Chapter 1
Carla hadn’t meant for it to come up. At all. She was perfectly fine with leaving the past in the past because you can’t change it. And besides that, she’d enough baggage in her history to fill an airport. Where would you even start if you wanted to bring it all up?
That’s why it was usually easier for her most days to just leave things back there. Or at the very least leave them to quietly live in the deep recesses of her mind.
Of course, it was easier when the people you care about know everything about you. The thing is some people in your life have lived through your past with you. So, they already know about what’s shaped you. It’s just there, it’s something that you don’t have to give air to, it’s just background.
But for others, people that weren’t there when your past was your present, the only way for them to know, to understand, was for them to be told. And that meant bringing yourself back to the moments or the feelings. And in the end, Carla didn’t think it was ever really worth it unless you had to.
Because while there was obviously good in her history, Carla’s past held so much trauma and pain that it tended to outshine everything else.
So, she really did prefer to keep things in the present.
She’s got enough to worry about in the present as it is. Rob is missing, presumed dead or dangerous. Her kidney transplant was a success, for now. She still had some pain intermittently. She was in a mountain of debt with interest payments to begin shortly. And yet, her mind could not be further from any of those concerns.
Because sometimes the present becomes a portal to the past. And then the past explodes into the present creating all kinds of carnage. And unfortunately, that’s what happened today.
And now Carla is sitting alone in her flat, without Lisa. And she doesn’t know where Lisa is, or what she’s doing, and it’s kind of Carla’s fault.
The flat is silent. Betsy had already had plans to stop at a mate’s place for the night and Ryan texted to say he wouldn’t be home. So, she’s completely alone. The silence is suffocating because all it does is play back the events of the day and make Carla feel worse.
The day had started with so much promise, how had it gotten so out of control?
That Morning
She’d woken up in Lisa’s arms, exactly as they’d fallen asleep; surrounded in their love for one another.
The soft morning light came in through her bedroom window. She’d watched how it made Lisa’s hair glow an extra golden shade. Had run her fingertip gently along that splash of light, until Lisa had woken gently.
Her green eyes had slowly blinked awake. “Good morning, beautiful.” Her voice has not yet woken up and was a little scratchy. “What are you doing up so early? My alarm hasn’t gone yet.”
“I like holding you when you’re sleeping. You’re so peaceful. It’s nice.” Carla replied. She didn’t add that she’d been stressed about Rob, or that she had been waking up before Lisa since she’d been kidnapped, just to hold her, and reassure herself that nothing bad had happened. It’s not the right moment, she had told herself.
Lisa smiled. “Best start to the day.”
Then they’d kissed each other slowly, softly, tenderly. Since Rob threw a figurative grenade into her life again, they had been so soft in their demonstrations of love with one another.
Both of them had come so close to losing each other and they knew it. Sometimes that feeling made Carla feel desperate. Like this morning. She’d felt like she couldn’t get close enough, and that she wanted to show her partner how she felt.
She clutched tightly at Lisa and deepened the kiss, sliding her tongue into Lisa’s. She rolled onto her back and pulled the blonde on top of her. Lisa tried to be mindful as best she could of Carla’s wound area given all it had been through. She used her arms to hold herself up so as to avoid adding any extra weight or pressure.
Lisa felt heat pool between her legs as they’d kissed passionately. It had been a long while since they had been able to express themselves and their feelings with their bodies. She desperately wanted to lock the bedroom door, pin Carla to the mattress, and spend all day worshipping her body. But she didn’t want Carla to feel pressure, or to feel bad. So, she had been holding back a little.
She was just trying to be mindful of doctor’s orders, as much as she wanted to let their passion take over, that Carla needed more recovery time. That she couldn’t have that level of exertion. That they needed to wait. And Lisa knew she would wait as long as necessary. Carla was worth it. But then Carla slipped her leg against Lisa’s middle and she forgot proper thought.
She moaned deeply. “Oh, god.” She’d whispered.
“You like that?”
