Chapter 1
Betsy rests her chin on the edge of the toilet seat. She hasn't stopped throwing up since she opened her eyes this morning. She couldn't let her mum see her in this state, so she decided, despite feeling dreadful, to get up, have a shower, and come into work. That, she realises, was a very bad idea. She has only been at her desk for five minutes this morning and has spent the rest of her time in the bathroom with her head down the toilet. Every time she tries to get up from the floor, her head spins and she throws up again.
"Betsy! Are you skiving in here?" Carla shouts, and Betsy clears her throat.
"Yeah, I'm ill. I think I've caught that bug that's going around. I probably got it off Fiz"
Carla pushes the door open. It only takes one look at the girl's face for Carla to know that she does not in fact have a bug but she is suffering from a severe hangover. Her eyes are glazed, and there is a pungent smell of alcohol coming from her despite the shower she had this morning. "Have you been drinking?" She asks, and Betsy thinks about lying, but her head is pounding too much to even try and bullshit her way out of this one.
Betsy pulls her head up from the toilet to look at Carla. "I'm sorry, Carla. I went to Sabrina's last night and... Ugh, I'm going to be—"
Carla closes her eyes and turns the other way as Betsy is once again sick in the toilet. If it is one thing that Carla can not deal with, then that's sick. She has to stop herself from retching too. "Oh for God's sake!" She mumbles with disgust, and Betsy slumps against the wall. "What on earth are you thinking, drinking at your age?" It's ironic really that she has the audacity to shake her head and jump on her high horse as she was doing a lot worse than sharing a bottle of cheap alcohol with a friend at a sleepover when she was Betsy's age, but as a responsible adult, it is a question that needs to be asked.
Betsy's eyes fill with tears. "I know I shouldn't have, but with everything that's been going on lately, You know, with you and Mum, and it being my other mum's birthday last week, it all got too much. My mum should've been celebrating her birthday with a cake and a party like any other year, but she can't... it's just not fair. I miss her so much, and nobody understands that—not even Mum."
Carla rubs her back as she retches again. As much heartache as Betsy caused her by ruining a good relationship before it even begun, Carla's heart still goes out for the girl. She hasn't yet forgiven her for the drama that she caused the other week, but she stuck to her word and didn't fire her like she really wanted to do. Betsy has been through a tough few years, but as sorry as Carla feels for her, she can't make as many excuses for her behaviour as Lisa can, and what she said to her the other night while sitting on that bench still stands, but a night getting drunk with her friend can be excused. Carla was a teenager once, so she understands that part at least. She knows that if it had been any other machinist she had caught in here too hungover to do any work, then she would have hit the roof and sent them home without pay, but there is something about Betsy that reminds her of herself at that age, and maybe that is the reason she has a pronounced soft spot for her.
"I understand that it was difficult for you last week, but I don't think drinking yourself silly is the answer, do you? And as for me and your mum, that was a one-time thing, and we're over. She does love you, you know, and I'm sure that if you spoke to her about Becky, then she'd understand because she misses her just as much."
Betsy shakes her head. "I still can't believe she forgot her birthday. If she cared as much as you say, then that wouldn't have happened, would it? She's been too occupied with work... and you to think about me and Mum."
"Come on, Betsy, that's not fair. Everything your mom does is for you; you're the centre of her whole world, and if you spoke to her about how you're feeling instead of, well... shouting the odds, I think that you'd feel a lot better. Why don't you go home, eh? Don't tell the others, but since I'm in a good mood, I'll even pay you for the day off"
"Thanks, Mrs. Connor, but I can't go home. My mum has the morning off, and the last thing I need is her pecking my head asking why you've sent me home"
Carla lets out a sigh, and she finds herself offering to let Betsy sleep off her hangover at her place. Like mother, like daughter, Carla thinks and stops herself from saying it out loud. "Well, you're no good to me in this state. I have a sofa for you to nap on and a fridge full of food. Just don't make a mess and keep the noise down because Ryan will still be in bed. He won't be best pleased if you wake him"
Full of self-pity, Betsy wipes the tears from her face and allows Carla to help her up onto her feet. "I won't be any bother, I promise," she says sincerely, and Carla believes her, but before she lets Betsy grab the keys off her, she moves them out of her reach.
