I don’t, actually—I think she’s brave for considering giving it all up. But I’m also confused, because surely there’s someone else in her life who would be a better sounding board than me. This performance, this show of taking me into her confidence, who is this for? Does she know what Lachlan and I are…were? She’s clearly a lot smarter than I gave her credit for, and I can’t help but feel like I’m being worked right now, a new informant being pumped for information by a veteran spy.
And then my suspicions are confirmed: “Can I ask you something, woman to woman?” Claire twists her mouth into a frown, and for once I see a blemish, a little worry line at the edge of her lips. “Has there been anyone else? While we’ve been separated, I mean. Has he been seeing anyone?”
My insides turn to liquid. “Not that I know of.” I can hear the unsteadiness in my voice, the clatter of my teeth as I shiver through the half-truth. I fish my scarf out of my bag and wrap it around my neck, hoping Claire buys that I’m cold and not absolutely petrified I’m about to be found out.
Unfortunately, this is the moment when everyone watching the movie realizes the heroine has made a fatal mistake.
Claire looks at the scarf and her brow furrows, until a light ofcomprehension dawns on her face. “Ah, of course,” she mutters. Then a rueful chuckle, a shake of her head, a bite of her lip. “It was you, then?”
“What do you mean?” My heart rattles in my chest.
Any warmth we had, any rapport we were starting to build, is gone in an instant as her features rearrange into an ice-cold mask. “Look, Abby, I’m not a fucking idiot. I may have only been in Lachlan’s flat for a few hours on the night of his birthday, but it was long enough. I saw a handbag on the back of a chair, saw some heels kicked off in a corner, and saw a scarf hanging on a hook near the front door. A scarf with a very distinct blue and green pattern—I remember thinking, even in the chaos of our fight, how lovely it was. A scarf that looked very much like the one you’ve just wrapped around your neck.”
A thousand excuses rush to my brain, but they all die before they can cross my lips.
“Come on.” She’s almost pleading. “I’ve sat here and poured my heart out to you and all the while, you’ve been with him? Is that what’s going on? Be honest with me.”
I do owe her that, as painful as it might be. I shake my head and try to keep the panic out of my voice. “We never…We didn’t actually…” I inhale, take a moment, gather my thoughts. It helps no one if she thinks I’m lying. When I speak again, I’m calmer. “I will admit that we got really close, but we never hooked up. Never slept together. My stuff was at his place because I crashed with him for a while after I got kicked out of my flat. We are not together and we never have been. I promise.”
I can’t read her face (only partly because of the Botox). There’s a slight narrowing of her eyes—disbelief, maybe. I wouldn’t blame her for that, because who could live with Lachlan Ramsay andnotend up in bed with him? But I think I see something elselurking behind the disbelief, and damn if it doesn’t seem a little bit like disappointment.
Claire fishes another cigarette out of the packet and clicks her lighter several times before it catches. She takes a long drag and exhales in a shaky breath, chewing on her thumbnail as the cigarette burns away between her fingers. Her eyes are shiny, brimming with tears that I’m certain she resents, certain she won’t let herself cry. “Last summer, there were all those stories in the tabloids about me and Carlinhos having an affair. And it was all total bollocks, but I didn’t fight back because there was this odd little part of me that thought, just like the thing with Lach’s dad, maybe one of us just needed to be the bad guy, to make it easier for us to end it. But then it turns out that he was falling in love with you the whole time anyway, so I guess I took the hit to my reputation for absolutely fuck all.”
I flinch at this. Even though I never really believed the tabloids, I’ll be the first to admit it was easier to think about Claire as the bad guy. It absolved me of some of the guilt I felt. But of course, reality is never that clear-cut. All three of us were—are—the bad guy to some degree: because we aren’t being honest with each other, because we aren’t being selfless enough to make hard choices, because we’re waiting for someone else to fall on their sword.
I take a step toward her and touch her elbow before I can stop myself. “Claire, it’s really important to me that you believe me. I’m not saying I’m blameless, because I definitely had feelings for him, and I think they were reciprocated to some degree. There were moments when I thought we would, but we never even kissed. You can think of me as the ‘other woman’ and I wouldn’t blame you at all, but there was a line that we never crossed. And I’m not saying this just to make myself feel better: It’s the truth,and I want you to have all the information so you can make an informed decision.”
She nods and the thumb that was in between her lips now scratches at the corner of her eye. She sniffles and her voice is small and wavery. “Is it terrible that I almost wish you had slept together?”
I swallow my first response, which isMe too!Instead, I shake my head. “It would have made your decision easier. It’s what you were trying to do with the affair story in the tabloids. I get it. And I’m sorry. I knew he was married and I let myself get carried away, which is ironic, given the fact that my fiancé cheated on me and that was unforgivable. I should have given you and Lachlan the space to sort out your relationship one way or another before letting myself have any feelings for him, but it was so much easier to pretend than to accept that I couldn’t have him.”
