Saying it out loud brought a clarity I’d been missing. I’dbeen so busy—and distracted—that I’d let my failed marriage fade into the background, but my garbled explanation made more sense than I’d anticipated.
Gus ventured farther into the room and sat on the edge of my bed. “What are you actually worried about? That he’ll turn up here and hurt you?”
I started to shake my head, but the lie wouldn’t come. My marriage had ended violently on bothsides, but Laurent’s last words to me had echoed in my head ever since.“Don’t ever try to be happy.”I was a long way from happy, but the fact that he’d known my whereabouts a week after I’d left Paris still weirded me out.
The divorce papers were heavy in my lap. I took the pen I’d been staring at all night and quickly scribbled my name on the final page before stuffing them back into theenvelope. “I don’t think he’d come here and hurt me, but I want him out of my life for good.”
Gus nodded. “Want me to post that shit for you?”
I hesitated only a moment before passing him the envelope. “Please.”
We weren’t twins, but the deep sibling connection we’d always shared seemed to tell Gus I needed those papers out of my sight right now, even though they couldn’t go anywhereuntil Monday morning.
He disappeared. A moment later, the front door slammed. I assumed he was gone for the night unless he’d decided to stash my pathetic attempt at adulthood behind the wheelie bins.
I flopped back onto my bed, stretching out, trying to sleep. My foot nudged something hard. I considered kicking it to the floor, but curiosity got the better of me. I sat up. My gaze fellon Gus’s phone. It must’ve slipped from his pocket.
Don’t. But I picked it up anyway and quickly typed in an educated guess of his passcode. My mother’s date of birth activated the screen and it took two beats of my stampeding heart to locate the phone number I’d scoured from my skin.
Downstairs, the front door opened and Gus’s footsteps pounded on the varnished staircase. I made a ninjalike grab for my own phone and snapped a photo of Gus’s screen. Then I shut his phone down, tossed it on the floor, and lay back down.
He burst through the door a split second later. “Must’ve dropped my phone.”
I gave him a bland look as he bent to retrieve it. “Are you off out now?”
“Yeah, but I can stay if you—”
“Go,” I cut him off. “I’m gonna have a bath and go to bed.”
“You sure? I’ll be back later, but I don’t have to—”
I threw a pillow at him. He caught it, took the hint, and tossed it back before he left all over again.
Buzzing with a sudden energy that made my knees tremble, I sat up and retrieved my phone from the bedside table. Luke’s number jumped out at me and indelibly imprinted on my brain. I opened WhatsApp and tapped out a message withoutstopping to make sense of what I was doing.
Mia:hi