"Oh, and one more thing."
"What's that?"
"Think about what I said about your mum. Don't push her away; she's trying her best."
"Whatever." Betsy rolls her eyes, with a hint of a smile. Maybe Mrs. Connor isn't so bad after all.
*
"Bye, Mrs. Connor!" Kirk beams from ear to ear as Carla locks up. She smiles back at him and shivers in the cold.
"See you in the morning, bright and early!"
The winter sun is cold, but it makes the cobbled streets look a bit more jolly than that horrible fine rain they have had all week. Carla hates this weather with a passion. There is truly nothing worse than a British winter, and if she didn't allow Michelle to talk her into having a big family Christmas in Weatherfield, then she would jet off to another country to spend Christmas alone, getting a tan. Christmas is not her favourite time of year, and that is no secret to anyone. She would happily let it pass by without a second thought, but this year Michelle is coming back from Dublin to spend the holidays with her and Ryan, and they are expecting Rana and Kate to come and stay too. It is still a while off yet, though, so Carla hasn't allowed herself to think about it too much. She had just finished finalising an order when she realised that she had three missed calls from Betsy. In the chaos of getting the order ready to go, she completely forgot about Betsy nursing her hangover at her place, and now after the missed calls, she is worried that she has broken something, stained something, or nearly burnt the apartment down. Carla calls Betsy back on the way home, and she picks up the phone immediately.
"What's happened?" Carla asks without so much as a hello.
"Nothing's happened. I just woke up, and there's a woman here looking for you. She nearly gave me a heart attack"
"What do you mean, looking for me? Who is she, and more to the point, how did she get in? Did you leave the door open?"
"No, I didn't. I'm not completely useless, you know! I don't know who she is, but she's here waiting for you. Anyways, I've got to go. Bye!" Betsy hurries off the phone, which adds to Carla's confusion even more. As Betsy hangs up, Carla swears through her teeth and closes her phone, shoving it into her pocket as well as her cold hands.
5 minutes ago she was elated that with the help of the factory lot, she managed to get an order done in record time. She was so happy that she had let everyone go home early as a thank you for their hard work, but her good mood has since evaporated. Betsy is a handful, and if letting her stay at her place out of the goodness of her heart has come back to bite her in the arse, then it won't just be Betsy getting an earful; it will be Lisa too. Teenagers will be teenagers, but Betsy has made Carla's life a nightmare lately. Carla, though, still can't help but care about her, even if her better judgement tells her to keep her at arm's length and to treat her the same as her other machinists. Not only does Betsy remind Carla of her younger self, but she is Lisa's daughter, and that is the main reason that Carla allows her to get away with murder. When Betsy found out about her and Lisa, she made a mountain out of a molehill, and Lisa, of course, pandering to her child's every demand, ended things with her prematurely, and that stung. Carla laughed it off; she put on a brave face and got on with her life while pretending that it didn't hurt her as much as it really did, but God, did it hurt, and it still does.
As Carla walks towards her apartment, she notices Lisa's car parked outside. "This is all I bloody need," she sighs to herself. She hasn't seen nor heard from Lisa since they met up at the rovers for Lisa's half-arsed attempt at an apology—if you can even call it that. The friendship that they shared before they slept together is now non-existent. There has been no texts between the two, phone calls, or spontaneous lunches at the bistro. Nothing. In fact, when Lisa sees Carla in the street she either crosses the road or she turns around to walk the other way. Carla stops in her tracks because Lisa is getting out of her car now. She can't help but think how beautiful she looks. She always did love it when she wore her hair down. Deciding that she cannot face Lisa just yet, she turns on her heels and walks in the opposite direction. She needs to go to Dev's for a few bits and pieces anyway, and figuring that Betsy probably called Lisa for a lift home, then she will be gone by the time she has her last-minute shopping.
