It takes me a little time to quite hear what Hannah has told me. Then she gives me a sharp look, as if affronted I’ve not reacted sooner to the news that she is potentially carrying a child that isn’t her husbands.
“Hannah… how?”
It is the wrong question to put to her, and her sad sniffles are replaced with a touch of anger. “How do you think Izzy?!” she snaps, then goes back to looking morose again. “I… I slept with someone else.”
“Who?” I demand, not taking kindly to her tone despite the pit opening up in my stomach.
Hannah licks her lips, but I already know what she is about to say, so I decide to say the name for her.
“Justin?”
My sister hesitates, then looks down solemnly and nods.
I lean back into my chair and exhale slowly, wondering how to untangle the extra mess that Hannah has added to the mess I am already in with her husband. The only difference between me and my little sister is I have been sensible enough to take medication after letting her husband repeatedly fill me with his seed.
“It was just the one time Izzy,” she whines, and then asks forlornly “What do I do?”
There is only one option open as far as I can see. To save her marriage anyway.
“Abortion?” I suggest, hating the word as it lingers in the thick air of the kitchen. Hannah immediately looks up, aghast and with her hand protectively covering her stomach despite there being nothing to show.
“No! No that’s… I don’t want to… this child doesn’t deserve that for my mistake. And Will might be okay with it. He’s always wanted a family.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “His own family Han,” I tell her. “Not one you’ve made with another man.”
This sets off her tears again and I sigh and get up from my seat, moving to take one next to her so that I can put a betraying arm around her shoulders. Would it make her feel better if I told her the full truth? That her marriage was a mess and had been since I’d drunkenly decided to fuck her husband on her wedding day?
After the loss of mum I know I can’t. The family is fragile and any extra weight would break us all apart. Maybe it’s selfish, but selfish is better than the alternative. Or at least I think so – I have no idea how Will will feel when he finds out.
And he needs to know this truth.
“You need to talk to Will then,” I tell Hannah soothingly. “But you need to prepare for the worst Han. If you’re going to keep this baby then he deserves to know the truth. It’s not fair on him to let him think that you’re carrying his child.”
Or maybe it would be. After all he’d cheated on his wife with her big sister. Maybe this was a penance he had to pay for that. It just makes me wonder what mine will be when all this is done, and what will be left of the wreckage for me to make a life out of.
Hannah stays a little while longer with me but we don’t go over what she needs to do. Instead I talk a little about pregnancy and what she might expect to happen over the next nine months, and how her body will change. She’s more mentally prepared for this than I would have given her credit for, and as she leaves I wonder if I’ve underestimated my little sister.
All I’m left with when she’s gone is the anxiety of what’s to come next. How will Will react? Will he tell her about what he’d been doing with me? That he was no better than his wife? That, if anything, he was far, far worse because of who he’d been sleeping with. Repeatedly sleeping with, in fact.
I don’t communicate with Hannah or her husband over the next few days, mainly out of cowardice. Instead I sleep poorly and await the coming tide of chaos I know is just around the corner.
It’s four days past her visit when I receive a message from dad telling me that Hannah is staying with him for a while. That she’s told him she’s pregnant, and that there are some ‘complications’. Which, I think, is a very dad way of understating what has actually transpired.
When I visit them both after work with the girls, Hannah is disconsolate. Ensuring Jo and Gabby are suitably distracted by my father in another room, she tells me Will had thrown her out after a huge argument, apoplectic with rage that she refused to have an abortion to save their marriage. That he’d cried in front of her, telling her how badly he’d wanted a family and how she had betrayed him by getting pregnant by another man. A man he had told her he wasn’t comfortable with her being around given their past.
The fact that she doesn’t swing for me suggests that, for whatever reason, Will has decided not to tell Hannah about us. And I can’t decide whether that’s a good thing or not.
There’s little I can say to my sister to make this better. I tell myself that this would be the reaction of Will regardless of his own infidelity, but I do wonder whether Hannah would have strayed if I had not been repeatedly falling into Will’s arms. “I’ve made such a mess,” Hannah eventually sniffs. “And I don’t know what to do to get out of it.”
That, free spin I think, makes two of us.
Hannah, eyes wide with desperation, reaches over and takes my hand in hers. “Izzy,” she starts pleadingly. “You have to help me.”
