This couldn’t be happening. I must have onlythoughtI saw them kissing. She wouldn’t do this to me, and neither would he. He didn’t like Cassie. He said she was hard work and annoying and demanding. He said he liked me because I wasn’t like her, I was strong and independent and I went after what I wanted.
‘I can explain,’ said Charlie, already sweating in one of his stupid polo-neck sweaters.
‘Are you two . . . ?’
Charlie and Cassie looked at each other. Cassie started to cry.
‘Will somebody tell me what the fuck is happening here? Cassie, is this the guy you’ve been hanging out with? Isthiswho you’ve been seeing?’
Her voice was painfully small. ‘Yes.’
I wondered whether I was going to be sick, because I felt like I was. I felt like I’d been knocked sideways.
‘How long has it been going on?’ I gasped.
‘Ava, it wasn’t while we were together,’ said Charlie, putting on the gaslighty tone he used sometimes when he wanted to convince me that something I was saying was madness.
‘Is that why you ended things with me?’ I asked him. ‘To be with her?’
‘No!’ he said. ‘It wasn’t like that. Cassie reached out to check on me after the break-up and—’
‘Youcontactedhim?’ I said, turning to Cassie, incredulous. ‘Youinstigated all of this?’
Cassie started crying harder. It was a tactic she used when she didn’t want to answer people’s questions anymore and I wasn’t falling for it, not this time.
‘You’re both awful people,’ I said, spitting out my words, although I would have chosen better ones if I’d been able to think straight. ‘You’re welcome to each other.’
I worried about Cassie almost all the time and wanted the best for her, even at the expense of my own happiness sometimes, and now it had been thrown right back in my face. There were so many things I didn’t understand – had she always been into him? And had he always fancied her, because honestly, it hadn’t seemed like it. Was it serious? And if so, had they ever planned to tell me?
I turned around, stumbling back in the direction of the Tube.
‘I’m sorry!’ screamed Cassie, running after me, making a scene and causing people to turn to see what the commotion was.
Fine, let Cassie explain herself in front of these strangers, because what could she possibly say to excuse what she had done? My chest was rising and falling as I tried to catch my breath, to think about what I could ask her before she had a chance to talk to Charlie and get their story straight.
‘When did you start liking him?’ was my first question.
‘I don’t know!’ wailed Cassie, still crying. I wished she’d stop. She was trying to make me feel bad for her and there was a risk of it working, despite everything.
‘Tell me exactly when,’ I insisted.
She shook her head, exasperated. ‘I couldn’t put an exact date on it. A few months ago, maybe. After he broke up with you.’
Charlie ran up behind Cassie, seemingly unsure what to do for the best. This summed him up entirely – gutless. And he’d be hating this playing out in the street, making him look bad. Good!
‘And what about you, Charlie? Because I’d never realised you’d been harbouring feelings for my sister. You’d certainly never given me that impression,’ I said, spinning around to face him head on.
I wasn’t going to hurt her by spelling out what he’d said, but he used to be out and out mean about her.
‘I ... look, it came as a shock to me, too, okay?’
‘Were you ever planning to tell me?’ I demanded to know, looking from one to the other.
‘Yes!’ said Cassie, slightly more enthusiastic at the prospect than Charlie looked. ‘Of course. I wanted to see if it was going anywhere first, because I didn’t want to upset you, obviously.’
‘Obviously,’ I said snippily. If that was her objective, she’d failed miserably, hadn’t she?
‘And it is going somewhere, Ava,’ she said. ‘I know it’s not ideal, and I’m sorry, I really am. But me and Charlie have just clicked. And you’ve got Marcus now, so why does it matter?’
