Splintered Memory - By Natascha Holloway Page 0,40

just seemed right.” Although he nearly choked on his guilt as he said it.

She looked back to the television where she was on screen laughing her loud and contagious laugh, but Matt couldn’t bear to watch a second longer and he said; “I’m going to take a shower, long night you know.”

“’k,” she said smiling and turning back to look up at him. But then she just as quickly turned her attention back to the television. “Do you want me to make you something to eat?” She asked him, although this time her eyes remained on the screen.

“No I’m fine thanks, you just...” but he didn’t finish saying what she should just do. Instead he hit the stairs at a run taking them three at a time.

When he reached the top he darted into the bathroom and shut the door firmly behind him. He rested his hands on the sink and forced himself to look at his reflection in the mirror, but as did he was unsurprised to see that he was crying. He hated himself for what he’d done, and he couldn’t bear to look at himself for a second longer. He turned away and put the shower on.

Matt stood underneath the forceful surge of water and closed his eyes, wishing as he did that his mind would stop replaying the events of the night before. He was so distracted by his thoughts, guilt, and conscience, that he didn’t hear the gentle knock on the door a few minutes later.

Charlie

She’d been thinking about what Maria had said to her nonstop for the better part of three days. Yet the truth of the matter was, was that Charlie had known – long before Maria had said it, that she was the obstacle in the way of any possible chance she had of re-building a relationship with Matt. He’d made attempts to get close to her, but she’d always been the one to pull away. She was the one that was letting her fear get in the way of them taking a step forward. She was the one keeping them trapped in a place where neither of them knew where they really stood.

Charlie trusted Maria implicitly. She knew that her life was in a much better place now thanks to Maria’s help than it would ever have been without it, and so she felt confident that if Maria thought that she was ready to take that next step with Matt then she was. She owed it to him to at least try and make their home life easier, and she knew that this meant either rekindling their relationship or walking away from him forever. She couldn’t stay and keep him in this unhappy limbo, it simply wasn’t fair.

She knew that if she couldn’t give him a proper relationship, which encompassed every aspect of marital life, then she owed it to him to walk away as she had previously contemplated doing. She knew that it wasn’t right to keep him on tenterhooks, and she felt sure that he deserved much more than this from her.

These thoughts occupied Charlie’s mind while Matt was at work, and she wondered how she could engineer a situation in which he might again be tempted to reach out to her. Yet as she sat in the living room racking her brain for inspiration, her eyes were drawn to their wedding photo which took pride of place over their fire place.

That was it she said to herself. She knew that there was a wedding video, because she’d come across it when she’d been doing one of her tidy ups. Maybe, just maybe, if Matt came home to find her watching their wedding video it would rekindle some of his memories from that day. She hoped that it might give him that nudge to reach out to her, and this time she knew that she wouldn’t pull away.

With a plan formed in her mind she began to feel nervous and excited. She spent a long time in the shower, and even longer in front of her knicker drawer trying to decide what she should wear. She didn’t want Matt to think that she’d been planning this, but she also wanted to wear something nice for him. In the end she reached for an all black number, which she decided was a happy medium between sexy and regular everyday underwear.

Charlie sat in their bedroom blow drying her hair, and she could feel the butterflies in her stomach. She was excited