It is when Carla is walking back towards her apartment with two bags of shopping that she sees that Lisa's car is still there. For a second she debates whether she should turn back around and find somewhere else to hide, like the rovers, but she shakes that thought off. That is her home, and she is not about to be scared off by Lisa. So with her head held high but her jaw clenched tightly, she marches straight for her apartment and up the stairs.
She opens the door to see Betsy and Lisa sitting and talking on the sofa. She cannot help the scoff that she lets out as she looks at them. "Making yourself at home there, are you, Lisa?"
Lisa opens her mouth to reply, but she doesn't get a chance. A brunette, loudmouthed, familiar face is emerging from Ryan's room and bouncing straight towards her. When Carla starts shrieking with pure joy, Lisa watches the scene unfold in front of her, trying to put two and two together.
"Chelle! What are you doing here!?" Carla forgets all about her failed love interest sitting on her sofa as she grabs Michelle for a bone-crushing hug. She has not seen Michelle for close to a year, and while they catch up regularly over FaceTime and phone calls, she has missed her dearly. The day that Michelle left, it was as if Carla had lost her right arm. "What are you doing here?" She asks again, still not believing that her best friend is standing in her living room. She is looking at her with pure astonishment-asking herself if she is really here or if her eyes are deceiving her.
Michelle is laughing as she rocks them both from side to side. She cups Carla's face between her hands and grins from ear to ear. "I'm back!"
"I can bloody well see that! Why?"
"Charming," Michelle says in mock offence, and Carla playfully pushes her.
"I don't mean it like that. I just can't believe you're here; Ryan never mentioned anything."
"That's because I told him to keep schum. I'm moving back; I've found a flat behind the rovers. I didn't want to tell you and get your hopes up until everything was a done deal, and besides, I thought this would be a nice surprise."
"Ah, come here." Carla pulls her back in for a hug. This is something that Carla never saw coming. She always assumed that Michelle was happy in Dublin—well, that was what she would tell her on their weekly phone calls anyway, but now that she comes to think about it, she had found it strange that Michelle was hard to get in touch with lately, and every time that they did manage to have a phone call, Michelle was clambering around her house like a headless chicken. Over Carla's shoulder, Michelle sees Lisa and Betsy looking at them both in confusion. Lisa looks away and clears her throat, clearly uncomfortable. Michelle lets go of Carla and turns to Betsy.
"I think I nearly gave this poor girl a heart attack the way that I came up here like a bull in a china shop, but Ryan gave me a key, and I didn't expect anyone to be home."
Carla laughs. "This is Betsy; I let her crash out here for a few hours as we were slow at work today."
"It's ok, Mrs. Connor. I told my mum the truth" Betsy speaks up with a sheepish look on her face.
Lisa nods. "Yeah, and she's grounded, but thank you, Carla, for letting her stay here. I really appreciate it, and it looks like it has done her the world of good."
"It was nothing," Carla says to Lisa. They both fall quiet, just looking at each other. The silence is suffocating, and the awkward tension is so thick that everyone is uncomfortable in it. Lisa is fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, and Carla wants to look away, but she can't. When Michelle clears her throat, it pulls Carla back to reality, and she forces a smile onto her face that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Sorry, Chelle. This is Lisa, my..." She trails off, then starts to laugh. It is a laugh of anything but amusement, and it just makes the tension even more unbearable, but she can't stop. She pinches the bridge of her nose and straightens up. "Sorry, I shouldn't laugh, but Lisa's my ... kind of neighbour? local copper? I mean, it's kind of hard to put my finger on who she is to me now that we don't even have a friendship. Who would you say you are, Lisa?" Carla's happiness has turned to anger, and that has resulted in pure pettiness. Michelle is pressing her lips together, unsure of what to say, and Betsy is smirking behind her hand, enjoying the scene in front of her.
