I'm Yours Only, Sophie J Brain [i am malala young readers edition txt] 📗

was here again. They still had their jokey nature and their spark was still there.

As he walked towards the room he could hear her crying, when he looked inside she was looking at a picture. He coughed quietly; she looked up, wiped her eyes quickly and shoved the picture in a cabinet next to her.

“It was a family photo” she explained “of mine and Greg's family”

Chris nodded and put his arm around her “It's ok to be emotional, I'm sure tonight brought back memories”

“He died” Nicky said tonelessly “Testicular cancer”

“When was that?” Chris asked

“Two years ago” she let out a hollow harsh laugh that cut through his heart “I was there when it happened. It was really painful. He turned to me once when everyone else was out of the room and asked if I was happy now that he was dying. I just said I didn't care enough to feel happy”

“It must be better now that he is dead” Chris said quietly not sure how to respond.

Nicky shrugged and stood up “I suppose in some way it is. I don't have to find ways to avoid being with him, it was something my parents had always found odd, but it doesn't make what happened less hurtful. It wasn't just about the attempted rape it went deeper than that. Kevin had been like an uncle to me, a bit of a weird slightly perverted uncle yes but still an uncle. My whole illusion of him was shattered when I realised he wasn't just trying it on with me, that he was actually going to rape me if I didn't come willingly.”

Tears stung at her eyes as the memory washed over her again, at the time all she had felt was fear it wasn't until she had got home and seen her family laughing together as they had retold this joke, a joke he had told them, that she had felt the full impact on what had happened. At first she had felt like crying and telling everyone, then they could have known what to do and supported her but then she realised that if she did that then they would feel as let down as she did and it would be worse for them because they'd feel guilty for letting her come into contact with him. Kevin and her dad Matthew had been friends since university what would it have achieved to ruin his friendship?

Nicky wiped her eyes again and turned to Chris with a smile “The memory will never go away but when he died it made carrying the secret much easier to deal with”

The conversation subsided after that and they both eventually went to bed and fell into an easy steady sleep. At about three o'clock in the morning Nicky's arm unconsciously wrapped itself around Chris' upper body and she snuggled up to his warm body it wasn't for another ten minutes when her eyes slowly opened she realised what she had done and quickly grabbed her arm back and turned over. As she drifted back to sleep she realised that she wouldn't have done that, in her sleep or not, if she hadn't know that Chris was the one sleeping next to her, Boris wasn't one for hugging and cuddling especially at night so she had got into the habit of keeping to her side of the bed, the fact that her subconscious mind could throw her usual routine out of the window because of this man terrified her.

 

The next morning Chris woke up and found an empty space next to him, he glanced at the clock and saw it was only 9 o'clock so he decided to call her name but got no answer. He heaved himself up and walked downstairs where he found a note pinned onto the front door he picked it up and slowly read.

 

 

Chris.

Sorry I had to go out shopping

Thank you so much for helping me last night and staying the night. Maybe see you again sometime.

Nicky.

 

 

He left the house slamming the door behind him, was the thought of waking up next to him so terrible that she had to leave at goodness knows what time just to avoid him? He still loved her, well he thought he did anyway. It had been four years but he still had a strong need to protect her and after her confession about the attempted rape all those years before he knew that he had to be her confident as well. Nobody should have to spend their life without anyone to talk to.

Then he remembered; she already had a confident and someone to look after her. She had a fiancé now but he had a feeling that wouldn't go, a feeling that this man she was with wasn't right for her. Chris had been engaged himself and had believed with a passion it was the right thing to do but it hadn't been, not when everyday all he had been able to think about was Nicky.

Chris shook his head, his mind had been going round and round in circles since the night before and he still didn't have a clear solution about what to do, all he knew was that he couldn't let Nicky go again.

 

She had just put water onto to boil when she heard the knock on the door. None of her family was coming to visit today and Boris wouldn't be back for another three hours and he would have a key anyway.

The knocking persisted so Nicky put her knife down and quickly ran to answer the door, putting on a polite smile as she did so. The smile slowly faded; as well as the colour in her cheeks, when she saw Chris Williams stood in front of her.

“Hi Nicky” he murmured.

