‘It’s a crush!’ I yelled, opening another fridge and grabbing at multiple cheeses with wild abandon. ‘Bel’sfeelings are real, she likes him and he likes her and I’m nursing a silly little crush and now we will never speak of it again.’
‘What makes you think your feelings are any less valid than Bel’s?’ she asked. ‘Why would you prioritize someone else’s feelings over your own?’
She’d always said she didn’t want kids, but it really was a waste; she had the ‘I’m not angry, I’m disappointed’ tone down perfectly.
‘Because I’m so nice?’
‘Because you’re a martyr, just like Gran.’
‘Don’t say shitty things about Gran,’ I said, dragging the front of the trolley behind me as I walked away. ‘She wasn’t a martyr, she made a lot of sacrifices for us. I can’t even begin to imagine what would have happened if she hadn’t taken us in.’
Suze pulled on the other end of the trolley, forcing me to stop. ‘Has it never occurred to you that Mum might have handled things on her own?’
‘No, because she couldn’t,’ I replied bluntly. ‘I know you think you could have but no, it hasn’t occurred to me. Why would she stay with Gran if she didn’t need to?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘Because we’ve never talked about it, same as we never talk about the really important things. Like you turning up to that girl’s hen night.’
I removed the claw clip that was holding up my hair, retwisted the ponytail and let the clip spring closed around it, the sharp plastic teeth scraping my skull.
‘How do you know about that?’
‘Because I used to work with Samantha’s cousin,’ Suzanne replied. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything becauseI thought you’d tell me in your own time, but obviously that’s not going to happen.’
‘It’s not as though you go out of your way to tell me about your love life,’ I volleyed back. ‘I never know anything about your relationships; you haven’t mentioned a single man since you broke up with Victor and that was ten years ago. You could be going out with Tom Cruise for all I know.’
Suzanne snorted and folded her arms over her chest.
‘Shit, you’re not going out with Tom Cruise, are you?’ I gasped. ‘He’ll make you join that weird church and I’m sorry but you wouldn’t last a minute there, Suze, you’re physically incapable of keeping your mouth shut.’
‘Please, I’d be running the place in less than a week,’ she scoffed. ‘My romantic inclinations are not the issue here. I know you don’t want to talk about the break-up, but showing up at someone’s hen night and going mental? It’s not like you, Phoebe, you’re not a confrontational person.’
‘Unlike you.’
Once again, she took my insult as a compliment.
‘I didn’t go to cause trouble,’ I said as I stepped to the side so a scared middle-aged man who was far too afraid to interrupt us could get at the bags of shredded mozzarella. ‘I was trying to help Samantha.’
‘Help her with what?’
It was easier this time. I’d had this conversation once and the world hadn’t ended. Admittedly I didn’t have it in the dairy aisle of a supermarket in Silver Lake, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
‘Samantha’s a really nice person,’ I said, a hot red rash creeping up my neck as I spoke. ‘Thomas isn’t.’
There was as much in the words I didn’t say as the ones I did. Suzanne’s nostrils flared and two red spots appeared in her cheeks.
‘Did he do something to you?’ she asked with a quiet fury usually reserved for cyclists who rode side by side on a one-lane road. ‘Because if he did, I’ll have him killed.’
My wonderful sister – not she would kill him, but she would have him killed. She was so good at managing people, she even delegated threats of violence.
‘He didn’t lay a finger on me,’ I told her, flicking the corner of a bag of Doritos. ‘And the most important part is I’m out of it now. But she isn’t. Maybe Samantha has thicker skin than me, maybe he’s nicer to her, who knows? I just wanted her to know there’s someone she can talk to, on the off-chance he’s still a horrible bully who likes to make women feel like shit and ought to have his tongue cut out and his knob chopped off.’
‘Men like that don’t change.’ Her blue eyes, so like mine, so like Gran’s, shone with tears. It was something I hadn’t seen in years, not even at the funeral. ‘How long did it go on? Was he always like that, did I not see it?’
‘No one saw it, he made sure of that, and no, he wasn’t always terrible … or he was always but he was very good at hiding it at the beginning. I don’t know, I’ll never know, and thankfully, it’s over, at least for me.’
I sucked in my cheeks, determined not to cry. Not in the bloody supermarket. Gran would rise from her grave to drag us both home by our ears.
Suze nodded emphatically, her lips pressed into a tight, pale line. ‘We’ve got to look out for each other,Pheebs, you’re all I’ve got. I know I’m away a lot and always going on about how busy I am, but I am never,evertoo busy for you. I wish you’d told me before.’
