Page 41 of You Were Always the One

Emma looks surprised. ‘At this time of night?’

‘Yes.’ Getting up, I go to my study, not liking that she feels I have to answer to her. Closing the door, I go to the window and open it, standing there for a moment and breathing in the night air, trying to work out what is happening to my life. Where this sense of tumult has come from, why everything feels like it’s out of control and simultaneously falling apart around me.

Bit dramatic, Riggs, even for you, I admit to myself. Sitting down, I lean back in my chair. I’m usually laid back, but even to me, this is crazy. Emma leaving, then coming back. My study the only place I can be alone. But then I think about the baby.

It gets even weirder when, two hours later, I come out and find the Murano wedding-present lamp back in its place. As if it never left. Is that a sign? If so, it’s an unwanted one. Just to be perverse, I move it.

‘I thought we agreed it looked good there,’ Emma says on Monday morning, staring at the lamp.

‘Those were the days when we were married and we compromised,’ I remind her, compromise meaning we did it Emma’s way. ‘It’s different, now. In any case, seeing as it’s your lamp, I’d prefer it if you kept it in your room.’

‘Fine,’ she says huffily. ‘I’m going out soon. I’ve got a meeting at work.’

It’s only a goddamn frigging lamp, but I feel like punching the air, the Murano lamp suddenly symbolic of my entire life, and the way I’ve always gone with the path of least resistance, rather than take control. Maybe it’s time I did more of that.

It’s a powerful realisation. Closing the door of my study behind me, I sink into my chair, blinking at the screen of my laptop, wondering what the heck is happening to me.

Later that evening, I text Holly. It matters to me that she has the full picture.

I really hope you’re OK. And your kids. I’m sorry you’re going through so much. I’m here if you want to talk. And just so you know, it really is over with Emma. We are still getting divorced. We’re just trying to do the right thing where the baby is concerned x

Reading through it again, I press send. Then turning to my laptop, I read through the last chapter of my book, before carrying on writing. But my mind is in turmoil. I haven’t told Emma the real reason she and I will never be together: that however much I tell myself otherwise, I’m still in love with Holly. But she’s hardly going to leave Miles now that he’s sick.

But she never said she was going to leave him, I remind myself. Somewhere along the line, your brain has done what it always does and made assumptions; leapt into the realms of your imaginary world.

The one where Holly and I are together. Where there’s room for her kids, for everyone who matters in her life. For everyone in my life. A world that doesn’t exist. That never will. I stare at my screen, thinking about the future world I was going to write into being.

Reality can be brutal. My heart sinks, inspiration deserting me, the life ebbing away from my book as I skim through what I’ve written. I contemplate deleting it – writing is that masochistic. Writers truly torture themselves. Push themselves. Always chasing the next big idea, the way writers have done before me, as they will always do, somehow summoning the will to start again.

I’m still in a state of despondency much later when my phone pings with a message. It’s Holly.

I’m sorry Riggs. I’m all over the place. Can I call you sometime? Xx

I start typing. Call me anytime… Then on second thoughts, I call her.

She answers straight away. ‘Hello.’ She hesitates. Then it comes out in a rush. ‘I’m so sorry about last time. I was a mess.’

‘It’s OK. You don’t need to apologise. Really,’ I reassure her. ‘How are things?’

‘A bit frantic,’ she confesses. ‘There’s been so much to get my head around.’

‘I can imagine.’ And it was different with Emma, but I know how it feels, when a bombshell is dropped, when your life implodes. ‘What’s happening with Miles?’

‘Apart from his illness? I don’t think that’s all that’s going on.’ There’s desperation in her voice. ‘You know I thought Miles was having an affair? He said the reason he’d been out a lot was because he had all these medical appointments. But I’m still not sure. It was something Rita said. I can’t stop thinking about it.’

‘Go on,’ I say.

‘She thought it seemed odd that he had that many appointments – and in the evenings, too. There really have been a lot of them – and it started before he was diagnosed.’ She pauses. ‘So I’ve gone full circle. I’m thinking maybe he was seeing someone.’

Forget about my life being complicated. It’s a walk in the park compared to Holly’s. ‘You need to know, don’t you?’ I pause, imagining everything on hold for her.

‘How can I ask now, with everything he’s going through?’ She sounds desperate.

To my mind, it’s more a question of how can she not? ‘How long will he be in hospital?’

‘Probably around a week. I said I’d take some time off to look after him while he recovers. But he said he doesn’t want me to. Not in a nice way, just so you know,’ she adds. ‘More in a fuck off kind of way – because we haven’t been getting on.’

‘Oh, Holls.’ I wish I could hug her. ‘It really is shit.’ Miles sounds like a complete shit, is what I really want to say.