I bark a laugh and shake my head and look at my sister with some degree of affection. “How can I help you Han? This is something between you and Will honey.”
“You could talk to him.”
My teeth bite into my lower lip and try to think of the most polite, least guilty way of telling Hannah no. I eventually plump with “I don’t think that would be wise Han.”
“Please Iz. He’s always telling me how much he respects you, how impressed he is with how you hold yourself. Honestly I think he liked you more than me, even before this.”
It’s like I’ve been punched by words. Maybe Hannah is saying it just to convince me to do this for her, but even then I can’t help but feel a little elation that Will would think of me so highly. Regardless, the idea of getting any more involved than I am is a mistake.
“What would I even say Hannah? You won’t change your mind, so why-“
“Because I want him to be the dad.” she interrupts. “I know I made a mistake. I was stupid. So stupid. But I love him and I wish… I just want to make it right. It doesn’t have to be like this. No one will ever know the child is anyone’s but his.”
“Han,” I gasp, startled by her naivety. “You think that’s really going to happen? That he will just accept this? That’s not even considering Justin and what he might say.”
“I’ll sort Justin out.”
“No, you won’t.” I tell her sternly. “That’s what got you in this mess in the first place.”
I sigh and look at the table. What could I possibly say to Will? That he has no right to be pissed at Hannah? That the only difference between the two of them was that the woman he was cheating on was a little more sensible with the use of birth control?
Eventually I exhale and close my eyes. “I can’t promise anything Han. I can’t. But I’ll try and speak with him.”
She leaps from her chair and wraps her arms around me, sobbing as she thanks me for being “the best sister anyone could hope for.” They’re words that make me feel ill and nauseous even as I consider what I could possibly say to Will that might make him change his mind.
And how I can possibly save a marriage I secretly hope will fail.
Between the two of us we agree Sunday night as the time for me to go and visit her husband at home, with Hannah agreeing to come to mine and look after the girls while I’m at work with the intention of going afterwards to attempt to reconcile with her husband on her behalf.
As my short shift ends I feel a nervousness in the pit of my stomach as I drive to his home, an anxiety I can’t quite place. I’m worried whether he’ll blame me, I realise that after all this is done I won’t even have him as a friend. That I’ll never get a chance to tell him how I feel, and that my love will be unrequited.
It’s dark when I reach his home and park on his drive. I knock at the door and hold my breath as I wait for him to answer. When he finally opens the door I exhale and just about refrain from putting my hand to my mouth in shock. Will is usually so well kept, but his well cropped beard is now slightly shaggy and his beautiful eyes are sunken and have none of the usual light in them. His white shirt is creased and his dark jeans the same, and his general appearance is so unlike what I’m used to.
“Hey,” I say timidly. “Can I come in?”
“Why?”
“Because I want to talk to you.”
Silence for a time before he breathes through his nostrils and steps away from the door, leaving it open for me to follow him in.
When I enter the living room I’m surprised by how spartan the room looks without the pictures Will had clearly removed from their wedding day. Funny, I think, that it’s the realisation that Hannah has cheated that made him remove them, and not the fact that he’d cheated that very day.
I take a seat away from him, wanting to make it clear that I’m not here for anything other than support for Hannah and for him. Will hardly seems to notice, his arms resting on his legs and his head bowed. It’s like the weight of the world is on those broad shoulders, and I almost feel like I can see what weight is holding him down.
“I’m sorry,” I decide to start with.
Will looks up at me and shakes his head. “I can’t even be angry at her. I act angry. And I guess I am a little bit, simply because she wants to keep the baby. But I know, deep down, that I’m even worse. She only slept with Justin once, she says, and I’ve done so much worse.”
“You… we have,” I reply, correcting myself to share this burden with him. “Why didn’t you tell her?”
His head drops again and I see that slump visible once more. That huge weight I’m forcing him to carry. “Because she’s gone through enough after her mum passed. Because she loves you and telling her what we’ve bonus veren siteler done will lose her the one woman left she looks up to.”
That hurts. It hurts worse than almost anything he could have said to me. At this moment I feel like the worst piece of shit. Being the coward I am, I try to focus on why I’m here, and not face the reason why I’m such a terrible sister.
