Just never, ever imagined the lie could get so big.
Am last off the ferry—what you get for hiding away on the deck—and just saw a guy filing off the boat who looked…terrifyingly familiar. Got major heebie-jeebies. Am reminding myself that many men wear their cap backward. In fact, Jones was when I first sawhim at the harbor all those weeks ago. (Charlie Jones, I mean—Ormer Jones.)
Oh my God, I think it’s him. I think it might actually be him?!
I can’t believe this. What’s he doing here? On Ormer? My Ormer?
Oh, God. Itishim.
It’sBerty Jones.
London, early August
Jones did not know what he was going to say when he got to Aspen’s flat. He felt alternately wronged, angry, guilty and ashamed as the number 43 bus trundled its way through the streets of London. Had he led her on? He’d never said he wanted a child. She’d never told himshedid. On paper, he was in the clear—but the nagging feeling of shame remained.
And then, in that wonderful way of hers, his ex-wife messaged at just the right moment.
Hey Berty. I just want you to know that I’ve quit drinking. I’m seven days sober. I’m so sorry for everything I put you through. I love you, always. C x
He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the bus window as emotion flooded through him. This time even Jones could not mistake it: it was relief, and love, overwhelming in its intensity.
Only now could he admit how deeply he had longed for this moment. SeeingHey Bertybeneath her name again seemed almost too good to be true. Jones had ditched his first name at sixth-formcollege, when he’d gotten tall and good at sports, but he would always be Berty to Charlie. She had known him since secondary school, back when he’d been an awkward scrawny kid and she’d been the beautiful but odd girl who followed Fearne around.
She’d loved him even then, and she still loved him now.I love you, always.
He opened the message and scrolled up and down, though he’d long ago deleted their message history in an attempt to stop reading through the beautiful minutiae of their marriage, so the screen barely moved with his thumb. He wanted to keep the message lit there, as bold and bright as his wonderful wife. She had been the pride of his life, with her tumble of unruly dark waves and her little vintage dresses, her endless new projects and her scrappy, wounded, ever-hopeful heart. He had known from the age of fifteen that he would love her forever.
Until the drinking. He closed his eyes again. She was sober. He could hardly let himself believe it. The end of his marriage had been truly excruciating—he had left because he had tried everything he could think of and did not know what else he could do for her, but even so, it had felt like such a betrayal, and more than that, it had feltwrong. He didn’twantto separate. He wanted her, the love of his life, but she was buried inside a new wine-drunk woman who wouldn’t acknowledge that she had a problem, and he didn’t know how to get her back. Their mood board had hung in the kitchen, dotted with photos of that magical island she had introduced him to a few years ago, of plans for winters spent chasing the sun around the world and summers back on the Isle of Ormer. Walking away from her had meant rewriting his whole life plan, and he hadn’t known how to do it.
As the bus pulled up at the stop by Aspen’s flat, Jones clicked the screen off, taking a deep, steadying breath. Charlie always knewwhat Jones was feeling, and what he needed, and it seemed that still held after almost a year and a half apart. He felt dizzy with the urgent desire to see her, aware all of a sudden of the aching hollow inside himself that had remained empty ever since he’d walked away from her.
But he had to face Aspen first.
—
When Aspen answered the door, he blinked in surprise. She looked gorgeous, as always, but also entirely different: her trademark ginger hair was gone, dyed dark brown, and she’d cut in a fringe. It made her look like a very sexy librarian. Aspen’s ability to transform herself was part of the reason that it had taken them a while, when they’d met at Stuart’s birthday party, to realize they’d known each other at school. Back then she’d just been the silent, watchful younger sister of Charlie’s friend Brianna, with carrot-orange hair and limbs that seemed too long for her, like a crane fly.
As he looked at her now, he noticed with vague wonder that even though he could see how stunning she was, one short text from his ex-wife had effectively killed all attraction he felt for her.
“Hello,” she said, with a guarded smile.
“Hi. New hair.”
“I needed a change,” she said, already walking through to the living room. “Can I get you a drink?”
The formality of it all felt incredibly strange; he’d had sex with Aspen on that sofa, held her while she cried in his lap on that armchair, fixed the baseboard by the TV himself.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
They sat. Jones felt almost painfully uncomfortable. He stared at the carpet.
“You were right,” he said eventually. “I did waste your time. I’mvery sorry. I think…I did know you were serious about me in a way I just…couldn’t be, about you. I wanted to—but I couldn’t.”
For a moment she just regarded him from the bay window, her tea cupped in her palms. Poised as ever. For all her warmth and charm, there was something unreachable about Aspen. An unimpeachable, flawless outer shell that she’d worn even in grief.
“I so hoped you were different,” she said. “You had your shit together. You’d been married, you knew how to commit.” She sighed, looking out of the window.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me how much you wanted a baby?” he asked, after a long moment.