“I—oh my god,” Lisa said as Carla shifted her leg to hit the exact right spot. She wanted to resist. Knew she should. But Carla looked at her with those eyes. Those eyes. The ones that said she wanted to devour her. They were spellbinding. She remembered them from the first time she saw them. Carla marching into her own apartment, all don’t get dressed, and taking full charge.
Lisa hadn’t expected it then, and feels like since that moment she’s never fully found her footing again. And because it had been so long, and because Carla’s tongue was doing incredible things, for one second, Lisa forgot, and she pulled at Carla to bring her closer.
Carla hissed at the pain the moment it hit her. She'd been recovering really well, but unexpected pulls on her body caused her some discomfort. She broke the kiss and adjusted her body. Lisa immediately let go.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“No, I know. It’s okay.”
“I got carried away.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine, I hurt you.”
“Barely. You didn’t mean to.”
“I’m fine. Where were we?”
Lisa’s alarm went off right then, and she’d never been more grateful for an interruption in her life. She felt absolutely mortified that her desire for Carla overshadowed everything. Even if only for a moment.
“Nowhere. I have to shower.” Lisa responded and quickly rolled off Carla and headed towards the en suite.
Carla watched her go, frustrated. “Damn it.” She'd huffed. Damn her body, and damn Lisa for giving up so easily. It’s not like a little pull or tug was going to rip her stitches. She’d recovered enough at least for them to have a little light activity. The doctor had said no heavy lifting or full cardio sessions, but a little kissing and touching? If they went slow, Carla didn’t see the issue.
And she definitely didn’t want to wait any longer to touch Lisa. It had been two months since she’d been able to touch her partner. And she was starting to worry that Lisa was only seeing her as a patient, someone needing help, and not the sexy, strong woman Carla wanted her to see.
Usually, Carla thought that Lisa’s care, attention, and softness with her was definitely sweet, a little bit precious, and lovely.
But it also came with worry, and concern, and, Carla had recently come to notice, a little bit of overbearance. Which, if Carla had been paying close attention to how that made her feel, she’d have seen the very first hint of trouble in the air. And she would have talked to Lisa about it, set the world to rights. But instead, she’d just tried to talk herself into accepting it.
Rather than tell Lisa what she wanted, she was trying to show her. A mistake. Her first mistake among many that day.
She really should have just talked to her, but she hadn’t really wanted to because they’d wrapped themselves in each other as a layer of protection from all the bad surrounding them lately. They had just been through so much, and they were really just trying to hold on to the good, and not let the bad drag them down. But it meant they were also avoiding discussing some things, like Lisa’s desire to protect Carla. And as a result of that protectiveness, Carla’s desire not to tell Lisa how scared she is, so as not to worry Lisa.
No, they weren’t talking about any of that. They were just holding on to each other for as long as they could. Which they’d done, until Lisa had to get up.
Carla stayed in bed, pondering. She wanted to get back to the ease of their sexual encounters. Wished with everything in her power that when Lisa had suggested they make love on New Year's Eve, that Carla had agreed and spent the night devouring, drowning, savouring. If she'd known what was to come, she would have gladly fought through the onset of sepsis.
“Still in bed, eh? Do you want me to bring you coffee?” Lisa asked as she came back in fresh from a shower, disrupting Carla's thoughts. She went about getting ready for the day, picking her clothes out from the drawer she had claimed as her own.
Carla smiled. She loved Lisa having a drawer.
“No, ta, I can get it myself when I get up in a minute.” Carla wondered if she should talk about what just happened between them. She picked at the duvet with her fingers, considered what she would say or if she should say anything.
“Are you sure, I am happy to get it for you?” Lisa had said as she finished pulling her trousers and shirt on.
“I am, thanks. I am not totally unable to help myself you know.” Carla’s annoyance bubbled to the surface.
“No, I know. I just like taking care of you, making sure you’re okay.” Lisa explained, and she’d walked over to Carla, given her a kiss on top of the head and left the room to go make it. She felt guilty that she'd hurt Carla. Just wanted to do anything to fix it. Doing this for her felt like the perfect way to apologize.