“She asked me to come to see you,” I say, voice weak. “Asked me to see if I could convince you to take her back.”
Will grunts in dark amusement. “She still keeping his child?”
I take a deep breath, steeling myself for this challenge. For Hannah, I remind myself. I need to do this for the woman I’ve potentially robbed happiness from with the man she loved first.
“Yes. I don’t think she’ll change her mind-“
He suddenly stands up, interrupting my flow. I remain seated, watching him clench his fists and bare his teeth. His eyes swim with pain and anguish, and I can see how badly this is hurting him. It’s not the cheating that’s causing him grief, it’s the fact that Hannah is insisting on having another man’s child.
“She… knew,” he wheezes in pain. “She knew how I wanted to start a family with her. And she told me that she wanted to wait a few years. Enjoy ourselves a little before we settle down. Yet she gets pregnant with his child and now she’s super fucking protective? Now she can’t fucking wait?”
Will takes a deep, ragged breath and puts a shaky hand to cover his face. My heart breaks to see him like this, and I slowly unfold myself from the sofa and stand up before him. I reach out, and place a hand on his arm.
It’s the wrong thing to do. Will physically recoils, taking a step back and dropping his hand from his face to show me the anger that has replaced the pain which was there before.
“What are you even doing here Izzy?” he snaps. “You here to gloat? Or are you back here to be fucked again?”
I just about keep hold of my temper, inhaling through my nostrils as I quell my immediate reaction to bite back at him. He’s hurting, I tell myself, and when we’re in pain we lash out at those we are closest to. But God does it take some doing.
“I’m here to see what can be done to save your marriage,” I tell him calmly.
“You didn’t seem to have a problem about ruining my marriage each time we fucked.”
Another deep breath. It’s almost like he knows how to press my buttons – he wants a fight, and I refuse to give him it.
“That was different. That… it’s complicated. You know it was complicated.”
“Do I? Was it complicated in the club bathroom? Or when you came round here all pissed off because I wouldn’t go home with you? Maybe you were just drunk and horny?”
I can feel my blood start to boil and I can tell he knows his purposefully provocative words are having an effect because he takes two steps towards me. He’s close to me, and no doubt can see how my nostrils flare and how anger flushes my cheeks red.
“I wasn’t drunk and horny,” I say through clenched teeth. “If you knew me at all you’d know how I feel. I don’t think anyone has ever got me better than you.”
It’s an attempt to diffuse but Will seemingly doesn’t care. He wants a fight. He wants to be angry. I know full well from when I found out my ex cheated on me, because any emotion is better than the feeling of betrayal and loss that comes with finding out the person you cared for didn’t want you. For Will it’s more complicated, I’m sure. But that doesn’t mean how he’s feeling is any less toxic.
“Yeah, I know you. You’re the kind of sister who fucks her brother-in-law on his wedding day.”
Bingo – he does know me after all. Because he knows just what to say to get the dynamite to explode.
“Fuck you, Will!” I shout. “Fuck you. Do you know how hard it was to come round here for Hannah? How difficult it is to be here and to genuinely try to save her marriage?”
He laughs darkly, eyes glimmering with hatred. Not for me, but for the world. “Oh I’d love to know what you’ve done to try and save it Izzy. What inspirational quote have you said to convince me that I’m not in a doomed marriage? How have you tried to convince Hannah that I don’t want to raise fucking Justin’s child? We both know why you’re here.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. It’s the only thing you’re good at, after all, because you’re certainly not a good sister.”
“Come on then,” I hiss, stepping forward and reaching for the zipper of his jeans. “If that’s all I’m good for then lets get it over with. If that’s all I want from you then this is why I’m here, isn’t it? To be fucked?”
It’s an anger-driven attempt to call his bluff, but I’m furious and not thinking that this is clearly a terrible idea. Neither is Will as he pulls me against him, grabs the hem of my scrub top and pulls it over my head.
This isn’t why I’m here. It really isn’t. I had fully intended to try and save their marriage. But in that moment some twisted part of my deneme bonusu veren siteler mind thinks that if I do this then, at least for a short time, he won’t feel so shit. That at least he’ll stop saying such hurtful things at me.
