I slide my key into the keyhole and walk into the darkness and an apparent cesspit judging by the smell. This time I didn’t cry on the train back to Brighton. I didn’t have to worry about having people stare at me. I just don’t have any more tears left to shed for the mess my life has become. Instead, I sat as still as a statue while I let go of the fragments of my heart. On the last train ride down my heart had been smashed, obliterated. But then tentatively, I’d allowed it to reform, to grow and beat again. This time I’m the one breaking it. I’ll carve it out and bury it in a deep grave. A tomb for my love, hopes, and dreams.

How could I not run?

How could I stay?

“Who’s there?” Dan’s voice is gruff, hoarser than I remember it being the last time we spoke. I flick the light on and see why. Cigarette packets litter the place, along with empty beer cans, clear glass bottles once full but now empty, and various sandwich packets, some still containing contents long past their sell-by date.

“It’s me,” I whisper. I don’t know what I’m going to find here. I’ve ruined everything between us, and no longer know what to expect. His bare feet and legs come down the stairs and I breathe a sigh of relief when the rest of him comes into view. Thank God, he has clothes on. Well, boxers.

“What the hell, Faith?” He’s not pleased to see me. No smile. No hug. No Dan shaped band-aid to stick on my hurt. He stops and stares, his body frozen on the bottom step. His eyes sweep along me from top to toe and I can’t interpret the emotions locked within their depths. It takes forever for him to speak and then he sighs loudly, finally defrosting his frozen body and rubbing a hand through his hair. “What the fuck are you wearing, Faith?” I’ve still got the black floor-length dress on. Another dress to burn.

“More than you,” I counter.

“It’s my house.”

I drop my shoulders, finally letting them relax. “Am I not welcome anymore?”

Dan comes down the last step but doesn’t come any closer. I swallow hard as I view the chasm of distance between us.

“Jeez, Dan, you look awful.”

“Thanks. Always one with the compliments, aren’t you, Faith?”

“I’m not being rude, but you just look... Where have you been? I’ve been calling you. Abi didn’t know where you were...” I trail off. What does he look like? Broken? Destroyed? “I’m sorry.” The tears finally come. “I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you.”

He shrugs a half-hearted lift of his shoulders. “I haven’t exactly been giving you much choice.”

“It’s not the point. I should have come and made you talk to me. That’s what best friends are supposed to do.”

“What happened, Faith? Why have you run here again?” He rubs at his face, and lines I’ve never noticed before etch into his skin.

“Dad turned up at the Faircloughs. He’s pissed that Al left me half of the shop.” Dan stares at me, but doesn’t speak, so I carry on. “Why didn’t you tell me? About the will?”

“Because I’m pretty mad at the old man right now. He shouldn’t have done that without discussing it.”

“Because you don’t want to be near me anymore.” Honestly, it’s just as well I shut off my newly healed heart on the train because his look would near on kill it. It slices clean through me: regret, despair, and hurt.

“Because I can’t pretend I just want to be your friend. And you’re in love with someone else.”

“I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation I think Eli and I are over for good.”

“Because your dad turned up?”

“Because I’m never going to fit with them, or him. It’s just a dream.”

Dan’s arms fold across his chest. “So, you came running back here? Just like you always do. Run back to Dan, good old Daniel will fix everything.” The tendons in his neck stand out and he crosses his arms across his chest.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go, Dan. You’re all the family I have.”

His eyes, normally so soft and welcoming, harden as he pauses. “That’s not true anymore, Faith. You have other people who love you now.”

“You want me to go?”

“Yes.”

Shit. A sob I can’t control builds in my chest, forcing itself to the surface. I walk for the door, forcing my head to remain high. He’s pushing me away because I hurt him. I’ve wronged him. In my moment of desperation back in the summer I hurt him in a way I never could have guessed at.

I open the door, turning to face him. “You will always be my best friend, Dan. I hope you remember that soon.”

He nods just once, and I walk out straight into Eli’s arms.

“What are you doing?” My legs tremble.

“What the fuck are you doing? You promised me you’d never run again.” His eyes blaze wild, his lips pressed into a harsh line I don’t recognise.

“Eli, it’s too much for me. I can’t belong there, or with you. We’re from different worlds.” My heart hammers but my mouth is saying the truth.

“You speak absolute shit, Faith. You run when things get a little bit hard. You refuse to fight.”

A scorching red flame kindles inside me. “Don’t you fucking dare talk to me like that.”

“What?” He rounds into my space, and the small doorway seems to shrink around us. “Don’t tell you the truth? Give it to you straight?” He sighs and scrubs a hand through his hair. “Yes, I will. Because I love you. You. Everything about you. And I don’t care what anyone else thinks, I don’t care what gets thrown at us. That’s what love is. It’s everything. It’s every damn thing I feel about you and nothing else.”

