Jilted by Rachael Johns

him more than she already had. She hadn’t told him ten years ago because she couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in his eyes. Disappointment in her. She still couldn’t bear it. And what good would telling him about something that happened years ago actually do? Could it rewrite history? Would it make him feel any better? Would it make her?
    ‘I got really, really drunk,’ she answered eventually, after thinking carefully about how much to tell him. ‘I cried a lot and then I started to ask questions about myself. My mum had been married three times by that point. She had no inkling of responsibility or real love. What if I was like her? What if what I felt for you didn’t last?’
    Flynn frowned, but even with his forehead lined with creases, he still pleased the eye. ‘But you went to Perth a month before … before our …’
    ‘I know.’ Ellie jumped in, not wanting him to have to say wedding, and her not wanting to hear the word either. ‘And I thought the doubts would pass, but they didn’t. I loved you more than anything, but the future felt uncertain and I just couldn’t go through with it. I can’t explain it any better than that.’
    She wasn’t exactly lying, her mother’s history had worried her. But despite more than a few people predicting she’d turn out like Rhiannon, she’d been determined not to. She’d wanted a lastingrelationship that meant something. All these feelings she spoke about were real – she’d just left some important parts out.
    For a long moment only the squawk of cockatoos high above broke the silence between them. Flynn didn’t say anything, but Ellie could feel the disappointment radiating off him like a raging fever. Thank God she hadn’t told him everything.
    ‘I know you can never forgive me,’ she said eventually, ‘but I want you to know I did love you.’ Still do , she added silently, knowing it for the truth it was. Knowing he deserved so much more. ‘I know it’ll never be enough, but I wanted to say sorry.’
    The lameness of the word hung between them and Ellie wished she could erase it. Hadn’t she already told herself that sorry wouldn’t cut it? She knew if the shoe had been on the other foot, if she’d been jilted, left stranded at the altar, she wouldn’t be sitting here now letting him chat. She’d have hacked his heart out with a blunt machete and fed it to the dingos years ago.
    ‘I do forgive you, Els.’
    ‘What?’ Her ears had to be deceiving her. Or he was playing a cruel joke? ‘What did you say?’
    He took her hand and held it firm as he looked into her eyes. Ellie’s heart pounded so hard she was sure he could see it thumping against her top. His hand was warm, comforting, everything she craved and never found in anybody else.
    ‘I’ve moved on,’ Flynn said.
    Her heart squeezed. Perhaps he was relieved she’d ended it. They’d been so young that, maybe in hindsight, he’d realised what he’d felt hadn’t been love at all.
    ‘Good,’ she said, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. But it wouldn’t go down. In a pathetic attempt to stop the tears she’d hate herself for crying in front of him, she said the first thing that came into her head. ‘Friends, then?’
    Flynn dropped her hand like it was poison ivy. ‘No.’ Shaking his head, he scrambled to his feet. Ellie followed, unsteady. ‘I can’t. I said I forgive you, and I appreciate you sharing why you thought you had to break off our engagement. But I’ll never forget it. Do you have any idea what it was like?’
    She shook her head as his voice got louder, more agitated.
    ‘ Hell , Ellie. It was hell. Not only did I have to come to terms with the fact you didn’t love me – like I thought you did, like I loved you – but I had to deal with the shame and the pity. With people saying I was better off single. That I should sow my wild seeds before I thought about settling down. That it was a mistake from the start.’
    She listened as Flynn