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Back Perfect Ten Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
  1. Chapter One
  2. Chapter Two
  3. Chapter Three
  4. Chapter Four
  5. Chapter Five
  6. Chapter Six
  7. Chapter Seven
  8. Chapter Eight
  9. Chapter Nine
  10. Chapter Ten
  11. Chapter Eleven
  12. Chapter Twelve
  13. Chapter Thirteen
  14. Chapter Fourteen
  15. Chapter Fifteen
  16. Chapter Sixteen
  17. Chapter Seventeen
  18. Chapter Eighteen
  19. Chapter Nineteen
  20. Chapter Twenty
  21. Chapter Twenty-one
  22. Chapter Twenty-two
  23. Chapter Twenty-three
  24. Chapter Twenty-four
  25. Chapter Twenty-five
  26. Chapter Twenty-six
  27. Chapter Twenty-seven
  28. Chapter Twenty-eight
  29. Chapter Twenty-nine
  30. Chapter Thirty
  31. Chapter Thirty-one
  32. Chapter Thirty-two
  33. Chapter Thirty-three
  34. Chapter Thirty-four
  35. Chapter Thirty-five
  36. Chapter Thirty-six
  37. Chapter Thirty-seven
  38. Chapter Thirty-eight
  39. Chapter Thirty-nine
  40. Chapter Forty
  41. Chapter Forty-one
  42. Chapter Forty-two
  43. Chapter Forty-three
  44. Chapter Forty-four
  45. Acknowledgements

They were subdued. What had you told them? Had you told them not to tell Mummy? It all starts to fit together. Laura packing a backpack in her room. Then when she realised I had seen her, unpacking it quickly, pushing the clothes into a drawer and standing in front of it to hide it. To think that I was worried that she was going to run away because things were bad between us. Promising myself that I wouldn’t criticise you any more because it was affecting the children.

You were going to take them to live with Katy. I go back to her profile and load more pictures. It writes its own story. You are there with the children. In her lounge, wearing slippers, with Jamie on your knee. At Jamie’s birthday party, again with Charlie and Laura. Then, suddenly, no more Jack. Katy with Jamie. A worried expression and dark circles under her eyes. A forced smile because she doesn’t know what’s going on. Katy on nights out with her friends. Jamie’s next birthday, no Jack. Katy’s lost weight, had her hair cut. Katy with her new boyfriend. Katy and Jamie.

You abandoned her. Of course. My God. I feel sorry for her. She was the opposite side of the deceit, the other me. I can’t help but think that it would have been easy for her, when you left her, to let me know what had happened, but I feel sorry for her. And I feel you slipping away, less of my Jack and more of someone I hardly knew.

Chapter Twenty-four

That’s it. I can’t take any more of this. You’ve got another child. With someone else. Neither of us knew the full story, the truth about each other. Something has snapped inside of me and I’m no longer hurting so much. With every revelation I’m a little bit stronger, more driven to get my children back.

Your mother is in custody and I’m entitled to access to my own children. I’m not going to let them go through another minute of suffering and this won’t wait until Tuesday. I tell myself that it might count against me at the meeting but I can’t take it. I can’t. That injunction isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. It works in my favour, because it says that I can’t go within 50 yards of you wherever you are. You and your bent fucking solicitor thought you were clever, didn’t you, having it written up like that because you didn’t know where you would be living after you were ‘forced to leave the marital home’.