‘You could have talked to me about it instead of lying,’ I say quietly.
Simon nods. ‘Maybe I should have. I’m sorry.’
‘So that’s all this is … You just needed some ‘me’ time?’
Simon nods.
‘And there’s nothing else?’
‘No.’
He takes a sip of his beer and his gaze wanders to the flatscreen TV where a team he doesn’t particularly support is playing against one he hates.
This is usually the moment in our discussions when I let him off the hook, where I quietly tuck my misgivings and questions away and go back to being good old dependable Erin. Sensible. Measured. But I don’t feel I’m any of those things today.
‘So, this time you need …? You think you’ll have had enough of it by November?’
Simon turns to me, his eyebrows raised. ‘November?’
It’s not even on his radar, is it? That says something. Something big. I stare steadily at him. ‘When we’re supposed to be getting married? The hotel gave us the cancellation date, remember? You said to go ahead and book.’
If I hadn’t been studying him so carefully, I might’ve missed it, but I see a flash of panic in his eyes. It feels as if a trapdoor opens underneath me and I fall through it. ‘You’re not ready, are you? You’re not ready to get married to me?’
Simon opens his mouth. He looks as if he’s trying to work out what to say,which answer will put this awkward discussion to bed the fastest.
‘I want the truth, Simon. You owe me that.’
Simon stands up. ‘Before we do that, I just need to …’ He hurries from the room and comes back a minute later, wearing trousers. I slump further into my sofa. Oh God. If he has to get fully dressed for what he’s about to say, this does not bode well. He sits back down, resting his elbows on his knees, and looks at me seriously.
My stomach wobbles. ‘Is there someone else?’ I blurt out before he can say anything.
‘No! Of course not! Why would you think that?’
Tension has been gathering around my temples all day and now it starts to squeeze hard. ‘Then what is it? Simon … just spit it out, will you?’ In half an hour’s time, my brain will turn to rubber and everything he tells me will bounce off of it. If he’s going to get it off his chest, he’s got to do it now.
Simon swallows. ‘There’s something I need to tell you … About the night of your accident.’
My fingers fly to my skull, feeling the area that was bumped and bruised the most. ‘My accident?’ Suddenly, I’m scared. In my worst predictions of this scenario, Simon had got cold feet, maybe wanted to postpone the wedding, but now I wonder if he had something to do with what happened to me.
He nods. ‘We had a fight … That’s why you ran outside. That’s why you were in the garden.’
‘We … We …’ I can’t seem to process the information. ‘We had a fight? About what?’
Simon stands up and starts pacing. ‘I told you something I should have brought up a long time before. But I could never find a way to introduce it into the conversation and so I just kept putting it off and putting it off until …’He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know, it just felt like the right thing to do to tell you before we got married. It wouldn’t be right to keep a secret that big. It would have eaten away at our relationship.’
Deep inside, I start to shake. ‘Simon, you’re scaring me. Please tell me what it is!’
He exhales heavily and looks down at his feet. ‘It’s about Megan …’
‘Megan?’
‘About that night …’
I cross my arms over my stomach, hugging myself tight. All my instincts are telling me to get up, to run.
‘I was with her … when she took the ket.’ He swallows uncomfortably. ‘I gave it to her.’
‘You …’ And now I’m the one who’s pacing around the living room, hardly knowing what to do with myself.