At first, Lisa's explanation quelled the contrarian within Carla. But she could not shake the feeling Lisa was beginning to treat her like she was a total invalid who could do nothing. And she didn’t like that. She knew she had to say something. She considered what she might say.
Lisa came back into the room with a steaming mug of coffee, a magazine, and a banana.
“I know it’s a bit early for your banana, but you should probably get something in your stomach before you take your medication.” Lisa said as she placed it all on Carla’s bedside table.
That had well and truly shut Carla up. She still felt an underlying urge to push back again but she refused to let it out. Lisa was just being helpful, and definitely thoughtful. She’d brought what she knew Carla ate, and she’d brought the magazine she’d been reading before. Lisa was just being attentive. Not annoying. Or at least not only annoying.
“Thank you.” She’d said, maybe a little gruffer than intended but it didn’t seem to fully register with Lisa.
“I’ll stop by on my lunch break. I can bring you—"
“Lisa. Seriously. I am a fifty-year-old woman, I assure you, I can manage to feed myself in a day.”
Nonplussed, Lisa just shrugged. “Are you—”
“Yes I’m sure!”
“Okay then.” Lisa replied, and she left the room a little quicker than she needed to.
That had been the next sign of trouble, that she hadn't fully been able to rein herself in despite trying to.
But Carla just thought that Lisa would go to work, and that would give her some much needed space. Then things would settle, she’d get her thoughts in order, and she’d have a chance to think through exactly what she wanted to say. So, she decided to drop it at least right then.
Instead, she’d gotten up, and given Lisa a long, passionate kiss to send her off to work.
"Can you make sure Betsy makes it out the door on time today?" Lisa asked as she gathered her work bag.
"Sure."
Except then Lisa had paused and turned to her. “What are you getting up to today?” She asked before leaving.
Carla shrugged. “Oh, I dunno, maybe see if Ryan’s up for a drink at the Rovers. Maybe pop by the factory to pick up a few things.”
“Carla, no.” Lisa had said. And she said it like it was final.
And Carla Connor is many things. But she is not someone who gets told what to do. So, as soon as Lisa said that, it got her back up a little. “You’re not the boss of me you know, just because I’ve been ill. I’m an adult. I’m fine.”
“Carla. You’re just days out of a major operation. We don’t know where Rob is, and you’re meant to be resting. Just stop being stubborn and stay home and rest.”
“I can’t spend my entire life locked up in my flat because you’re worried about me. I have a life, Lisa.” Carla responded.
In the calm of the present moment, thinking back to earlier that day, Carla can see now that it wasn’t just Lisa’s overprotectiveness that had started this fight. That there was fear and worry around the edges of Carla’s psyche, and that Lisa mentioning Rob had not helped. At all.
“No one is saying that. I’m not asking for you to stay in your whole life. Just for now. For heaven’s sake, can’t you just rest woman.”
“Woman? I’m not some kept lady Lisa. And maybe you get off on protecting me like I’m some helpless so and so, but I’m not. I can take care of myself. If you’re so desperate to help somebody, go to work and find someone who actually needs it! ”
Lisa’s face is incredulous. “Get off on?! You nearly died. I can greatly assure you that I did not enjoy any part of the life-threatening nature of your condition, I did not enjoy watching you suffer in pain, nor have I enjoyed knowing you were taken from your hospital bed without medication and could die because of an infection. I most definitely was not enjoying myself thinking that I was going to lose another woman I love while all I could do was stand and watch. But I am late for work, and I am needed there, so I’m going to go, I hope you have a lovely day.” She says with just enough sarcasm on the end to really stick it to Carla.
“Fine, I will!” Carla says in reply just as the front door slammed shut. Well, at least Betsy was probably up now.
