Page 47 of Stanton Unconditional

“Natasha, that’s enough. I won’t have you saying that you killed your father. It was a terrible accident, he had an undiagnosed heart problem and it was just bad timing that it happened when it did.”

“I know,” I whisper unconvinced.

“Do you think you can’t trust Joshua?”

I shake my head. “Mum, Joshua loves me. I know that, but on some level, he also loves Amelie, and I don’t blame him for that. She’s beautiful and sweet and they have a connection. If he had slept with someone else, I would have been upset but I would have understood. I know I left him, but I was grief stricken. If he had been honest and told me that he slept with her before he slept with me, I maybe would have been able to handle it better. He thought I would never have found out and he was just going to lie to me forever. I was in the same room with her and she knew he hadn’t told me that he had slept with her just three days before. I’m ashamed to be so stupid. I thought I would have been able to tell if he was hiding something and I didn’t have a frigging clue. I was totally blindsided,” I whisper in a rush.

“Tash, I don’t think he would be here if he wanted Amelie.”

I nod my head. “Yes, he would, Mum, he feels obligated to make me happy.”

She frowns. “Why do you keep saying that? It doesn’t make sense.”

I stay silent as I think. “I never told you this before, but I have never slept with anyone else but Joshua.”

She frowns. “What about Christopher?” I shake my head. “No.”

“Tash, baby.” She pulls me into an embrace and cuddles me tightly. “Is that why you think Joshua wants to be with you, because he owes you?”

I nod as I cry into her chest.

“Tash, tell me what you want to do. How can I help you through this? I don’t know what to do,” she sighs empathetically.

I wipe my tears away. “I want to let Joshua go and hopefully, in time he will decide that it is me that he loves, and he will come back for me and we will live happily ever after. If I go with him now, I will never know if, given the chance, he would have married Amelie.”

“Tash…you might lose him. This could backfire,” she whispers.

I nod. “I know, but if I do, he wasn’t mine in the first place…was he?”

“What will you do?” she asks.

I give her a sad smile. “Try to work on myself. Stop being so insecure, stop having nightmares. Mum, if I go with Joshua now, I am just so insecure we will break up in two months anyway. I don’t like who I have turned into and in all honesty if I go with him and he does decide he wants her…I don’t think I would survive it. I’m so weak.”

She holds me tight. “Don’t say that love, I don’t like you speaking like that.”

“I am only doing this so that Joshua and I can have a real hope of a future together. I need to know that our love is real and not just a teenage tragic love story that ends in divorce in two years.”

“Can you tell Joshua this? When you put it like this, it makes sense Natasha. Make him understand why you are doing this,” she pleads.

Tears fall again. “I can’t Mum, he needs to think that he is free to go to her if that is what he wants. If he knows I still want him, he’s not really free, is he?” I sob.

“Oh baby. Why are you such a deep thinker? Why are you sacrificing your happiness for his?” she whispers into my hair.

I break into sobs. “Because I fear that is what he is doing for me and I love him too deeply to let him do it.”

“Tash… he doesn’t understand why you are doing this. He thinks this is about him sleeping with Amelie.”

I nod. “I know, it’s not. That was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

She kisses my forehead and brushes my hair back again. “Do you believe in fate, Mum?” I question.

She nods as her eyes well with tears. “Yes,” she whispers. “Me too. If Joshua is the man I am meant to be with, then

we will eventually work it out. I just pray to God that he comes back to me and I learn to trust him and build some faith in myself,” I whisper.

“Natasha…my beautiful brave girl. If he has any brains in that pretty head of his…he will never let you go.” She smiles sadly as she kisses my forehead.

I nod my head. “I need him to let me go. Every time I have to hurt him, I die a little inside. I’m not wired to hurt him, I can’t physically do it.”