In a soft voice she asked. ‘Is it Oliver?’
I nodded.
Rosie rubbed soothing circles up and down my back. Her blue eyes glazing over with tears at seeing my pain.
‘Talk to me.’
‘I… can’t.’ My voice cracked.
‘Okay,’ Rosie breathed, taking stock of her surroundings and formulating a plan. ‘Here’s what we’re gonna do… you’re gonna roll over and sit up and I’m going to make you a cup of tea. Say what you want about our culture but one thing is for fucking certain, a cup of tea can make the world of difference. Come on.’ She heaved herself upright, linking my hand and pulled me.
Lying on the floor in my devastation wasn’t the person I wanted to be, I wanted to be someone who could roll with the shit life threw at them, shrug and move on. My limbs were loose, unable to fully cooperate with Rosie’s effort to haul me upright but eventually I sat up, back leaning against the sofa.
I tucked my knees to my chin, resting it there. Rosie placed a kiss to the top of my head and wandered into the kitchen, clattering around, no doubt searching for any clean mugs. There weren’t any. I had been meaning to give my flat a thorough once over, but the book and Oliver had sucked all of my time. Not that I minded. Like the pitiful being I was, any moment I got to spend with Oliver felt precious.
Now, that was all gone. My chest gave another painful twinge.
Two mugs filled to the brim with steaming liquid settled on the coffee table. Rosie sank down to the floor, legs crossed in front of me. She placed her hands on my knees, giving them a comforting squeeze.
‘Get it out babe.’ She peeled my tear-sodden hair from my face, tucking it gently behind my ear.
I wiped my nose on the sleeve of my jumper, taking a deep breath. ‘An article is getting published tomorrow—about Oliver.’
Rosie nodded slowly. ‘Okay… why is this one different from all the others?’
‘It’s about his mum. Something no one else knew about… but me.’
Rosie’s nose wrinkled in confusion. ’I’m not following.’
‘Someone got a hold of several pages of the book. There were countless personal details about him and his mum growing up that I drafted and he never wanted to go into the book. It’s all my words, Rosie. All of it was written byme. Now it’s going to be published in the fucking Daily Mail.’ After Oliver told me so many stories of people betraying him, selling stories to the media, and now he thought I’d done the same.
Rosie held up her hand. ‘Wait, so you didn’t send it to them.’
My eyes widened. ‘No!’
‘Well then who did?’
‘I don’t know. Someone must have hacked into my computer. I don’t know how but Oliver came over…’—my voice trailed off—‘Rosie he was so angry. He said… It doesn’t matter.’ I shook my head, as if that would shake away all of his words. ‘Everything’s so messed up.’
Rosie still wore a look of extreme confusion. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’
I exhaled a rugged breath. ‘So many things don’t make sense right now.’
‘No.’ Rosie’s grip on my knees tightened. ‘Look, you have a lot of the book written don’t you?’
I frowned. ‘Yeah, a large part of it at least.’
‘And that’s the most salacious part of it they chose to print? Weren’t you writing about his ex and that whole situation?’
I nodded.
‘If they had access to all that, why would they print something about his mum? It’s not exactly a story that’s going to put him in a bad light is it?’
My head spun. I threaded my fingers through my hair and tugged at the strands. ‘I don’t know. My heads been fucked since Charlotte came over the other night-‘
‘Wow. I’m getting whiplash, Charlotte came over?’ Rosie held up her hands to stop me talking.
‘Yeah, the night before last.’