Later That Day
After a couple hours of stewing, and agitatedly cleaning the apartment, Carla contacted Daisy and arranged for her to come round the flat to discuss the issue of the money. At least she could control her finances and get her life in order that way. Once Daisy had left though, Carla still felt on edge. She knew she was pushing herself but she wanted to prove once and for all she could take care of herself and get Lisa to back off.
She decided to further prove her point, and go get that drink at the Rovers. Given her mood, she wasn’t particularly interested in speaking to anyone, so she would just go, get a drink, and come back. It was silly in a way, to go all the way there just for an orange juice, but her desire for independence was starting to really gnaw at the cage it had quietly been kept in.
And it wasn’t that Carla did not love Lisa taking care of her. She did. She does. It’s just that sometimes you reach capacity for certain things. Or better yet Carla thought, sometimes, you just need to know what you’re capable of. Because you’re sick of being in bed, weak and crying. Because you’re sick of your little murdering brother putting the fear of death into you, leaving you wondering what corner he might jump out from. Oh, also that you’re scared of your own self because you still haven’t quite figured out the rage that bubbled up inside you to let you push him down the stairs in the first place. And that last thought...Carla was absolutely not prepared to deal with.
No, this trip was about reclaiming her dignity, her self-worth, and some respect for herself.
So, she got dressed and waltzed into the Rovers and upon hearing “Oh, Mrs. Connor!” from Sally, immediately regretted every decision she made that led to their interaction.
But she was able to quickly sidestep Sally, before she was confronted with Jenny at the bar, wanting to talk about everything and she just finally felt all the weight of everything all at once, so she snapped at her too.
She finished her drink quickly and headed back to the flat. She felt annoyed but confident.
She’d started this push to get things done today so she could prove Lisa wrong, but she also knew that she that she wanted to prove to herself that she could. And she had.
Carla Connor has never been someone who hid from really anything in her path, and she certainly wasn’t someone who hides behind someone else. So, this day was good for her.
Except now she was in pain, damn it. Maybe she had pushed herself a little too far. Not that she would ever admit that.
She got up off the sofa to go get her painkillers and water to get them down with.
Of course (of course) that was when keys jiggled in the door, and in walked Lisa, on the phone, with her hands full of takeaway and an annoyed expression on her face.
Carla felt the moment Lisa realized what Carla was doing, saw the concern wipe across her face, followed by even more annoyance. Lisa’s eyes sliced into Carla but before she could do anything else something on the phone distracted her. Carla was grateful. Hard to convince someone you weren't in pain with your mouth full of painkillers and a bottle in your hand.
“No, I told you at the beginning of the year, no more skipping school. You have to go. I don’t care whose birthday it is Betsy; you can celebrate after that, you were going to a mate’s tonight anyway. But you’re throwing away your future, and I’m not going to let you. Now, either you get back to school, or I come find you, and I suggest you don’t want that second option because it won’t be—Hello? Betsy?” Lisa angrily grumbled then, ran her hands through her hair exasperatedly, and just threw her phone onto the couch.
“That girl is going to be the death of me. Honestly. And you.” Lisa twirled then to look directly at Carla. “You’ve been overdoing it. The sight of you tells me that, never mind Sally waltzing down the street telling me she had a business meeting with you at the Rovers. A meeting! In this state? You’re meant to be resting Carla!”
“A business meeting?” Carla scoffed with her hands on her hips. “She cornered me for one minute badgering me about more responsibilities. It was a business minute, and I promise you it was not by my choosing.”
“But you were still at the Rovers! You’re just days out of surgery, why, why are you so insistent? You and Betsy both, I’d have better luck speaking to a wall. I’m just wasting my time and my words.”
“Why are you even here Lisa, I told you I could take care of myself.” Carla attempted to deflect.
Lisa sighed exasperatedly and turned towards the nearest wall. “Nice to see I’m appreciated. How has your day been?”
“What are you doing?”
“Trying my luck with the wall.”
Looking back now, Carla sees this moment as another opportunity to see and avoid impending doom. Because Lisa had been using humour and sarcasm and it could have totally diffused the situation.