She can’t look at me, can only stare up at the darkening sky above us as she blinks back her tears. I feel wretched, absolutely wretched, but at the same time relieved. I told her the truth—maybe not all of it, but I didn’t lie. Lachlan stayed faithful to her, even if it got pretty dicey there at the end. But she doesn’t need to know what he said to me on New Year’s Eve. She can go into their therapy session knowing he didn’t cheat on her, and I can go home knowing I did the right thing. The rest is for them to figure out.
Claire’s phone buzzes and she glances at it, then drops her cigarette to the sidewalk and crushes it beneath the toe of her boot. “That was him. I have to go.” She runs a hand through her hair, shaking it out, and wraps her coat tighter around her tiny waist. She looks at me and opens her mouth, but then just closes it in a sigh and turns toward the training center.
“Claire,” I call after her. “I’m sorry. Really, I am.”
She looks over her shoulder. “Yeah. Me too.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The adage “In like alion, out like a lamb” does not apply to March in Liverpool, unless both the lion and the lamb are trapped in a perpetual deluge. Nor does it apply to my emotional state; there, it’s more along the lines of “In like one of those sad, runty wildebeests who has been separated from the herd and is about to be devoured, out like that sad, runty wildebeest’s best friend, who is very relieved she did not get mauled to death by lions, but is not, by any reasonable definition of the word, ‘happy.’ ” But that’s a lot less catchy, so I get it.
My conversation with Claire has stuck with me in a way that I didn’t expect, and that lingers on as April dawns. I keep replaying bits of it in my mind, wondering what she did with my information, wondering if she hates me or him or herself. I don’t like the idea that there’s someone out there who doesn’t like me, but I’m going to have to make peace with it—after all, if anyone deserves to hate me, it’s Claire.
But the thing is, I’m not even sure she does. I think what I said may have been helpful, clarifying, even if it was hard to hear. I sure as hell hated hearing that Steven was cheating on me, but at the same time it was oddly freeing. Maybe she feels the sameabout this—maybe she can spin our near miss into the thing that gives her the freedom to leave once and for all, to pursue her own life on her own terms and not feel like she’s the one who drove it all into the ground.
But that’s their journey to walk, not mine, and I can’t expend any more energy on it. I’ve got bigger emotional fish to fry: It’s my birthday. It really crept up on me this year, what with, like,everything. But lo and behold, there it is. Thirty-one. It was supposed to be my last birthday as an unmarried girl; now it’s my first birthday as a single woman. Perhaps the first of many.
Mersey is playing at home, but I skip the match and go to brunch with Amina instead. Apart from the hour where I watched him while she got her hair cut, it’s her first time being away from Hamza. While she talks a big game about how happy she is to have even one minute of freedom (and listens to me retell the Claire saga with the appropriate level of gasping and clutching of pearls), there’s a restlessness to her that signals she can’t wait to be back home with her kid. It’s sweet, and I’m touched she came out for me, but it somehow makes everything more sad. Oh, and Mersey ends up losing, which fits the narrative.
The rest of the day is spent fielding video calls from my family. It’s been almost ten months since I saw any of them in person, which is the longest I’ve ever gone. That’s probably why I burst into tears when my mom tells me that as a birthday surprise, she and my dad bought tickets to come to Liverpool in July. Of course, she then tells me that my brother Kyle upgraded them to business class because his agency has had such a great year, but it wouldn’t be a conversation with Mom without me coming away feeling a teensy bit inadequate.
Josh calls, as he has done every few days since we made up.Erica is there too, peppering me with questions about the progress I’m making against her list. I’ll admit that even though I preemptively resented her having such a focused involvement in my self-improvement plans, it’s actually great. She’s an incredible motivator, and every time we hang up, it makes me want to attack the list with renewed vigor.
Sadie’s solution to my birthday blues is, of course, sex, so she tarts me up and picks a bar. I go along because she’s been so good to me, but my heart’s not in it. To make matters worse, when I’m getting ready—wearing the exact same outfit as the last time she took me out—I realize I’ve lost my favorite bracelet, the one I had Lachlan clasp for me. That thought triggers a flood of memories, and all I can think about is Lachlan texting me that night, and what happened after. No amount of fake smiles and hair flips can paper over the ache eating away at the core of me, and it turns out strangers in a bar don’t want to hear your thoughts on the Myxoma virus, actually.
I duck out after what feels like a polite amount of time and return to my flat for a long bath and a cup of tea—both things I am into now, being properly British. I am so grateful to have such kind people in my life. I love them for trying to make this a good day. But all I want to do is go to bed and wake up on a day that’s not special, that draws less attention to the gnawing, agonizing loneliness I’m carrying around with me. As it turns out, the universe has other plans.
