Work Text:
The Ring Or Lack Thereof
Aaron felt almost like a teenager, or how he imagined a teenager would have felt given that he had missed out on this at that age. He smiled as he read the text again ‘Lovely time last night and you’re right I did get top marks in biology, so I know exactly how to do things. Looking forward to next time, long day ahead, xx’. He could feel himself getting a little excited about the possibility of a biology lesson in the near future. He felt good, really good as he had explained to the counsellor. What he had not explained was the fact that he had not seen Robert since threatening to kill him in the hospital. He realised that it had been an over reaction. Although he would have possibly done him harm had he got near him when Liv told him that he had visited her and had managed to convince her that he had a massively guilty conscience. The thing about Robert’s conscience was that it had an impressive ability to carry guilt.
Still, he was in better form now and Liv had settled back in school, things were looking up.
‘Eh, Bernice where’s the fire?’
Aaron recognised the voice, would recognise it anywhere. His eyes moved involuntarily from his phone. His cheeks flared while at the same time his breath caught in his throat and his stomach went into a knot that any farmer would be proud to put on a rope. His eyes were transfixed on the spot where Robert had placed his left hand on Bernice’s shoulder. He re-focused his eyes but the result was the same. Robert Sugden was no longer wearing a wedding ring on his finger.
Usually when it came to fight or flight Aaron did not have a choice but this time he left the café as if the four horsemen of the apocalypse had come bounding in from the toilets. He all but knocked his ex husband and Bernice over as he went out. He needed air, he needed to do his breathing or this could evolve into a panic attack, above all he knew he needed to get to the CBT forms where he would have to try to make sense of the intricate spaghetti junction his thoughts were forming.
He was standing at the sink drinking a glass of water and keeping his eyes closed. His heartbeat was returning to normal. The forms were upstairs and although he was not sure he wanted to he felt he had to try to make sense of things, there was nothing rational about his reaction. He had called everything off and with solid reason. He had actually handed his ring back to Robert. He didn’t like to admit that every time he had seen him since that he had covertly checked Rob was still wearing the ring but realised that it must have been the case. Ok he had work to do, he could handle this, he would be able to reason it all out, he had to.
‘Aaron, is this the way it’s going to be now eh?’, Robert had charged through the door.
‘How the hell did you get in?’
‘Oh, so you can talk then, that’s good, the door was open’
‘Do one Robert’
‘No, you almost knocked me down in the door of the café, I know I’ve been an ass but I want to know why’
‘Oh I don’t know Robert, take you flippin pick, cheating, lying, manipulating and oh yeah almost killing my sister’
It was taking a supreme effort for Aaron not to go over and deck him.
‘Just go Robert, go’
‘Aaron, I am a lot of things, maybe all you mentioned there but I would never do anything, anything to hurt Liv, she’s like a sister to me…’
‘Shut up, you are nothing to her, you are nothing to me any more’
‘Yeah, you keep saying that Aaron, all the flipping time so well done on being clear on that, it is a far cry from telling me you would always love me but hey’
‘Get the hell out Robert before I…’
‘What Arron? Kill me? You threatened me before mate, it’s getting old’
‘Well you are the one who ends up nearly doing it eh, Paddy, Liv, me, Katie, no wait you were successful with that one’
Colour drained from Robert’s face, the venom in the onslaught had hit its target. He rubbed his eyes with his hands and made for the door, he did not want things to finally end like this but there was little point in staying.
‘Why?’
Robert did not turn back, he had answered that question before and there was nothing to add. He walked out the main door and was half way up the path.
‘Why did you take it off?
He turned around and saw Aaron, in his features he saw a portrait of how he, himself, was feeling. Instinctively he felt his ring finger and his blood ran cold.
Aaron saw Robert had no answer and he turned back and slammed the door. Once inside the flat he sat on the couch, drained and resigned to not going anywhere near CBT forms. It would take a very well qualified person to unpick every single thought of his now. Slowly he took off his shoes, something Robert always insisted on, and lay on the couch with his eyes closed. An unmerciful pounding on the door brought him to his senses.
