I go into the room Jack allocated to me on my first night here and run my hand over the bracelet and the items I kept from Freddie’s house. I press his pajama bottoms to my nose again, but the smell is sofaint now I can barely make it out. The truth is, Freddie and I were not perfect. No relationship is perfect. All we can do is try to be the best version of ourselves, even if that means going the extra mile and extinguishing the parts that are less desirable. I think, perhaps, that’s where I slipped up. In fairness, he didn’t make it easy for me. Not by the end.
I’d thought Freddie opening up to me in the pub would mark one of these moments of transition. Just as Jack and I have worked through our first disagreement, I’d thought his confession was a sign of his trust in me: a sign that I was more important to him than whoever this other woman was. I was wrong. If anything, in the days that followed, he seemed almost embarrassed by what he’d told me, like he regretted saying anything at all. When I tried to ask him about it, he brushed me off, mumbling something about having it under control. I tried to be there for him, but he threw my efforts back in my face at every turn. And still, he periodically disappeared at the end of the workday, leaving me to wonder where we stood. And I justknewthat he was going to see her. For some reason, I wasn’t enough for him.
It drove me a bit mad. I can admit it now. I did some things then that I am not proud of.
With Jack, it’s different. If I can show him how much I care—how far I am willing to go—then we will have something very special indeed.
I fold the pajamas and put them back in the drawer. As I am turning to leave, I catch sight of the daffodils he bought me on my first night here. Brown, crispy, and drooping sadly, they are obviously dead. I’m hopeful he’ll buy me some new ones soon.
Jack arrives home right on time, and when I hear his key in the door I am ready for him. My phone buzzes again as the door swings open—the same unknown number—and I fumble for it, switch it off. I will not allow anything to ruin this. I take up my position on the stairs, lengthen my spine, and adjust the jumper so that it falls in the most flatteringway. Beneath, the lacy bra I found in a drawer itches. Alice’s breasts were clearly bigger than mine, and the material rubs uncomfortably.
Jack doesn’t see me immediately, which is a disappointment. I have to clear my throat awkwardly to catch his attention. But, oh, it’s worth it when he does. Because, when he sees me, Jack looks at me in a way he never has before. I see the change—that slight widening of the eyes, the O shape to his mouth—and I know I’ve finally got it right. No photograph needed. The answer has been sitting in the wardrobe all along.
He drops his bag on the floor, comes toward me quickly. And when he kisses me, it is with a hunger that I haven’t experienced from him before. Like he is entirely consumed by me. “God I’ve missed you,” he breathes into my neck—a neck I daubed with bath oil just before he arrived.
It’s different this time. This time, he is not tentative when he takes me up to bed. There is very little tenderness. It’s rougher, laced with an urgency and dominance that I didn’t expect. I go along with it, obviously, but there is something jarring about it, and it’s not just that he doesn’t seem to care about my own pleasure. This feels like it is for him and him alone. Still, I maintain the performance. I make all the right noises, but when it’s finished—when he has rolled away panting—I feel like I need to shower.
I don’t speak as I pad through to the bathroom and scrub at my skin. Afterward, I pull on the same clothes and go downstairs to find Jack. I’d like him to hug me. To pull me to him and press a kiss to my forehead.
But he doesn’t even look up as I enter the sitting room. He is setting a glass down on the table as I approach. A glass filled with amber liquid.
“I thought you’d given that up,” I say stupidly, too shocked to think about the reception these words might receive.
He whips round, eyes unfocused. “Get off my fucking back, OK? You’re always whining about something.”
And—for the first time in my life—I don’t even consider arguing.Simply back out of the room and up the stairs. I take off Alice’s clothes, slip into my pajamas. Then I take one look at Jack’s bed—still rumpled from the activity—and go into the other room. The room with the dead daffodils. I lie there for a very long time before I fall asleep.
—
Jack has alreadyleft by the time I wake the next morning. But when I poke my head into his bedroom, I see that he has laid an outfit on the bed. It’s not one I’ve seen before, and it’s far too smart to be worn around the house. When I lift it to my nose, her smell—that tuberose tang—still lingers around the collar.
Thirty-six
I decide to giveJack the benefit of the doubt. We all have bad days—days when things aren’t clicking as well as they should—and he’s had a shock. I’d likely be confused—discombobulated, even—if he turned up wearing one of Freddie’s novelty shirts. If he turned up smelling like Freddie. It’s all part of the process. And although the sex needs considerable work, the way he looked at me when he saw me on the stairs, that hunger in his eyes? Well, that’s what I’ve been searching for. I felt special again.
So I put on the clothes he laid out on the bed.
I won’t mention the drinking again. He’s worse when he’s sober, and if it helps bridge the gap between Alice and me further, then it might even be useful. I’ve had to block that number that keeps calling. It’s been incessant—at least once every two hours. Whatever it is, Mum is not giving up easily.
Once I’ve decided what I’m going to cook for dinner and been to the shops and done all the necessary prep, I pass the time until Jack gets home on my laptop in the sitting room. I’m firing off a message to Tilly when I catch sight of the folder of photos I keep of Freddie. My chestpangs as I click on it. As hundreds of images of him fill the screen. I scroll through them, wondering if this is a strange sort of self-sabotage, yet I’m unable to stop looking.
There are a few of Freddie and me together: in a pub, his hand resting on my shoulder, our heads tilted slightly toward each other, as though there were an electromagnetic field between us. We could barely keep away from each other in those days. Before everything started going wrong. I scroll again. One of him in a towel in his bedroom, hair wet, looking slightly away from the lens. One of him at his cousin’s wedding, giving a speech that made everyone laugh. It’s hard to believe this is the same man who gave away everything we had so easily.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I jolt back to the present and twist in my seat to see Jack in the doorway. In full view of the screen. He looks furious.
Fuck. I was doing so well. This will be a tricky one to navigate my way out of. Feminine wiles? Grief-stricken girlfriend? I can’t decide how to play it. So I go with the safer option. Meek and weak. Because—when all else fails—men do like to be reminded that they can overpower us, should the mood strike them. I discovered that little nugget in a Reddit thread that started with a man going on about whymen love feminine women. It descended, quickly, into something far darker.
I make a show of pressing a delicate hand to my chest, because my feminine constitution can hardly take the surprise. Victorian women had it right: If it weren’t a little overdramatic, I might even consider fainting.
“Jack,” I say breathlessly. “I didn’t know you were home.”
I have no idea exactly what the time is, but from the light outside he must be back earlier than usual.
“Well. I am. I got sent home. My meeting went badly.”
I stand from the sofa, still with my hand pressed to my chest, and approach him. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