Because Carla felt a glimmer of humour bubble up in her belly. Lisa's sense of humour and cutting remarks usually did bring a smile to her face. But today it was stifled under all the anger and everything else on top of it. The stress. The worry. The physical pain. So, she missed the opportunity entirely.
“You think you’re so funny, eh? Lisa, we aren’t all just pawns in your life. We have thoughts of our own you know, maybe if you stopped trying to micromanage everyone and just let us all be, we’d hear you more because we’d be able to listen without feeling like our heads are being pecked in.”
“Oh, well, sorry for caring that you’re in pain and trying to hide it. And sorry for worrying about the future of my daughter who in the span of a year was targeted by a predator, blackmailed you, got obliterated drunk by stealing gin, skipped school entirely for weeks, and then for good measure, helped Mason’s brothers do over the factory and nearly kill you. Sorry for that.”
“She’s a teenager! She’s going to make mistakes. I made loads then Lisa. We have to give her a little space to make decisions and to learn from all of the mistakes.”
“Oh, and what’s made you subject matter expert on my daughter then?”
“I’ve been a lost teenage girl. I get what Betsy’s going through in many ways Lisa. And the way you handle her sometimes, as much as you care, isn’t going to help. You make things worse.”
“Oh, right, so I’m a rubbish partner and mother.” Lisa’s anger came unleashed. “Thank you so much.”
“I never said that. I don’t think that. I just think you and Betsy are like oil and water sometimes, and—"
“You know what Carla, no. You’re not her mum. Betsy is my daughter. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve never been a mum, and quite frankly you don’t know what it’s like. So kindly butt out.”
It didn’t sound like much. In fact, in the course of any other argument, with any other partner of a single parent, it might not have been anything more than a sentence.
But for Carla, it was the breaking point, after a long succession of frustration, anger, and hurt.
She felt her heart skip a beat. The shock of what Lisa said yes, but also the shock of how much it still hurt her to hear something like that.
In another world, in another moment, perhaps things would have gone differently. If at some other time, Carla had found the strength to catch Lisa up on a few of the details of her history, then maybe they could have avoided this.
But she hadn’t, so they didn’t.
She felt an angry red mist descend upon her, coat her vision. It was not the first time Lisa had said something like that too, which made it even worse. Like Lisa was purposefully poking the wound. A wound she was oblivious to.
Because Lisa didn’t know what she’d said is wrong of course. Carla was a mum, briefly. She loved and she lost, and she didn’t get to have these fights with a daughter she never really knew.
Lisa didn’t know that underneath the anger that was about to explode out of her was a bottomless sadness that Lisa unleashed. But even so, her saying what she said stabbed directly into painful gashes in Carla's heart left from old memories. Battle scars. Carla wanted to throw things, lash out, or curl into a ball and cry.
“Get out.”
“What?” Lisa looked surprised at the strength of Carla’s conviction.
“I said Get. OUT.” Carla screamed then.
Lisa’s eyes widened. Thinking back now, as she sits alone, Carla remembers seeing the pain flash across her girlfriend's face as the words landed. She didn’t say anything though.
Carla saw her eyes get a little glassy, and in that moment, for a split second, she had been glad. Good. At least it wasn't her who was feeling pain. Or at least, not only her. The guilt of it all came later.
Lisa didn’t storm out though. It was much different from their row that morning. She just slowly gathered her phone off the couch, her keys, put down the takeaway on the table. Stopped briefly at the door looking down. She didn't say anything though. And she didn't look at Carla. After a moment she had nodded just once and quietly exited the apartment.
It was worse somehow, the quiet exit. As soon as the door locked, Carla covered her face with both hands and then slammed them against the back of the sofa. After a few moments, she took a deep breath and glanced at the takeaway Lisa had left behind.
Vegetarian sushi roll with low sodium soy sauce. Because she can’t eat raw meat or fish right now, and should avoid salty food. Thoughtful. Caring. Considerate. Lisa was all of those things. And she’d just tossed her out.
Great. Just. Fucking. Great.