Easy As Forgetting The Past.
by Angharad
part: 397

“What would you like to eat?”

“I’m not hungry,” Stella said, looking a bit withdrawn.

“What’s the matter, Sis?”

“Nothing, honest, it’s nothing.”

“If that were true, then why has it altered your mood? You were fine until you fell asleep and had the funny dream. Then it changed and you look sad and tired.”

“Just leave it, please.”

“If I do, it’s with great reluctance, because I care about you.”

“I know. Nothing happened, all right?”

“So it was just a dream, then?”

“Yeah, a dream that’s all.”

“I might not have your skills in feminine wiles or intuition, but I do know when someone isn’t telling me the truth. I’m sorry, Stella, but I think you’re lying to me. That, I can’t accept.” I turned and walked out to the kitchen on the pretext of taking the dirty cups away. It also gave her some space to think.

I was stretching our relationship to the limit, but if she couldn’t trust me enough to level with me, then I wasn’t sure we had a relationship. The next hour or two would be critical. I half expected to hear her ask for the garage keys to get her bike from the garage as she packed to go home.

I stayed in the kitchen and put in the mix for the bread maker. She hadn’t come to me, nor had she left. I began to do some vegetables for the meal. I had no idea what we’d have to eat, but I did some spuds and carrots and then began checking some kale. In the fridge, I found two pork chops and stuck them under the grill, I quickly made some apple sauce and looked in the pantry for a suitable bottle of wine.

Stella sat in contemplation in the lounge, she was obviously having a long and difficult internal conversation with herself. I’d done it often enough myself to know what that felt like. Not a nice experience.

I laid the table and while the dinner finished cooking itself, I poured two glasses of wine and took one of them into Stella. She accepted it and sipped it. Neither of us spoke a word.

Ten or fifteen minutes later, I served dinner and asked her to come through into the dining room, which she did. We ate and drank some more wine without much talking at all.

As we drank our coffee, she looked at me and said, “Cathy, I love you as my sister.”

“I love you too, as my sister.”

“I can’t lie to you, it hurts me too much.”

“Okay.”

“Patrick and I went out about half a dozen times, the last time we both got a little tipsy and I stayed over with him, too drunk to drive really. He wanted sex and I didn’t. He tried to force me, I shouted at him and he slept in the other room. Nothing happened, but I dreamt about it, and it all came back.”

“I’m sorry, Sis, I thought he was a nice lad.”

“He is, that’s the pity of it, but I don’t feel I can trust him again. So that’s it.”

“I am sorry.”

“Don’t be, there are plenty more fish in the sea.”

“Attagirl.” I poured the remaining wine into our glasses and proposed a toast, “To Stella, may she find her ideal man.”

We chinked glasses, “To Cathy, may she always be my best friend as well as my sister.” I choked up after that.

Quite why Stella ended up in my bed, I don’t recall, possibly because the wine makes things a bit fuzzy. I don’t mean we were doing anything, except being company for each other. We slept, that was all. However, I had forgotten she was there, so when I woke up in the night needing a wee, I had a little shock when I realised I had someone in bed with me. Then I remembered, and relaxed. I went to the loo and took half an hour to go back to sleep again.

The next morning I awoke to a hand around my waist holding us tightly together. I felt myself tense a little. “It’s alright, I’m only having a cuddle with my sister,” she said as she spooned into the back of me.

“Okay,” I said, but wasn’t at all sure about what I was feeling.

“I’m not gay, you’re quite safe.”

“I’m not frightened of you, Stella, just a little taken by surprise.”

“Didn’t you ever cuddle with your siblings?”

“It’s difficult if you’re an only child.”

“Erm, yes, it would be. Didn’t you have a teddy bear?

“Yes, but he didn’t put his arm around me.”

“If he had, I think I’d have recommended running for it.” Her comment made me laugh which she did as well. Before long we were lying side by side on our backs reminiscing about childhoods.

“When I was young, I used to go and cuddle with my parents–I’d wriggle in between them. It was stupid really, because I’d get too hot and my dad would grumble that my feet were cold. Mum, used to laugh at that. I do miss them.” I felt a little sad after I said this.

“Yeah, I’m sure you do. I don’t much remember my mother.” Stella sounded sad, too.

“That’s sad.”

“She left my dad when I was about four or five. Simon was inconsolable, mind you, Daddy was pretty upset as well. She went off with his best friend.”

“Oh dear, how embarrassing.”

“Yeah, just a bit. She died in a car accident about three years ago.”

“I’m sorry, did you go to the funeral?”

“No, it happened in Africa somewhere, she was cremated and her ashes flown back. We went to the interment, but it felt pretty remote, as if we were pretending she wasn’t really dead. I know Simon felt much the same.”

“Did you used to see her after she left?”

“No way, Daddy forbade it.”

“That’s very sad. I know when I didn’t see my parents much when I transitioned, I missed them dreadfully. If I hadn’t had you and Simon and Tom to help me, I wouldn’t have made it.”

“Yes you would, it was what you needed to do, Si and me, we did nothing really.”

“Nothing? You kick started me. Without that, I’d still be thinking about it, waiting for the confidence or desperation to get enough to make me do something.”

“Yes you would, Tom would have helped. He knew about it didn’t he?”

“I had to tell him why I tried to kill myself. It didn’t worry him and he was always very supportive, told me he’d helped someone else before and that the university had had several.”

“Did he tell you who he helped?”

“No, he couldn’t do that could he, it would be a breach of confidentiality.”

“Only if it was a student.”

“What d’you mean?” Now I was really puzzled. “Who else is there? Oh shit, it’s not is it?”

“Why do you think he feels so protective towards you?”

“My God, he’s never said anything about it to me, presumably he has to you?”

“I asked him outright. “

“You didn’t?” I sat up in bed, “How?”

“I asked him if he’d been through this before. He told me, which was why he was so hurt by your spat and then leaving him. It was similar to what happened before only she died soon after and he never quite forgave himself. It killed his wife, she died of a broken heart.”

“Oh my God, I didn’t know. I must go and see him and apologise, beg his forgiveness. I feel such a bitch. How long ago was all this?”

“Twenty or so years ago, it was tougher in those days, even though she was a real looker, a bit like you.”

I blushed, “Oh, Stella, how can I even begin to say I’m sorry?”

“I don’t know, girl, but I thought it best if you learned a bit about things.”

“Indeed. I feel a real shit, I really do.”