The Things We Need to Say
Sometimes the things we never say are
the most important.
Fran loves Will with all her heart. They
had a whirlwind romance, a perfect marriage and a wonderful life. Until
everything changed. Now Fran needs to find her way again and teaching a yoga
retreat in Spain offers her just that. Leaving behind a broken marriage she has
some very important decisions to make.
Will needs his wife, he needs her to
open up to him if they’re to ever return to the ways things once were. But he
may have damaged any possibility he had of mending their relationship and now
Fran is in Spain and Will is alone.
As both Fran and Will begin to let go of
a life that could have been, fate may just find a way of bringing them back
together.
Perfect for fans of Katie
Marsh, Amanda Prowse and Sheila O’Flanagan
First Chapter Reveal:
DECEMBER
2004
It started at the party. His hands on my hips,
my forehead against his shoulder. He asked me to dance but he didn’t know how.
We stood together at the edge of the dance floor shaking with laughter at his
two left feet. I don’t know how long we stood there. I don’t know if anybody
noticed.
He’d waited for me, sitting with my friends,
not sure if I’d turn up or not. I wasn’t in the habit of going to work
Christmas parties; I only went in the end because he said he would be there,
because he said he would wait for me. I arrived just as the main course was
being served. I slipped into the seat next to him. His hand brushed against my
thigh as I sat down. He held my gaze for longer than he should have done.
I fell in love with him that night as we stood
on the dance floor laughing, my hands on his waist, feeling the muscles of his
back, the warmth of his body, through his dress shirt, the press of him against
my hip.
That was where it began. I sometimes wonder if
that should have been where it ended.
But later that evening, as I got out of his
car, and I said those words I should have kept to myself, we both knew there
was no going back.
JULY
2016
Fran
She wakes up
in the same position in which she fell asleep, her husband’s arms around her,
their hands entwined on her stomach. Neither of them have slept that deeply for
months. Fran remembers something: a hotel room on a Greek island, a feeling of
hope, of new beginnings. She doesn’t allow the memory to linger. This is what
they have now. They can be happy again if they allow themselves to be.
The hot, humid
weather has broken in the night and she listens to the sound of summer rain on
the roof. Will moves gently against her, pulling her closer. She feels his
breath against her neck and the sensation of hot liquid in her stomach, a
combination of desire and need. This is their second chance – she can’t let it
pass her by.
‘I love you,’
Will says sleepily.
‘I love you
too,’ she replies. It feels good to be saying it to each other again. She’s
never stopped loving him; she just forgot how to tell him for a while.
‘Do you want
me to go and make coffee?’ Will asks, nuzzling her neck.
‘Not just yet,’
she replies, turning around to look at him. His brown eyes are dark,
impenetrable pools. His hair is pushed back off his face. Sometimes she forgets
how much all of this has affected him too. Sometimes she forgets everything
except her own pain. She feels his warmth against her, his strength. She feels
as though the gulf that had been threatening to open up between them for the
last year is slowly closing. She realises they have so much life ahead of them.
So much time to learn to be happy again.
‘I thought I’d
lost you,’ Will says quietly, reaching up to stroke her face. ‘I thought you’d
gone, but recently I feel as though you’ve come back to me.’
She smiles
softly. ‘I thought I’d lost you too,’ she says. ‘This last year has been …’ She
doesn’t finish. She can’t finish.
She watches as
a shadow of anguish crosses his face, as his brow furrows, as his jaw tightens.
She recognises that look, recognises the pain he is trying to hide. She hears
the shudder of his breath. His eyes flick away for a moment; he pauses for a
fraction too long.
‘No,’ he says.
‘You never lost me. I’ll always be here.’
She kisses him
gently then, and feels his hand drift down the bones of her spine.
Later,
showered and dressed, they finally appear in the kitchen; Will’s younger
brother, Jamie, is already sitting at the table drinking coffee. Will and Fran
are hardly able to stop touching each other.
Jamie smiles
at them, raising an eyebrow. ‘You’re up late,’ he says. Fran feels herself
blushing, her stomach flipping over, and turns away towards the toaster.
‘Thanks for
last night,’ Jamie goes on. ‘I needed that.’ Recently separated from his wife,
living apart from his children, Jamie is lonely. Last night wasn’t the first
Saturday night he’d spent with them. Fran knows Will has been throwing himself
into cheering his brother up. She doesn’t mind. Jamie makes Will smile and it’s
good to see him smile again.
As Will and
Jamie start talking about the cricket, she feels her husband’s hand on her
thigh, the warm, solid sensation of him right there next to her. They have been
given a second chance, and they have grabbed it with both hands. She isn’t naive
enough to think everything is going to go back to the way it used to be, but
she knows that they can move on; they can talk and heal together. They can take
another chance on living, find a new kind of normal.
Will
stretches, draining his coffee cup. ‘This weather isn’t going to let up is it?’
he says looking out of the window where the rain is rattling against the frames
like beads in a jar. ‘I’m going to have to cancel the cricket.’ As captain of
the village team it is up to him to reschedule this afternoon’s match. Fran is
quietly delighted that the weather means she doesn’t have to spend her last
afternoon with her husband before she goes away watching him play cricket. Will
gets up and walks into his study, shutting the door behind him.
‘How are you
feeling about tomorrow?’ Jamie asks.
