‘I will.’
‘When?’
‘Soon. Just … please,’ his eyes implored me, ‘let me do it in my own time, ok? Let it come from me.’
‘Fine,’ I said, grudgingly. ‘Don’t take too long though.’
‘I won’t.’ He exhaled, sat back on Clare’s bed. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am that I’ve finally told you. Even if you hate me forever, at least you know.’
I won’t hate you forever.
Again, I didn’t say it.
I wish now I had.
I wish I’d told him I could never hate him, and that it was all right, he’d done what he had with the best intentions.
But I remained silent.
Cold.
‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated. ‘I really didn’t come up here to drop this all on you.’
‘Why did you come?’
‘Because it’s killing me, seeing you and Nick in all this unnecessary pain.’
‘That’s not my fault.’
‘It’s not Nick’s either. Fine, he let his defences down, screwed up too, but only because he’s a really decent human and probably wasn’t imagining anyone would stoop so low as to do something like this. So, give him a break, hey?’
I didn’t agree to do anything.
I asked Felix to leave me alone.
And, with a sigh, he did, whilst I remained in the attic, furious at myself and him now, as well as Nick, but still Nick most of all, growing evermore incredulous, the angrier I got, that he’d been so careless as to let Chelsea near him, for long enough that Elodie had snapped her picture.
It was Elodie who got his number off Hannah’s phone. Chelsea’s been texting him ever since – Nick’s shown me her messages – asking to see him again,I bet I’m a lot more fun than Claudia, eventually threatening to go live with her photo unless he gave in.
Have you changed your mind?
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked him on Saturday.
‘I almost did,’ he said. ‘The night we got here.’
I remember it.
It was after Ana’s welcome dinner. He grabbed me as I came out of the bathroom.
What is it?I asked him.
I’m glad you’re here, he said,that’s all.
‘I couldn’t bring myself to make you more unhappy,’ he’snow told me. ‘And I was scared, Claude, that you wouldn’t believe it had been nothing. You’ve been so convinced I’ve got it in me to cheat. All I’ve wanted is for us to have this time here to have another go.’
‘It was Nick, wasn’t it, who gave you your BAFTA forThe Go-Between?’ Ellen says, her voice pulling me from my miserable thoughts.
‘You saw that?’
