‘I wish I could tell you there was a specific moment,’ I said, eyes on my feet. The polish on my left little toe was chipped. I needed a pedicure. ‘But there wasn’t. One day I woke up and I knew I couldn’t carry on, a random Wednesday, middle of the week. Nothing special about it at all. I called a helpline, they put me in touch with someone and she managed to fit me in the same day.’
‘You went to see a therapist?’
I nodded. ‘I’d thought about it before, when Gran died, but it’s so hard to get things moving with your doctor. Turns out there are a lot of people who need help and I was at the bottom of a very long list. So I did some research online, found an organization thatcould help and that’s how I met Therese. I never thought I’d be the sort of person who needed a therapist but now I can’t imagine my life without her. The moment I walked into her office, I knew I had to leave him. I packed a bag that afternoon and was gone before he finished work.’
Bel squeezed my hand gently. ‘I’m sorry. It can’t have been easy to leave, you’re so brave.’
‘It was harder to think about it than it was to actually do it,’ I replied, squeezing back. ‘Because if I thought about it, I had to admit he didn’t really love me, and if he didn’t love me then I didn’t have anyone.’
‘You had Suzanne?’
I looked around my sister’s house. Neat, tidy, clean, neutral. A place for everything, everything in its place.
‘I did. But I didn’t know how to tell her. She was out of the country by then. We would text all the time but we didn’t talk often. The idea of calling her and admitting how stupid I’d been … it was too much. Besides, I was scared I’d lose her too.’
‘I get it,’ she replied. ‘No need to explain. I’m so proud of you for asking for help when you needed it, I’ve been there, it’s not easy.’
‘Well, before you pop the champagne, it wasn’t quite such a tidy ending,’ I confessed, picking up one of Suzanne’s plump cushions and fluffing it in my lap. ‘A few months later, I found out he’d started seeing someone else. Therese helped me get through it and I did a really good job of putting it out of my mind. Even when he messaged me from time to time, like today, I deleted them and blocked his number or the account or whatever. I was doing so well. Until …’
‘I know I said you didn’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,’ Bel breathed. ‘But don’t you dare leave me hanging here.’
‘Fine, but I’m holding you to the no judgement part,’ I warned. ‘It was about a year ago, I saw her at the supermarket. I knew it was her, obviously I’d stalked her social media.’
‘Obviously.’
‘I didn’t say anything because what would I say? Then he appeared and I left. Dropped my basket and walked out.’
‘Totally understandable.’
‘And then I saw them again,’ I said with a sigh, the mental image coming back all too easily. ‘Same supermarket a couple of months ago, only she looked like a totally different person. She’d grown her hair out long, she was wearing the kind of dress he always wanted me to wear which was totally not supermarket appropriate, by the way, and, God, Bel, she just looked so sad. She looked exactly like I did when I was with him. And I knew he was doing the same thing to her that he did to me.’
I paused for a moment to rub my hand against the soft fabric of the cushion and register the cool air on my skin. I was here, in LA, in Suzanne’s house. Not there, not then. I could tell the story and be OK. ‘So I decided I had to talk to her.’
‘Oh.’
‘And in hindsight,’ I added slowly, ‘I can see there is a chance I shouldn’t have tried to have that conversation on her hen night.’
‘Oh.’
‘But it was the only time I knew he definitely wouldn’t be there,’ I protested. ‘One of my old friends posted about it on Facebook and all logic went out the window. Off I went, convinced I was doing the right thing, found the bar, followed her to the toilets, gave her the fright of her life.’
‘Ohhh,’ Bel said, gnawing on her thumbnail. ‘Yikes.’
‘All I said was if she needed someone to talk to, I would be there for her, but she freaked out and ran off and now everyone thinks I’m still obsessed with him and they’re getting married at the weekend.’ I put the cushion down and craned my neck over my shoulder. ‘Do you fancy a drink? I really fancy a drink.’
‘What did Therese say?’ Bel asked cautiously as I tugged at the little straps dangling from the neck of my sweatshirt.
‘Nothing. I’d stopped seeing her a month before,’ I said with a feather-light laugh. ‘I thought everything was done, only it wasn’t. I was over Thomas but I wasn’t over what he’d done to me. Therese compared it to a river after it runs dry – the water is all gone but it can take years for the landscape to recover, and even when it does, it will never be quite the same as before.’
‘I don’t know if I can say this emphatically enough,’ she replied, pounding a fist into her open palm. ‘Butfuckthat guy.’
‘Couldn’t agree more.’ I slumped backwards, all the bones in my body seeming to liquefy at once. If I wasn’t exhausted after the hike, I was now. ‘All I want is for him to disappear from the planet completely.’
‘We could cast a spell,’ she suggested brightly. ‘I know a pretty great shaman in Laurel Canyon.’
‘Let’s put a pin in that.’
‘Putting a pin in it would be part of the spell.’ She stood up, feet hips-width apart, one hand planted on her hip and the other pointing directly at me, part superhero, part girl group member, all Bel. ‘Here’s what I know. You, Phoebe Chapman, are amazing. You were in a shitty situation, you recognized it, you asked for help and you got out. Not only that but you tried to help another woman when she was in need. It’s not your fault she wasn’t ready to accept the help, you did your best.’