But it’s a foolish wish, and I know it won’t be like the last time we fucked in his house. That had started harsh and softened. This wouldn’t be nice. I can tell by the way he pushes me back on the sofa.
His hands roughly reach to the elastic of my bottoms and he yanks them off my legs along with my panties. Will is on me immediately, dropping his jeans to his thighs to free his hard cock, and with my legs parted and pushed back, he slides himself hard into my wet pussy. There’s no foreplay, no playful teasing. My bluff has been called, and now the price needs to be paid.
Instinctively I want to touch him. I don’t. Instead I grip to the edge of the sofa cushion and hold it tight, fighting that urge. It’s clear he feels similar about me, avoiding touching me anywhere other than where completely necessary – he even keeps my bra on while he pumps his cock into me.
“Don’t you fucking dare kiss me,” I hiss up at him, my heavy breasts jolting in the cups of my white bra as he takes me roughly.
“Like I want to” Will grunts, strong arms planted either side of me, holding his powerful body away from mine. I’d have hated that before, but this isn’t anything like those times. Everything about this is passionless.
For once, it really is just sex. The only noises we make are grunts as he slaps hard into me. The only touching that between my legs. Strangely we don’t look away from one another though, seemingly in a battle of stubbornness over who wants this less.
It’s him that breaks that eye contact, dropping down to look between my legs as his bare cock slams into me hard and slow. I follow his gaze, seeing his hips rock and rotate to take me. How his bare skin slaps against mine.
Despite my heart not being in this moment, my body is blissfully unaware of such doubts. My nipples are rock hard against the fabric of my bra, and my pussy soaked just from the idea of having sex with the man I’m in love with. Indeed, if this kind of rough sex was some kind of roleplay then I’d be in my element.
Instead it’s sad. It doesn’t stop me moving my hips to meet his increasingly vicious thrusts, though.
Eventually Will pulls out and for a second I think he’s done and it’s over before it can go too far. It isn’t. He pulls me onto the floor and turns me around, pushing me back into the cushions of the sofa. This time he has to touch me when he enters me, his firm hands grabbing the width of my hips as he starts to fuck me again.
This irrationally annoys me, and as my body is jolted into the sofa I call back to him. “Didn’t want to look at me?” I grunt through his deep, hard thrusts. “Remind you of how inconvenient I am?”
“Shut up,” he growls, one hand reaching from my hips and gripping my hair. I let out a moan at the roughness despite myself, though I hate giving him the satisfaction. But my body loves the possessiveness, and when he pulls back harder on my hair my back arches and I let out a longer moan before I control myself and bite my lip until it hurts.
I want him to spank me. I want his fingers to pinch my nipples until they ache. I want to feel teeth sink into my shoulder blade. I want to cry out that my body is his, that I don’t want anyone other than him to touch me.
But now isn’t the time for such wishes. Chances are there never will be a time for that again after this.
My nails dig into the pillows as I get close. Will has sped up, pushing himself closer to his own release. I know his tell, I know how all of this works now – he’ll make me cum just as he does, our bodies so in tune it’s like they’re meant to be together.
This time it isn’t like that. As I hear Will’s grunting get more ragged he pulls out and places his cock against my round ass. I’m not quite at my own release, and I feel my grip on it slip just as he starts to pump ropes of his thick seed over my behind.
He groans out as he covers me, a feeling I’d have probably relished any other time. Now though… it feels like the worst thing he could have done and I feel stuck somewhere between anger, betrayal and emptiness.
I crawl away from him, my torso dragging along the sofa towards where my clothes are. Behind me I can feel his eyes on me, though he cannot see the tears now stinging my eyes and I don’t want him to either.
“Got what you wanted and now you’re going?” he asks coldly as I hear him stand up. But I don’t have any anger for him left – just sadness that, after all that has happened between us, this is what it has come to. I keep my back to him as I shakily pull on my shirt, wiping my eyes with the sleeve as I do.
“No snarky comment? Or you thinking what you’re going to tell Han-“
I stand up on slightly unsteady legs to turn around quickly to poke a finger into his chest. “Are you fucking blind?” I shriek. “I’m in love with you, you fucking cunt. This… all of this just… I just wanted you to feel something other than the hurt I know you’re feeling, even though it’s hurt you fucking deserve. You’re cheating as well, and you’re just as bad as me.”