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These are the words I have wanted to hear since the day it happened. I have played out multiple scenarios in my head about how Ava admits she is to blame and now she’s saying them. I can’t quite take it in. My sister smiles hopefully at me. I am completely thrown. Until she whips out her phone, checks her eyes are glassy, sexy and tearful and takes a selfie.

Click. Click. Click.

‘Hashtag broken relationship?’ I guess.

Ava shrugs her shoulder in response, as though it is all out of her hands. ‘My followers are waiting to see a pic of us reunited. This is for the build-up. Then I thought we’d do a reel for the making-up bit. Me owning my own truth. As part of a live energy cleanse. Then, I’ll put a link in the bio, and we can be like actual life coaches together, and help people with their own hashtag broken relationships.’

I should have known. It’s all about her.

‘It’s all about you, isn’t it? Always about you,’ I say, shaking my head in disbelief.

She lowers her phone, perplexed. ‘If you mean, is this about me apologising… then yes.’

‘But it’s not an apology though, is it? It’s you creating content for a social media post.’

‘It’s still me apologising.’ She genuinely looks mystified.

‘Then just fucking apologise!’ I bark. ‘Why involve the whole fucking world? Who is this media circus for anyway? If it’s not for my benefit. It can only be for yours!’

‘Mine?’

‘Yes! You’re a bloody narcissist. Me, me, me! You’ve always been like that.’ I can barely breathe with frustration. How can she not see that about herself?

‘Have I?’ Her eyes have pooled with tears again.

‘And as for becoming a life coach, I would have thought that you’d have enough money from your enormous redundancy payout not to ever have to work again,’ I say sarcastically, ‘what with you having managed over two hundred staff across ten regional offices.’

She goes bright pink and hangs her head. ‘They shafted me. I got barely anything. Enough to come here and live for a few months. That’s all.’

‘What goes around, comes around,’ I say. I’ll never last a few months.

‘I know,’ Ava says, looking very sorry for herself. ‘I should never have trusted them.’

I feel a sudden unexpected pang of sympathy for her. We both trusted our employer with our careers and ended up with nothing to show for it.

‘I’m sorry, Nell. I’m sorry I let you down.’

Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen is riveted, her gaze pinging back and forth. It’s distracting me from really drilling down into specifics. I want Ava to fully explain why she threw me and my team under the bus. Why she felt she could embarrass me like she did. And why she felt the need to lure my boyfriend away just to humiliate me further. And why she thinks I’d ever fully forgive her for it!

I stare at her, wondering whether or not she’s even half aware of the damage she has caused. I close my eyes, tap my third eye and breathe deeply.

‘I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I did a terrible thing. I’ll never forgive myself but… I’m hoping I can earn yours.’

Oh my God.

She said it.

My skin feels suddenly cold and clammy. I open my eyes and find hers. She seems genuine. It feels counter intuitive to believe her, after everything she has put me through. I just don’t know. I just don’t know if I can trust her.

I pause, wondering what to do. She is a nightmare but she is my nightmare.

‘Well, if you must hang around, Ava, then at least learn how to manage the phone system, which is about as difficult as blinking, and then please show Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen how to use it.’

‘Of course. I love helping people,’ she says, turning her kilowatt smile on my gullible assistant. ‘When I was in Thailand, searching for true meaning and happiness…’

Oh, here we bloody go. I can see Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen being drawn in. Impressed by the way Ava is flicking her hair and gazing into the middle distance.

Ava puts her hand on her heart. ‘…I became a fully qualified shaman, which is basically the same thing as a life coach, isn’t it? What’s that quick qualify website called again?’