Lisa gets up from the sofa and self-consciously straightens the front of her vest. If truth be told, Lisa was not ready to see Carla today either, but what could she do? She wants the ground to swallow her whole, but Lisa can't let anyone know that. Her face has not fallen once; she has mastered the art of hiding her emotions, and even though she will more than likely go home and cry in her bedroom like a heartbroken teenager, she can't let anyone know how she is really feeling, so she turns to Carla with forged confidence, and she also forces a smile.
"I'm...I'm going to go. Thank you again for helping Betsy out. I'll see you around."
"Yeah, I won't hold my breath," Carla replies in spite, and Michelle's face is a picture of confusion as Lisa sees herself out, followed by Betsy and Carla falls onto the sofa with a heavy sigh.
"What the hell was all that about?" Michelle asks.
"That's a story to be told after a few bottles of wine. Anyways, I think we have more important matters to discuss... like you moving back here!"
*
After a few glasses of wine and a long chat with Michelle, where she filled her in on why she's back, how she's back, and everything in between, Carla's beating chest has calmed down. Coming face to face with Lisa wasn't what Carla had prepared for today, and it has left her with that funny feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she doesn't want that very awkward run-in to put a dampener on having her best friend back, but she can't help that Lisa is consuming her every thought.
As Carla and Michelle sit on the sofa together, flicking through the TV channels like old times, they settle on watching "Say Yes to the Dress." It used to be one of their favourite guilty pleasures—well, all those rubbish shows were really. They spent many nights relaxing on the sofa with a bottle of wine and some rubbish reality show on the TV. They would drive Steve and Peter up the wall with them on repeat—Peter even joked once that The Only Way Is Essex was what drove him to drink. Despite the high of her best friend being home, Michelle knows that something is bothering Carla and has been since her little outburst with Lisa. Carla isn't one to normally keep things from Michelle; she is normally an open book, but she never told Michelle about her feelings for Lisa and how things went down after they slept together. It wasn't an intentional move to keep it from her, but there was no point in filling her in on her latest drama because what was done was done—nothing Michelle could have said could have changed that.
Michelle glances at Carla, who is paying no attention to the TV. Normally she would be commenting on how foul the soon-to-be brides were and how hideous their dresses were, but right now she is in a trance, staring off into the distance. Michelle leans forward to take the remote and turns the TV off.
"What did you do that for? I was watching that," Carla says, and Michelle crosses one leg over the other.
"No, you weren't. You've been in your own world since Lisa left. Are you going to tell me what is going on?" She raises her eyebrows, and Carla is about to deny that anything is bothering her, but Michelle knows her well enough to know that something is not right with her. As Carla opens her mouth to speak, Michelle interrupts her. "Don't give me any bullshit, Car. I know you, and I know that something is up."
"Nothing is up, so to say; I just have a lot on my mind. I've been run off my feet at the factory, and there are other things that I have to figure out."
"Like Lisa?" Michelle gets straight to the point, and she can't help but chuckle at the look on Carla's face. "I wasn't born yesterday. What the hell was all of that about earlier? Who exactly is she?"
Carla sighs deeply, taking a sip of her wine. "That's a complicated question with an even more complicated answer."
"Have you found yourself a new man, and she's his ex or something?"
"God no!" Carla laughs loudly, still keeping her cards to her chest for the time being. There's something quite comical about watching Michelle try and guess what their dynamic is.
"Well, it wouldn't be the first time, and I'm just trying to connect the dots. I thought that maybe you'd found yourself a nice man—not that you have told me about him, and I guessed that Betsy was his daughter and it was another Leanne and Simon situation. I don't know, Carla. Put me out of my misery because I can't figure it out," Michelle says.
Carla strokes the neck of her wine glass and tries to hide the amusement on her face. "Ok, so... hmm, where do I start?" Carla ponders and then decides just to come out with it. She is not worried about confessing to Michelle that she has slept with and developed feelings for a woman because she knows that Michelle would not even bat an eyelid; she just finds it very hard to put into words how she feels about the detective, and talking about her is something that she doesn't find easy—especially after what has happened between them. "Lisa and I became good friends, and I ended up developing feelings for her."
