“She says she’s been seeing a therapist about... the kids issue. She thinks she’s ready to face the idea of a future without them, now.”
I feel my heart climb up my throat and into my mouth. “Caleb.”
“What?”
“Were you two... on a break?”
“No.”His eyes widen in alarm. “We’d split up. The next step, as far as I was concerned, was divorce.”
I shake my head. “So now what?”
“I told her nothing’s changed. That I loveyou.”
Despite his reassurance, I feel guilt pressing irrationally against my chest—as though perhaps I’ve come between them, got in the way of something good. Maybe it’s actually Helen and Caleb who are meant to be—not us. I find myself wondering if the right thing to do would in fact be to tell Caleb to go back to her, to give his marriage another try. Isn’t that what marriage means, after all? For better or worse. The rough with the smooth. Wouldn’tthatbe the right thing to do?
The words pop and fizz on my tongue. But then something far more pressing comes out instead. “She stayed over, didn’t she?”
He waits a long time before answering. “Yes. But... I slept on the sofa.”
I shake my head. “Wow.”
From the roof of the beach hut, we hear the thud of a seagull alighting, triggering an abrasive chorus from other birds nearby. They sound furious, somehow. Or maybe I’m just projecting.
“Iswearto you, nothing happened.” Anguish is etched across Caleb’s face. “It was just... at one in the morning, there wasn’t really any other option.”
I stare at him, my mind in limbo. I so desperately want to believe him, but... am I just being gullible, idiotically naïve? “I saw you hugging her, at the studio.”
He works his jaw for a moment or two. “I know. She’d been crying, and she asked me for a hug. It would have felt... I don’t know. Coldhearted to say no.”
I sip my coffee. “Did you ask her where she was staying, before you took her out drinking?”
“She said she had a room at a B&B. And I didn’t ‘take her out drinking.’ ”
“An imaginary B&B?”
He nods, softly. “I guess she thought the evening would go differently to how it did.”
“Did she try to kiss you?” Helen’s unquestionably beautiful, and apparently desperate to have him back. I can hardly bear to ask, but I can’t believe she wouldn’t have tried her luck, even once.
He swears softly, runs a hand through his hair. “Yes.”
I feel my stomach clench. “So when you said nothing happened, what you meant was, something happened.”
“No,” he counters. His eyes are urgent, filmy with distress. “She tried to kiss me and I pushed her away. Wedidn’t kiss, Lucy.”
“God, how would you feel? If this was me and Max?”
He looks down at his hands, shakes his head. “Well, I’d want to punch him, obviously.”
“Constructive.”
He looks up. “What do you want me to say? Obviously, I could—should—have played things better last night. I should have told her to go home as soon as she turned up. But... I never once gave her mixed signals, or any reason to think I was even slightly interested in getting back together. I’m sorry this all had to happen, but maybe... Maybe she’s got closure now. I probably should have done this a long time ago, if I’m honest.”
“How have you left it?” I say, trying to ignore the gnawing sensation in my stomach as I picture Helen making one last lunge for him on the doorstep this morning before speeding back off to London in her Porsche.
“I’ve told her I want a divorce. Me and Helen... we’re over. It’s you I want, Lucy. No one else.”
I don’t say anything. On the one hand, I want yesterday not to have happened at all—but at the same time, perhaps he’s right. Maybe she’ll have closure now.
