Things We Never Say by Sheila O'Flanagan

life.’
    ‘How many times have I told you to stop selling yourself short?’ he demanded. ‘You deserve the best and you should remind yourself of that over and over.’
    ‘Right.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, though.’
    ‘You’d manage fine. You’re like your mom. A trouper.’
    ‘I’ve never heard her called that before.’
    ‘She’s a strong woman.’
    ‘Maybe. But I can’t help thinking she let you down, Pete.’
    Pete took her by the hands. ‘You and your mom came into my life when I needed you most,’ he said. ‘Just because things didn’t work out the way I’d hoped doesn’t mean I won’t always love both of you.’
    ‘Please don’t let Claudia hear you say that,’ begged Abbey. ‘She’s your wife and you love her more.’
    ‘I adore Claudia,’ said Pete. ‘You know I do. There’s no need to worry. Love isn’t like a pie, Abbey. It doesn’t have a set number of slices. There’s always enough to go round.’
    ‘You’re beginning to sound like Mom now.’ But Abbey was smiling as they walked out of the café together, and for the first time since Cobey had left, her head wasn’t aching, even if her heart was still sore.

Chapter 9
    Abbey liked to sing in the shower. Given that she had the sort of voice that wouldn’t have got her past
American Idol
auditions, the shower was the safest place for her to belt out the Venezuelan joropo music she’d grown up with, as well as the songs from the badly dubbed musicals she’d watched with her mom as a kid. Today, two weeks after her break-up with Cobey, was the first day she’d felt able to sing. And she was passionately informing herself that she was going to wash that man right out of her hair.
South Pacific
had been one of her mother’s favourites, and she’d regularly sung this particular number when she was giving Abbey her bath as a child, belting out the tune as she lathered the shampoo into her daughter’s long blond hair.
    ‘I’m not sure I’ve entirely succeeded in sending him on his way,’ Abbey murmured as she eventually turned off the water and wrapped herself in a bright yellow towel. ‘But at least I don’t feel like I’m going to burst into tears every few minutes.’ She’d found that talking out loud to herself seemed to help, although she didn’t know why. ‘Anyhow,’ she added, ‘it’s about time I got things into perspective. I’m twenty-eight years old and the worst thing that’s happened to me has been him. At my age, my mom had worked overseas, had a baby, lost her husband and was getting ready to start a new job in Venezuela. By comparison I have it easy. I need to remember that.’
    She gazed unseeingly into the misted mirror in front of her. If things had worked out the way her parents had wanted, it would have been to them that she’d have run when she realised what Cobey had done. Maybe her dad, the tall, rugged, outdoors man she only knew from the single photo her mom had of him, would’ve gone after her missing boyfriend, smacked him in the jaw for hurting his daughter and demanded that he pay her back. And her mom would’ve put her arms around her and told her that there were plenty more fish in the sea. Instead of which, her father had died in Venezuela without ever having seen her, and she didn’t know when, if ever, she’d tell her mother that she’d made a fool of herself over a man.
    She took another towel from the rail and rubbed it briskly over her head. She wore her hair shorter these days and usually allowed it to dry naturally. So instead of using the professional turbo dryer in the drawer, she squeezed some serum from a tube and rubbed it through her damp locks. Then she padded into the bedroom and pulled on a vest top and a pair of baggy trousers before heading to the kitchen and using Pete and Claudia’s gleaming top-of-the-range Nespresso machine to make herself a cup of coffee. She brought the coffee and a pastry she took from the