Read Online If You're Not the One by Jemma Forte - Free Book Online Page B

experienced, which was frustrating because there was so much she wanted to absorb, mull over and digest. But for now she was nowhere near capable. She needed to sleep. Before she surrendered to the grey ether however, she quickly glanced around and noted that the three tunnels all still existed, though the first was definitely shining ever so slightly less brightly.
    She knew then that she would have another opportunity to visit each of them and was swamped with relief. She wanted to find out more about how things would have gone with Aidan. This was the most fascinating, terrifying, yet privileged gift she could ever have been afforded. For now though it was time to regain some strength and with that final thought she allowed herself to slip away.

SUNDAY
    â€˜Polly and Eadie need to get out and burn off a bit of energy,’ announced Jennifer.
    â€˜Take them to the park then,’ said Max, finishing the last bit of his toasted bacon sandwich, and only narrowly saving himself from being swatted with a copy of
The Sunday Times
by winking, to make sure his wife knew he was joking. ‘Come on then, let’s take them to the swings now, and then perhaps we should go out for lunch, so you don’t have to cook?’
    Jennifer acknowledged that this was a kind thought but couldn’t help but wonder what was preventing him from rustling anything up.
    â€˜Or should I say, so you don’t have to buy in any revolting stuffed chickens that don’t actually look or taste anything like chickens.’ Another wink.
    â€˜Ha bloody ha,’ said Jennifer, laughing despite herself. ‘OK, that sounds good. And there’s a pie in the fridge which we can all have for early dinner but not much more than that so hopefully it’ll be quiet at work tomorrow, so I can do a shop in my lunch break. Otherwise I’ll have to go later.’
    â€˜Good,’ said Max, who didn’t really care. Food was his wife’s department as far as he was concerned. ‘Right, Po-lly, Ea-die, come and get your shoes on, we’re going to the park,’ he yelled in the general direction of the kitchen door, getting up to put his plate in the sink.
    â€˜Let’s aim to wear them out as much as possible,’ said Jennifer.
    â€˜Definitely,’ Max agreed. ‘Then we can plonk them in front of a DVD this afternoon totally guilt-free.’
    â€˜Sounds good to me,’ said Jennifer, wondering hopefully if that meant that he was thinking they might be able to sneak back to bed for some canoodling.
    â€˜Because I hope you don’t mind,’ added Max, looking sheepish, ‘but there’s a footy match on that I really want to watch this afternoon and I told Ted he could come round and watch it here. He still doesn’t have Sky Sports at his.’
    â€˜Oh…right,’ she said feeling crestfallen and bored already.
    â€˜You don’t mind do you?’
    â€˜No,’ she lied.
    Later that afternoon, despite having been run out in the park all morning, like dogs, Polly and Eadie were still full of energy. They usually got on pretty well but today were directing it all towards fighting with one another, forcing Jennifer to act as both bouncer and mediator. When she wasn’t stopping them from killing each other over, ofall things, a broken Barbie, she was putting on washing, taking it out or shoving it in the mountainous ironing pile. All in all not the most riveting of afternoons and, as she took out load after load, she thought wistfully of pre-children days when Sundays meant lying in bed with a hangover, which would eventually be cured by a Bloody Mary and a roast dinner at the pub, followed perhaps by a movie and some lovely sex. God, she was becoming obsessed. This must be how people felt when they came out of prison, or the army.
    â€˜Come on, you two,’ she said now, or rather yelled, because by this point both her daughters’ whining had developed into