‘Nervous,’
Fran replies. ‘It’s the first time I’ve been on a plane on my own, which is
pathetic at my age, I know.’
‘It’s OK to be
nervous.’
‘It’s the
first time Will and I have been apart since …’ She trails off. Jamie knows what
she’s talking about. ‘I’m worried about him too.’
Jamie smiles. ‘I’ll
look after him,’ he says.
After a moment
Jamie gets up and follows Will into his study. He doesn’t knock; he just opens
the door and walks in. As Fran starts to clear the breakfast dishes she hears
raised voices but can’t quite make out what they are saying. She rolls her eyes
to herself. As an only child she has long since given up on understanding Will
and Jamie’s relationship: best friends one minute, bickering the next. She just
hopes Jamie doesn’t stay too long – she wants her husband to herself for the
day.
Will
It rains all
day, the sky grey and waterlogged and heavy with cloud. After Jamie leaves,
Will pulls Fran towards him, his hands at the back of her head where her skull
meets her neck, where her hair is cut so short.
‘No cricket,’
he says. ‘I’m all yours.’
She smiles,
standing on tiptoe to kiss him.
‘Can we just
watch a film or something?’ she says. ‘I’m tired and I have to pack for Spain
later.’ His stomach drops at the thought of her going away. He wishes he’d
never encouraged her to do it.
‘I’d forgotten
about Spain,’ he says.
‘No you
hadn’t. It’s the only thing we’ve talked about for ages.’
Will had
watched Fran spend the last few weeks flipping back and forth between
excitement and terror at the thought of going to Spain on her own. He knew she
was strong enough to do it; he knew she was stronger than anyone realised. But
he also knew that she wondered if she was ready. When she first mentioned Spain
to him he had seen it as a perfect opportunity to help her begin to put herself
back together again after what had been the worst year of both their lives. He
tried to believe that everything life threw at him was an opportunity.
Fran had been
teaching at a studio in central Cambridge for six years and had been asked to
teach for a week on a retreat in Spain. Will had always supported her teaching,
always tried to put her career on a level par with his own and had done
everything he could to help her find the strength to go back to work in
January. None of it had felt as though it was enough. None of it would make up
for the last year, the things he had said, the things he had done. Suddenly he
is terrified about being on his own. Neither of them have been alone for
months.
‘What do you
want to watch?’ he asks, squatting down in front of the TV.
‘Can we watch Some Like it Hot?’ Fran replies.
Will rolls his
eyes. He must have seen it a hundred times, but puts it in the DVD player
anyway and goes to settle himself on the sofa. ‘Come here,’ he says, and she
sits with him, leaning back against his chest.
‘Are you OK
about Spain?’ he asks quietly.
‘I think so,’
she says. ‘I’m nervous, but I’m excited as well.’
‘Elizabeth
will be there with you, won’t she?’
‘Yes, and
Constance. In fact, I already know most of the other people who are going. I’ll
be fine.’ She pauses. ‘Are you going to be OK?’ she asks quietly.
‘I’m going to
miss you,’ he says, lying back on the sofa, wrapping his arms around her. He
doesn’t know how to answer the question. He wants to tell her everything but
knows that now is not the right time.
‘I’m going to
miss you too,’ she replies.
He kisses the
top of her head as she presses ‘play’ on the remote control. He watches her as
she watches her favourite film, her lips moving along with the characters – she
still knows every word by heart. They used to spend rainy Sundays like this
when they were younger, when life seemed easier.
Halfway
through the film he realises that Fran is crying – fat, salty tears running
down her cheeks.
‘Fran?’ he
asks quietly, pressing pause on the remote.
Fran doesn’t
reply, she just turns around and he takes her in his arms. He feels her body
against his. She clings to him as though her life depends on it and he holds
her close as she cries and cries. He can’t remember the last time he saw her
cry like this. They had both done their grieving in private over the last year
but to Will it feels as though Fran has been holding all this in for months,
shutting herself down. He’s relieved that she finally seems ready to let go.
‘I want my old
life back,’ she sobs. ‘I want to be happy again.’
‘So do I,’
Will whispers. ‘And we will, in time. I promise.’
‘I wish we’d
never bought this house – we had so much hope.’
‘Shhh …’
Will says softly, stroking her hair as she weeps against him.
~~~~~~~~~
Publication Day - 11th May 2018
Author Bio
Rachel
Burton has been making up stories since she first learned to talk. After many
false starts she finally made one up that was worth writing down. After graduating with a degree in Classics and another in English, she didn't really know what to do when she grew up. She has worked as a waitress, a paralegal and a yoga teacher.
She has spent most of her life between Cambridge and London but now lives in Leeds with her boyfriend and three cats. The main loves of her life are The Beatles and very tall romantic heroes.
Her debut, The Many Colours of Us, was an Amazon Kindle bestseller. Her second novel, The Things We Need to to Say, is released on 11 May 2018. She is currently working on her third novel in which the heroine follows the love of her life to live in a city in northern England. It has no autobiographical elements at all.....maybe.
Find her on Twitter & Instagram as @bookish_yogi or search Facebook for Rachel Burton Author. She is always happy to talk books, writing, music, cats and how the weather in Yorkshire is rubbish. She is mostly dreaming of her next holiday....
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