‘Aaron, Aaron, open up….I know you’re there….I’m not leaving until you do’.
As much as he wanted to ignore it he knew Robert and he knew he would stand there pounding even if the entire village stood at the gate looking at him.
‘There, see there it is on my finger’, Robert was frantically pointing at the ring. If Aaron felt a fraction better than he did he might have smiled.
‘Go away Robert’
‘I didn’t take it off Aaron, well I did, when I was having my shower and then I had to leave in a hurry and didn’t get a chance to put it back on’
‘I’m not bothered’
‘Aaron, anybody that from here to Leeds that heard us earlier would beg to differ.’
‘It was daft of me Robert, you should be free to take it off’
‘I don’t want to…do you want me to?’
‘You never paid much attention to what I might want before’
Robert smiled in a half-hearted way and Aaron looked at him from under his eyebrows. Hurts slowly melted and the ice of the encounter was thawing when Robert’s phone rang.
He looked at it and quickly silenced it.
‘Go Robert, someone is looking for you’
‘She can wait’
‘Ah, it was her’
‘Umm yeah, yeah it was Rebecca’
‘Your priority now, or so you said in front of Liv’.
Robert detected the bitterness in the tone and felt that bitterness and anger were better than indifference.
‘I was lying, Aaron, I couldn’t not say that’
‘She is carrying your child’
‘I know that and I want to do right by the little one when it comes along but when I look at Rebecca I seethe because of what happened’
‘You have to stop’
‘I’m being honest Aaron, she is a constant reminder of the biggest mistake I ever made’
‘You have to stop whatever you are doing up there’
‘Huh’
‘Come on Robert, I’m not stupid. You are playing them like fools, I thought as much a few weeks ago, then the thing with Liv, those pills. The brandy, everything. I know what I said earlier but Robert, you are not a bad person, I didn’t fall in love with a bad person and if you keep this up somebody will get hurt and this time you will be responsible even if it is someone unintended’
‘Aaron, look, I… I’
‘You are better than that, you don’t need to be the man in the big house Robert, not anymore’
‘I’ve nothing Aaron, literally nothing’
‘You have the best part of five hundred thousand’
‘I know, but I don’t care about that, it wasn’t about Home Farm I just wanted them to pay’
‘For what, come on Robert’
‘Everything, Andy, us being the way we are, everything’
‘Takes two’
‘Yeah, it does, look I’ve stopped, well that anyway’
‘Good, because you would not handle inside’
‘I’m not drugging him anymore, tablets are gone although I do hear that you’re mate could fix me up with some’
‘What?’
‘Alex McDreamy or McSteamy or whatever he is’
‘Huh’
‘Greys Anatomy, God Aaron come on you’re the gay one, I get a pass on this being bi’
‘Do one and well about Alex’
‘Hey, it’s none of my business’
‘So he’s not in your cross-hairs’
‘I didn’t say that’
‘Robert….’
‘No Aaron he is not. I mean ok, part of me would gladly rip him apart but I want you to be happy and that has to be without me. No, that’s ok, well I hate it but it is all on me. If Alex helps you to be happy then I really have no right to say anything’
He sat looking at the ring on his finger, thinking that maybe it was approaching time he did take it off. Aaron could read his mind and he knew that was not what he wanted.
‘I need to make myself happy Robert, we all to be able to do that’
‘Yeah, yeah we do. I best be off but look, I’m finished trying to harm them’
‘And their business?’
‘That’s different but nothing is illegal as such’
‘Well, once it is legal then’, he smiled.
Robert got up off the couch, nodded and headed for the door.
‘Rob…’
‘Yeah’
‘Are you busy later only I think Liv would like if you came round for tea’
‘I’d like that a lot, thanks’
Robert looked at his finger as he left the house. That ring would have to be surgically removed in future he thought. Aaron picked up his phone and saw a message from Alex. He would deal with that later. How, he did not know. He texted Liv to let her know Robert would be for tea. His sister was thrilled, thinking how to make best use of this kept her occupied through Maths, French and English.