Chessie, please, I texted her. If you won’t come, please call me. I need to hear your voice.
This was the longest I’d ever gone without talking to her. Even when I’d been overseas for conferences, or she’d been working monstrous hours, Chess and I talked every single day.
I jammed my thumb into my engagement ring, scraping it against the unfamiliar pressure of my wedding band. What the fuck was I going to do?
Jonah nudged me with his elbow. ‘I’ll be back, okay?’
I barely registered it. My body nodded automatically in acknowledgment. He got up and walked away.
And I was alone. Just me and our luggage and the pressure ofthe spikes of cubic zirconia against the pad of my thumb, and the horrible, horrible weight of what I’d done.
How could I leave if she didn’t come?
I couldn’t. Icouldn’t.
Chess would be furious with me.You’ve worked your whole life for this opportunity!she’d shout.What do you mean, you threw it away?
But it would be a different kind of fury. A familiar fury. There was nothing in the world that made Chess angrier than the thought I might not achieve my dreams. It would be a fury I knew how to manage, a fury we could find our way to the other side of.
Unlike this. This horrible, pointed, suffocating silence that I had no idea how to manage at all.
I bit my lip, hard enough to draw blood.
When Jonah got back from the bathroom, I was going to tell him.I’m sorry, but I can’t, I’d say.You go. I have to stay. Lyons only wanted one Level B lecturer anyway, right? You’ll do as good a job as me.
He’d protest, but I’d insist.Good luck with Fiona. I hope you two can get close again, I really do. And don’t worry, I’ll get Chess to help us figure out the legalities of a quickie divorce.
I pressed my thumb harder into my engagement ring. I’d gotten used to wearing it, this past month. It would feel strange not to have Jonah’s ring on my finger – naked, almost – but there was nothing that would make me feel as utterly and entirely stripped bare as having this awful,awfulhole in my heart where Chess should be.
I almost jumped out of my skin when Jonah tapped me on the shoulder, ricocheting wildly between surprise and hope that he was Chess and disappointment that he wasn’t and guilt for feeling disappointed because he had done nothing wrong, nothing at all. All he’d done was treat me kindly and carry me to bed and make me the world’s most beautiful pancakes and be the most cardigan-y version of himself and I was going to pull the rug out from under him anyway.
‘I got you something,’ he said, sitting down beside me, just as I was opening my mouth to tell him that I was sorry, but I couldn’t.
He handed me a white paper bag with the logo of the airport bookshop stamped on it in navy ink. ‘A wedding present. Sorry about the lack of wrapping.’
I took the book out of the bag. It wasCodename Charmingby Lucy Parker.
‘I hope I read the paratext right,’ he said, tapping his finger against the two cartoon figures on the front cover. ‘If this is actually some kind of heart-wrenching saga where everyone dies horribly in the end, I can take it back and exchange it. I kept the receipt.’
‘You read the paratext exactly right,’ I replied numbly. I had a copy of the exact same book in my handbag, intended to be my plane reading. ‘Um—’
‘And I got some snacks. It’ll probably be too late for dinner by the time we get to Hobart.’
He handed me a bottle of water and a packet of nacho cheese Doritos – my junk food of choice when I was either deeply stressed or on my period.
Oh God. OhGod.‘Jonah,’ I said.
‘Jonah, I…’
But he wasn’t looking at me anymore. His gaze was fixed on a point over my left shoulder.
I turned to see what he was looking at, and—
‘Chess,’ I breathed.
I was on my feet before I was conscious of it, propelled towards her as if by gravity. ‘Chessie,’ I said. ‘I’m so glad… I’m so sorry… I’m—’
‘Not you,’ Chess snarled, striding straight past me. ‘You. Private school boy. With me. Now.’
