached the back door to his and Charlie’s house, and he paused for just a moment before entering. He needed a minute to try and gain some semblance of composure, and he was hoping that if he was lucky there was a chance that Charlie would be out. He took a deep breath and then pushed the door open and entered the kitchen, but as he shut it quietly behind him he could hear the sound of laughter from the living room. Not out he thought.

“So who loves who the most then guys?” He heard Rich say from the living room.

“It’s obvious isn’t it? I’ve always been the one who was head over heels,” he heard himself say.

“Yeah whatever, I’ve been under his spell since the moment he put a plaster on my knee,” he heard Charlie say in response.

He knew what Charlie was watching without even needing to go into the living room to see for himself. She must’ve found the recording of their wedding day that Rich and Claire had filmed.

Matt felt like he was being hit with instant karma for being a cheating rat. He’d come home to find his beautiful wife, who’d been through more in the last few months than anyone should ever have to endure, watching what had been the happiest day of his life.

He found himself drawn to where he knew she was, and as he walked into the living room he saw her sat on the floor with her legs crossed in front of her. She was sat less than a foot from the television, and she was smiling at the screen. He guessed that she’d obviously heard him come in though, because she turned round and smiled at him. Yet as she did, he felt his stomach plunge again as the guilt from the previous night reared up inside of him once more.

“God weren’t we young,” Charlie said smiling.

He felt another stab of guilt, but he forced himself to return her smile and he said; “yeah we were, but it