"Ok," Michelle nods, waiting for her to continue. The neutral expression on her face makes Carla laugh. "What's so funny?" Michelle asks, genuinely confused.
Carla puts her wine glass down. "Nothing, it's just that you don't seem surprised." She didn't think that Michelle would be screaming the place down, but she thought that she would be a bit more surprised than she is letting on.
"Surprised? Like I said. I know you, Carla, and I remember you and that Jodie girl. You were obsessed with her! and don't get me started on Hannah Nesbit"
"Oh my God, Hannah Nesbit! I completely forgot about her!" Carla is still laughing, and Michelle is too. Carla hides her face in the cushion she's been hugging all night. "How could I forget about Hannah Nesbitt!?"
"I wish I could forget about that hard-faced chav. The image of you shoving your tongue down her throat behind the bike sheds is permanently engraved into my brain"
"We were drunk! Paul stole us that bottle of vodka from the corner shop, remember? You threw up in Mrs. Potts beloved flowerbed that night"
"Oh, she went wild when she saw me the next day. She chased me home with her sweeping brush and ratted me out to my dad"
Both women are in a fit of hysterical laughter now. Carla's sides are hurting, and she's finding it hard to stop the laughter. Every time she calms down, she pictures old Mrs. Potts in her dressing gown chasing a teenage Michelle down the road. She leans into Michelle's side and rests her head on her shoulder. "I'm so glad you're back, Chelle. I'm sorry I've been such a Debbie downer tonight."
Michelle raises her hand to rest on the side of Carla's face and kisses her head. "So what happened with Lisa then? Did you tell her you had feelings for her?"
"I did more than that. I marched over from the factory after a pep talk from your son, and I basically jumped her bones. We slept together, and it was bliss. Not the sex... although can I just say it was the best sex I've had in my life, but I felt so happy to get everything out in the open, and she was happy too. I really thought we would make a go of things, but she comes with a lot of baggage."
"You're used to that though, aren't you?" Michelle is stroking Carla's hair, and Carla smiles sadly.
"Yeah, I suppose I am, but her baggage is heavy. She was widowed a couple of years ago, and Betsy, who you met earlier, is still grieving the loss of her mother, so when she figured out what happened between us, she hit the roof. She started saying that I was trying to replace her mum and that Lisa was disrespecting her memory... it was a mess, and Lisa, being Lisa, ended things with me before they even started. She coddles the girl too much, jumping at her every request, even if it means putting aside her own happiness"
"That little brat," Michelle mumbles under her breath, and Carla props herself up onto her elbow so she can see Micheelle properly.
"Oh, you have no idea how difficult that girl can be! I did try to see it from her point of view, and it must be hard seeing her mum get into her first relationship since Becky died, but she's dead, and she isn't coming back. She just expects Lisa to be lonely and unhappy instead of moving on with her life. It's not fair, Chelle. It's not fair to me, and it's not fair to Lisa, but what can I do?"
"Did you have this conversation with Lisa?"
"I tried to, but she got defensive, and it blew up in my face, so now we don't communicate at all. It is like nothing ever happened." Carla is telling her side of the story, and her eyes start stinging so Michelle tightens her arms around her. "I just feel so stupid getting so upset. I mean we slept together once, but it is so much more than that"
"Don't ever feel stupid for your feelings" Michelle tells her. "And anyways, i'm here now. I'll help you to get over her"
Carla pulls out of her arms. "No way! You can get that idea out of your head right now. There is no way in hell that you're dragging me out on a night out so you can play wing woman"
"What harm can it do? Come on"
"No!" Carla repeats. "I'm not interested in anyone but her" She huffs and Michelle prods her in the side.
"Oh you do have it bad, don't you?" The teasing in her voice makes Carla blush like a giddy teenager and she hides her face behind her cushion. " I keep saying it but i know you Carla Connor and i know when you're in love"