Tears spring down my cheeks. “I care, Eli. I care what other people think when they see us together, and I will never be able to switch that off. I will always be dragging you down. People will see me and think that you’ve settled. They will feel sorry for the intelligent man with the kind heart who is with someone like me.”

I push past him. I can’t look at his face, at the hurt and anger there. Dan slams the door on us with a reverberating bang. It’s like I’ve lost everything I’ve ever had. A hollow aching emptiness settles in my chest and I battle for breath. There is no air left.

“Faith. Will you stop walking away from me!” Eli calls after me, but I can’t focus on it, can’t grasp it, can’t hold myself steady in the storm that’s pulling me in every direction.

“Well, well, well, Faithy Hitchin, making a scene.” I blink into the dim light watching a shape materialise from the shadows. Not just one shape, more.

Aiden and the same group of friends that tormented me at school for years.

“Fuck off, Aiden.”

From behind me there’s a harsh hiss and before Aiden can even work his mouth into one of his smug comebacks, Eli has launched forwards, his body smacking into Aiden like a bulldozer.

“No!” The scream rips from me. “No!” I’ve seen this before. Heard the crunch of bone and witnessed the spurt of blood.

“DAN!” I scream as loudly as I possibly can, my throat ripping with the sound, hoping that Dan will still be by his front door and able to hear me.  Eli lands a tight punch to Aiden’s nose and he doubles over, blood squirting between his fingers.

“You fucking prick.” Aiden’s words are muffled but still clear.

Eli kicks out at him with his foot, knocking him off balance. “You’re scum, stay away from her.” It’s the last thing he gets to say because in a swarm Aiden’s cronies launch themselves on him, quickly bringing him down. Fists and feet flying, as they lay into him.

“Dan!” I scream again and then push myself forward trying to get to Eli.

A punch lands on my cheek. My eye feels like it’s close to exploding, but I push further and further trying to get to Eli on the ground. Covered in blood, he’s groaning and gurgling, but I lay myself on top of him, happy to take the hits instead of him. They don’t come. One by one, the attacking bodies are pulled away and the air around us clears. I sweep my fingers along his face, wiping at the dirt and blood. “Eli, Eli.” My tears land on his skin, mixing with the blood.

“Faith, come on, let’s get him inside.” Dan lifts me off Eli like a rag doll, and on trembling legs I watch as he lifts Eli and walks him back into the house. Aiden and his crew have run and by fuck they better be far away. Murder boils in my veins, uncontrollable and furious. I want vengeance for everything they’ve ever done to me, but for hurting Eli more than anything else.

Dan places Eli on the sofa and heads to kitchen, returning with hot water and towels. I kiss and murmur half-whispered prayers to Eli. “I’m sorry.” I blink at my tears, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. “This is what happens to the people around me.”

His busted lip curves in the smallest of smiles and I breathe a sigh of relief. His fingers catch my wrist and he brings my palm to his lips.

I start when Dan shifts behind me. “You really love him,” he states, but it’s not a question.

I swallow painfully. “Yes.”

“So fight for him, like he does for you.” I turn slightly and meet Dan’s gaze.

“I’m sorry.”

Dan leans down and kisses the top of my head. Eli’s eyes are closed, his long dark lashes caked in blood. “I just wish you’d chosen me for me and not because I was your rebound from him.”

Eli’s eyes flicker open and despite the swelling already puffing the skin of his face, the blues settle on my own with burning intensity. Wincing, he sits up, clutching his middle. He’s got cracked ribs, I’ve seen that before.

“What did he say?” His voice is a hoarse whisper.

Dan speaks for me. “I said I wish I hadn’t been her rebound after you broke her heart.”

“You slept with him?”

Inside I crumple to a ball as Dan continues. “Didn’t she tell you, Your Lordship? It was the first thing she did. She always comes back to me. I’m the one she runs to.”

“Fucking shut up, Dan.”

Eli stands, well sort of, side stepping all over the place as he lurches for the front door.

“Eli, wait, please.” I hold my hand out to grab him, but he shrugs off my touch.

The look on his face as he turns at the door slices me straight in two.

Then he’s gone, and Dan and I are left with shattered fragments of every moment of our lives to that point.

But this time I refuse to accept it. It’s time to run in the opposite direction. Towards him.

“Eli, wait.” I run after him. The stupid dress holds me back, slowing me down, which is impressive considering he’s injured. The Land Rover is parked on the curb and I wish he’d got into it earlier and never run into Aiden. I wish none of this had ever happened.

I wish most of my life hadn’t happened. But it has. It is what it is.

He heads towards the pier, stumbling in the dark. In the end I stop and rip at the bottom of the dress, tearing up the hem to give myself more freedom and then I run again.

