‘You told Ethan.’
‘Because I had to.’
‘So how did the Neanderthal do?’ Jasmine asked.
‘He was great,’ Penny said, and she let out a sigh as she remembered that day, how he’d stepped in when she’d broken down, how he’d actually said all the right things. ‘Not just with the injections.’
‘You like him?’
Penny nodded. ‘And I just hurt him,’ she said. ‘I let it slip about the promotion.’
‘You didn’t just let it slip,’ Jasmine said. ‘You did what you always do whenever anyone gets close.’
‘Probably,’ Penny admitted.
‘Try talking to him,’ Jasmine said.
‘I don’t want to talk to him about this, though,’ Penny said. ‘It’s all we talk about and I’m tired of it. I wish I’d met him without this damn IVF hanging over me. I want us to have a chance at normal.’
‘Tell him, then,’ Jasmine urged.
‘I can’t yet,’ Penny admitted. ‘I need to sort out myself first, work out how I feel about other things.’ Penny took a deep breath. ‘I’ve just been going round in circles and I can’t anymore and I’m not going to dump on Ethan. I need to think of myself.’
When Jasmine had gone she rang Mr Dean.
Told him she was struggling with some personal issues and that she was taking some time off.
Just let him put a word wrong now, Penny thought.
‘That’s fine, Penny.’ Mr Dean must have heard the unvoiced warning in her tone, because he told her to take the two weeks of annual leave she had left and more if she needed it, and even though he could be very insensitive, for once he was incredibly careful not to say the wrong thing.
Unlike a certain someone, Penny thought as she stripped off her work clothes and headed for the shower.
Unlike Ethan.
Penny’s eyes filled with tears then because part of what she liked about Ethan was that he did say the wrong thing and wasn’t always careful at times, wasn’t tentative and constantly wearing kid gloves around her, which she hated.
He’d never deliberately hurt her, he’d just been trying to say how he felt about her losing … Penny screwed her eyes closed, tried to block the pain, but she couldn’t do it anymore. There wasn’t a needle in sight but she let it all out then, folded up on the shower floor, crying and sobbing as she mourned. Because it wasn’t just a failed IVF, she hadn’t just got her period that horrible time. For a little while there she had thought she’d got her baby.
While she might feel better after a really good cry, Penny thought, she certainly didn’t look better.
Huddled on the sofa in her nightdress, watching but not watching the news, Penny surveyed the damage. Yes, IVF was expensive, and she wasn’t just talking dollars.
Penny rang her mum and had a nice talk with her, a really nice talk, because her mum told Bradley she was taking the call upstairs and they spoke for a good hour. Louise offered to come over but Penny didn’t want her to.
Next.
Unable to say it, she fired off Ethan a text saying she was sorry for being such a bitch about his job.
And then he sent her a text with a photo attached—a big bear with a tiny dart in it.
Just a bruised ego—all mended now.
Which made her smile, and when a little while later her doorbell rang she wasn’t sure if it was Ethan or her mum, but as she opened it, Penny knew her response would be the same.
‘I really want to be on my own.’
‘Why?’ Ethan said. He’d come straight from work and was in his scrubs and looking far too gorgeous for someone feeling as drained as Penny did.
‘Because I’m such good company.’ She didn’t need to tell him she was being sarcastic. He looked at her swollen eyes and lips and the little dark red dots on her eyelids and he couldn’t let her close the door.
‘I need to talk to you, Penny,’ Ethan said. ‘I lied to you.’
‘That’s fine.’
‘You don’t even want to know when I lied?’
‘No,’ Penny said. ‘I want to think about me.’ But she did let him in. Ethan pulled her into his arms for a cuddle but he felt her resistance and just wanted to erase it, wanted to take some of her hurt, but she simply wouldn’t let him. ‘I wish you’d spoken to my sister. Kate’s been through it many, many times. I wish you’d let people in.’
‘I wish I would too,’ Penny said.
‘Then why don’t you?’ He could see the confusion swirling in her eyes, guessed she was trying to answer that by herself. He was going to make her talk, was determined to sort things out, and he led her to the couch and sat down beside her. ‘You don’t have to keep it all in. It’s not good for you. You said you didn’t get upset when your dad left and then a few days later—’
‘Oh, don’t start.’
‘I have started,’ Ethan said.
‘Of course I was upset when he left,’ Penny said.
‘You just couldn’t show it.’
‘No!’ Penny said. ‘Because Jasmine was sobbing herself to sleep, Mum was doing the same on the couch, and someone had to do the dishes and make Jasmine her lunch and …’ She swallowed the hot choking fear she had felt then. ‘How would falling apart have helped?’
‘It might have stopped you falling apart now,’ Ethan suggested. ‘It might have meant your mother would have stepped up. It might have meant someone stepping in.’
‘I’m not falling apart,’ Penny said, and she meant it. ‘I did that a couple of hours ago.’
He looked at her swollen face. ‘I could have been there for you.’
‘Oh, no,’ Penny said. ‘I’m so glad that you weren’t.’ She gave him a smile, a real one, because there were things she simply didn’t want another person to see, and she actually felt better for her mammoth cry and was ready now to face another truth.
‘So when did you lie?’
‘I was serious about Caitlin.’ The smile slid from her face when she didn’t get the answer she was expecting. ‘Not quite walking-up-the-aisle serious, but serious. And then Phil got sick and the thought of being married, having kids, leaving them behind?’ He was honest. ‘It just freaked me out.’
‘I do understand. It is scary to think of being responsible for another person,’ she admitted.
‘But you want it,’ Ethan said. ‘You’re brave enough to do it your own.’
‘Not on my own,’ Penny said, ‘because even if we fight I do have my sister and mum, and if something happened to me, they’d be there.’ She looked at him. ‘I thought you were about to tell me you had a son.’
He gave her a barking-mad look.
‘I saw you at the cinema.’
‘That was Justin.’
‘He looks like you,’ Penny said, smiling now at her own paranoia.
‘Phil looked like me,’ Ethan said, then changed the subject because she was getting too close to