Her heart started beating uncontrollably, she had hoped that when she'd gone out that morning that that had been the end of it. She would never see him again regardless of what she had written in her note, she certainly hadn't hoped to see him again. Well not really, she obviously had a great deal of affection and kindness for him and they shared a bond that she felt reluctant to let go but the fact was that this man did strange things to her and she didn't need him as a distraction in her life. There were a lot of unresolved feelings that were much easier to hide away in a little box when he wasn't around.

“Do you want to come in?” she asked weakly

Without waiting for him to answer she stepped away from the door and into the kitchen to carry on cutting up vegetables. She heard the door slam and turned around to greet Chris as he entered the kitchen, taking a deep breath as she did so.

“What you doing?” he asked.

“Cooking” she answered “Boris called and now I need to cook a meal”

“Why?”

Nicky turned back to her cutting “Because some new executive or something or other is coming over here tonight with his wife, Mitzy or something or other, for a dinner so now I have to cook a three course meal in the space of a couple of hours but still life goes on as they say”

She hadn't meant to sound resentful, oh how she hadn't meant to, but she had because quite frankly she was resentful. After two months away she had rather hoped he would want to spent some time alone with her, what with the added fact that their wedding was in two weeks’ time, but no it seemed instead she was expected to cook a three course meal in the space of hours and then get ready to impress some new work partner and his wife.

“Aren't you happy?” Chris asked.

“Of course I am” Nicky quickly replied. She knew her life was far from perfect and nothing like the fairy tales she had dreamed up in her head when she was a teenager but she when had thought that she had found the perfect existence she had had all of those dreams shattered.

She was older now and not a stupid teenager, she was willing to choose a less than perfect life since it was more likely to be the most realistic lifestyle for her, she wasn't supposed to have great passion, she was the sort who was supposed to lead a scheduled, if slightly boring, life.

“How long has he been away?”

“Two months, I said he couldn't stay any longer than up to two weeks before the wedding”

Chris' eyes widened “If I had been away from you for two months I would not be making you cook dinner, I would be taking you upstairs and making love to you for hours”

“Well you haven't seen me in four years and you've managed to control yourself” Nicky said dryly “Besides it Saturday today, it’s not a sex day”

“What?!” Chris exclaimed totally shocked “You have days that are set aside for sex?”

Nicky shrugged “Monday, Wednesday and Friday”

Chris stared in total opened mouthed shock “What has happened to the Nicola Bennett I knew, the one who would never have settled for anything less than perfect?”

Nicky wanted to stab him with the knife “She realised that the perfect life was just a myth and decided to venture on just a tiny bit of happiness”

Chris snorted “This isn't happiness, it's safety”

Nicky spun around to face him “Who the hell do you think you are saying things like that? What makes you think that you of all people have the right to make judgements on whether I'm happy or not? I'm in love Christopher and I'm going to get married in two weeks. This may not be the life I dreamed of when I was a child but I am happy”

Chris moved towards her, she decided to put the knife down in case she really did stab him “I have a right to make a judgement because at one point we had a relationship and I know what makes you happy and it isn't this. You want to be out doing something with yourself Nicky not playing the dutiful housewife and I know that someone with your kind of passion would never be happy having restrictions on when you can let it out”

“Me and Boris base our relationship on more than just sex” Nicky retorted “and our relationship was nothing more than a dirty and sordid secret when it comes right down to it”

“You don't believe that” Chris whispered “you know it was more than that”

Nicky sighed guiltily “I'm sorry, that was unfair but the fact is Chris you broke my heart into a billion pieces, you were the dream and it nearly destroyed me when it was pulled from under me. At least with Boris I know that won't happen, the dream isn't real and I really thought I loved you but the truth is when you think about it we just had a really good passion between us and it might have turned into something fantastic and wonderful but there were too many secrets”

Neither of them knew what to say after that so they both just looked at each other the silence almost killing them both. Nicky wanted to fling herself into his arms and hug him close; it had been so long since she had felt such closeness. She wanted him to know how much she cared about him and how much their time together had meant to her and that she had loved him and that's why it hurt so much when it all blew up. That even though she knew her marriage wouldn't be the perfect fairy-tale that she had dreamed of she really did love Boris and there could be a certain degree of happiness there. It might not be as much as she could have felt with him but there would be something. Most of all she wanted him to just hold her and be there for her. Sometimes things were just so overwhelming that she