“From the moment I met you, Faith, you’ve consumed me.” The sound of my footfall clatters after his along the pier. This is where I told him my truth. Funny that now it comes back down to this. “I was in love with you, with my heart and soul.” The past tense in his words is resoundingly clear. “You were it for me.”

“Eli,” I start, but he holds a hand out to stop me.

“No matter what I do or say, you are determined to run. And I get it. I’ve told myself I will always run after you. Run anywhere to be with you. But—”

“I’m sorry. I was hurt.” Shit. I can’t breathe.

“So every time we row you run? Every time you’re hurt are you going to sleep with someone else, or run back here to Dan?”

I want to smack him in the face, but the damage has already been done. “You knew what I was like when you met me. I never hid who I was.”

Droplets of rain begin to fall, sliding down the bare skin of my arms, soaking through his bloodstained shirt. There will be no kissing in this rain.

“That night of the ball, I was destroyed. Knowing what I’d done to you, killed me. I wanted to die from the guilt I held. But you were here, with him.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“It was everything like that. You told me you two had only been friends. I asked you outright and that’s what you said.”

“Elijah! You’d broken my goddamn heart.”

“No. You’ve broken mine.” His words floor me. I don’t know how I’m still standing. “Faith, I would have given you everything.” The rain hits us harder and I shudder and shiver, but whether it’s the cold rain on my bare skin or his words I don’t know. “I would have given you everything I have. I would have fought for you with every breath in my body.”

Our tears slide and mix with the rain. They fall down his face as quick as they slide down mine.

“But you lied.” It’s the final sentence in a closing argument as he finishes our relationship once and for all.

I nod. I did lie. I told him to his face that Dan and I were only friends. It was the truth, but there are shades of grey there that can’t be glossed over with a white lie.

“I was hurt, and I’m sorry.”

“You won’t ever fight for me, will you? You won’t fight until you face your past and what that bastard did to you.”

“I want to.”

My unspoken words hang between us. But I can’t.

He turns, and I watch as he walks away and while every shred of pain in my body is telling me to run after him, that look in his eyes, the one of sheer defeat roots me into place.

***

I WALK IN THE RAIN for I don’t know how long. The dress is nothing but shreds when I knock on Abi’s door. When Adam opens it he’s just in PJ bottoms and his face falls. “Jesus Christ, Faith, what are you doing?”

I sob, my chest lifting with hyperventilating gasps. “Is Abi here?”

He pulls me in and runs to the sofa to grab a blanket, wrapping it around my shoulders. “Abs!” he calls up the stairs and a moment later there’s the distinct sound of grumbling and the slap of slippers along their upstairs floor. “Unless a celebrity has died, I don’t want to be woken, you know the rules.”

She stops on the stairs when she sees me. “What the hell? Jesus, what’s wrong with your eye?”

I lift tentative fingers to my swollen eye. Funny, I’d forgotten about that. It hasn’t even hurt until now. I wince as it throbs under the gentle pressure of my fingers. “Dan told Eli I slept with him. Aiden’s friends beat the crap out of Eli, and then I broke Eli’s heart.”

I start to sob. Big uncontrollable heaves.

“Well, jeez, Lady Fairclough.”

I frown through my tears. “Why are you calling me that?”

“He proposed tonight, didn’t he? That was the plan?”

I glare at her although my eyes sting. “How the hell do you know what the plan was?”

“We are tight with His Lordship.” She comes closer and wraps her arms around me. “How the hell have you messed this up, Faith? He loves you. I’d go so far as to say he has a borderline obsession with you.”

“He’s left me. He said I lied.”

“You ran again, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but that’s not what’s wrong.”

“What is wrong then?” She guides me to the sofa and Adam, probably very wisely, walks back upstairs.

“Everything. I’m a mess. How can I be normal and have a normal relationship?”

Abi picks up my hand and holds it tight within hers. “What Aiden did to you, Faith.  It was wrong. So bloody wrong. But are you going to let it dictate your whole life? Eli loves you, and you love him, otherwise you wouldn’t be sitting on my sofa in a shredded evening dress. You don’t belong here anymore.” She sweeps back my drenched hair. “We love you, the kids love you, and you will always be my best friend—and Dan’s when you two sort this out—but, this isn’t your home. Not anymore.”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Don’t you?”

I want to die. It would be easier than this. Easier than the hurt, the guilt, the despair.

I swallow hard, my hands shaking within her tight grip. “Can I stay here tonight? I need to go to the police in the morning.”

She smiles, it’s sad and watery, but it fills me with relief. “I’ve been waiting a long time for you to say that.”

“I need to be free, Abs.” Then I cry, I sob out every bitter repressed memory I own and my old friend holds me until I’ve run myself dry.

Eli is gone and I don’t know what words I can say to change the mess I’ve made. Maybe it’s too late for words at all.

But tomorrow I will fight.