Twelve Days The Beginning - By Jade Reyner Page 0,86

saying and reluctantly Elise left the table alone. How the hell was she going to deal with this one?

Leaving the dining room, she headed for the washrooms straight ahead and sank gratefully into a cubicle, leaning against the door for strength. She had to make a decision about Vaughn tonight – she knew that. He had made his feelings perfectly clear and it was up to her now; the ball was well and truly in her court.

There was no doubt that she wanted Vaughn with a fierceness she couldn’t hide, she just had to work out how to deal with the moral issue that was holding her back, the one that was keeping her from committing the ultimate sin. And she had absolutely no idea how to begin to rationalise that kind of decision – she would be a cheat, regardless of any mitigating circumstances, and that wasn’t something that she wanted to be.

Taking a deep breath, she conjured up Dale’s face in her mind; his handsome smiling face on the day they had got married, the despair marring his features when they had found out they couldn’t have children and then the ugliness that she saw there on a daily basis now.

She thought about all of the times that he had shouted at her, all of the times he had punched her. The time he had broken her rib. She remembered the humiliation of the fight in the office last week, the derogatory words that he said to her day in and day out, the lack of concern for her wellbeing or happiness and she remembered his face - his face in glorious technicolour – every single time he raped her.

The tears flowed down her cheeks unchecked, the hurt as fresh as it had been each day and on each occasion and at that moment with absolute breathtaking clarity, she realised that she was done. Totally, completely and utterly done. She didn’t deserve the life that she had. Whatever happened, no one deserved that kind of life.

Dale and her were over – they had to be. She couldn’t live with it any more.

If anyone had asked her ten years ago where she would be at the exact moment when she realised that her marriage was going to end, the last place on earth she would have told them would have been a toilet cubicle in a swanky hotel in Swindon. Assuming she would have replied at all, that is, and not just knocked their block off for suggesting that her marriage would end up becoming another sad statistic. In some ways though, the fact that she had reached her decision in such a place seemed almost fitting. Her life had been going down the proverbial toilet for such a long time – how symbolic to actually be reaching this decision in a cubicle in the ladies room. Karma, kismet, fate? Whatever.

Taking some tissue from the dispenser she wiped her eyes, amazed to realise that she felt like a huge weight had just lifted off her shoulders. She felt lighter, happier somehow, and she realised finally how much of a toll her life with Dale had taken. Knowing that there was an end in sight somehow freed her and the relief flowing through her body was like nothing she had ever known. It was almost as if she had just woken up from a five-year long slumber and was now ready to face the world, embrace it, and get on with the rest of her life.

She would have to face him, of course, and she would need to explain everything to him. Unfortunately, with it being Christmas next week, she accepted that it probably wouldn’t be the best time to try to talk to him but perhaps, when they went back to work after Christmas, she could arrange to stay with Cole for a while and talk to Dale then. At least she would have somewhere to go if things got out of hand and she would be logistically close enough to Dale to sort things through. It would be a difficult time for both of them but perhaps if she was no longer living with him, they would be able to make the necessary adjustments much more easily.

She really hoped that Dale would accept her decision and not make life difficult for her; he couldn’t possibly be happy with the way things were either but she couldn’t quell the undercurrent of fear running through her. She had seen him