Ciara springs from her seat and rushes from the room to fetch the ‘proof’ she claims to have. I look at Alex, who quickly turns his head from watching her leave to look at me. He looks so sad. So incredibly sad that I want to apologise to him for telling him. I want to apologise for putting the demons in his head. It was bad enough that they were in mine to begin with.
‘Heidi …’ he says and shakes his head.
He looks so sad. So disappointed in me.
‘I didn’t want you to see me as a victim,’ I blurt out, voicing my worst fears publicly. ‘I didn’t want you to know how damaged I was. Maybe you wouldn’t want to be with me. Maybe you wouldn’t want to have a family with me. I was so messed up, for so long. But I can promise you, whatever happened to Joe, it wasn’t anything to do with me. I’m safe to be around. Our daughter is safe with me.’
He has his head in his hands and I just want to get through to him. If I don’t have him on my side then I might as well have killed Joe because nothing else will matter.
I pull back just a little and reach for him, put my hand to his cheek.
‘Let’s get away from here. Now. Ciara’s not right. She’s been setting me up, Alex. I feel it. She’s been making me out to be crazy, but I’m not. We can go to the police and tell them that she’s been setting me up.’
I’m aware I’m speaking too fast, the words tumbling from my mouth. And I know that to Alex, who surely must be trying to take everything in, this will only serve to make him wonder if I’m mad, after all.
I can hear Ciara move about upstairs. I can hear her footsteps creak on the floorboards overhead. She’s in Joe’s room. I hear her swear.
‘We don’t have long. I’ll run and get Lily and we can go,’ I say, trying to work out how I can get to my daughter without alerting Ciara to my plans to leave.
‘I can’t do that,’ he says, to my horror.
I blink at him, wondering if I heard him right.
‘I can’t run from this any more,’ he says. ‘I never should’ve tried. It only made things so much worse. I’m so sorry, Heidi. I’m so sorry for not telling you before now. It was me. I did it. I killed him.’