I want to be childish. I want to say,Yeah, well you did it first!But I don’t.
‘What I’m trying to say is that I’m not going to make you stay if you don’t want to stay.’
Luke comes over, kneels down in front of me until I have no choice but to look at him. ‘Jess, you’re my wife. You’re the one I want to be with. It’s not like that with Elena … It’s … ’
‘Then what is it like?! Explain it to me, Luke! Before I lose my mind.’
He sighs heavily. ‘Yes, I’ve been texting Elena a lot. Yes, I’ve been saying nice things to her to hype her up. But I’m doing it because she’s ill, Jess. Elena has cancer.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
JESS
I feel as if I’m standing still and the world spins a full 180 degrees around me, so the sky is under my feet and the earth dangling above. ‘What?’ While Luke’s words are completely understandable, I can’t compute the meaning.
‘Elena has cancer. Breast cancer.’
‘But … ? What … ?’
‘So, yes, I’ve been texting her more than I normally would.’
I feel shame wash over me like a hot wave and I brace myself against it, stiffening my spine, ready to fight it off. ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’ I cry. Even more importantly, why didn’t Elena tell me? I thought we were friends. Not besties, but friends all the same.
He shakes his head softly. ‘She didn’t want anyone to know.’
‘But why?’
He shrugs. ‘I don’t get it either. I think she doesn’t want anyone to see her as weak, as … less than, if you know what I mean? And her family is five thousand miles away in Bogotá, Felix is in the wind, so I’ve been trying to be encouraging, you know, be a good friend. I watched my mum go through thiswhen I was sixteen and she still found it hard with the love and support of a big family around her. I can’t imagine what it must be like to do it on your own.’
Of course he can’t. And of course, he would step up and be the support system for someone struggling. This is Luke. I feel devastated for Elena, I can’t even begin … but that doesn’t mean I’m one hundred per cent happy that Luke has kept this from me. If he’d only been open about it, we might not be in this mess at the moment, but the truth is, Elena didn’t trust me with this information, and neither did he.
‘I wouldn’t have told anyone. You know that.’
‘Like I said, Elena wanted to keep it to herself.’
Somehow, I feel this is something to do with me, a flaw they both perceive that I didn’t know I had. ‘But you can see how those messages looked to me? You can see why I thought what I did? I mean, how was I supposed to know?’
‘You could have just asked me about it.’
‘I did!’
‘Only after I had to pester you to tell me what was up because you were sulking.’
I push my chair back and stand, taking a few steps back. ‘I was not sulking!’
Luke just looks at me.
Okay, so maybe I was.
‘Anyone would have been blindsided seeing messages like that on their spouse’s phone. What would you have done if you’d seen texts from a random man – say, Ahmed from the physio practice – saying he missed me and wanted to hug me? Are you telling me your alarm bells wouldn’t have been ringing?’
Luke sits in one of the empty chairs around the coffee table,frowning. ‘Okay, yes … I don’t think I would have jumped right in and accused you of having an affair—’
‘I didn’t actually—’
‘But I wouldn’t have been happy, so you’re right about that. But I don’t know what else I could have done, Jess. I didn’t want to betray Elena’s trust, but I also haven’t betrayed you in any way, you have to believe that.’
I rest my hands on the back of the chair I’ve just vacated. ‘I do,’ I reply, and some of the tension in my shoulders and jaw dissipates. ‘I just wish you’d had a bit more faith in me, that we could have handled this as a team.’
