Читать книгу Pandora’s Box - Giselle Green - Страница 6

When at last I saw her fall, it was exactly as I had imagined it would be. Her face was a white flash of shock, eyes wide open and full of surprise. I watched her hair riding up in tumultuous curls behind her, the light filtering through every strand, all in slow motion like some scene from a film where they slow everything down to savour every last agonising detail.

All the while that she fell I had the worst feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was the knowing that, oh god, I did that. It’s my fault. I should never have let her go. I could have saved her but I didn’t. I can’t believe that I didn’t. And the shocked, horrified part of me that had let her go turned on the bit of me that had wanted her to fall all along.

You needed to be free of all this. How many times have you thought that? You needed her to fall so that you could be free, didn’t you, Rachel? So you just let it happen. By the sins of our commission and omission…

You were responsible for her safety and her wellbeing and you knew this was going to happen and you just let it.

And I could not deny it.

How many nights had I lain awake fantasising about just such a scenario, my escape route from the prison that my life had so long ago become? Would it have made any difference if I had not succumbed to temptation and looked inside Pandora’s box? I really cannot say. I’m feeling too numb now. My world has crumbled, everything has gone. I don’t know anything at all any more.

And so she fell and I did nothing. And why? Because although I loved her, as long as we were yoked together I could never be free.