Chapter 26 #2
Via FaceTime, Joe had folded his arms and spoken with the sort of calm authority she imagined he used on spiralling therapy clients.
‘Hannah,’ he’d said gently, ‘hasn’t it occurred to you that we might be part of the problem?
That Marc knew he’d get more traction with this nonsense because your profile rose after our engagement?
’ She admitted she hadn’t thought of this.
‘Well, it seems to me this bastard is calculating enough to have considered it,’ Joe concluded, ‘so less of the mea culpa posturing, please. He might never have thought about using you like this if there wasn’t a celebrity wedding for him to piggyback off.
’ Hannah remained unconvinced, but stopped apologising for the stories after that.
‘What’s the verdict then, Han?’ Livi asked now. ‘I reckon we have a sentiment ratio that’s roughly seventy-thirty on the comments we’ve reviewed so far, negative to neutral-slash-positive. And they’re still coming in.’
Hannah groaned. ‘This won’t be the last of it, either,’ she said dolefully.
‘Nope,’ Livi agreed. ‘There’s no way he’s posting this once and then stopping.
There’ll be his reaction to everyone else’s reaction.
Some sort of gratitude post that makes out he appreciates all the support he’s had for his new music and his – insert vomit here – emotional struggle.
Maybe he’ll put some account of how he wrote the song out there .
. . And probably some behind-the-scenes footage of shooting the music video, too. ’
‘Bloody hell,’ Charlie said, her mouth full of chocolate and marshmallow. ‘How do you know all that?’
‘It’s what I’d do. Business degree, remember?’ Livi explained, pointing at herself. ‘Management with marketing, first-class.’
‘So we shut them down?’ Hannah asked, meaning her social platforms. ‘I hate this so fucking much. I hate him. I never thought I was the sort of person who’d wish an untimely death on an ex, but I’m pretty close right now.
Nothing slow or painful . . . but maybe an unfortunate encounter with a bus? ’ She reached for a teacake.
‘Fair,’ Charlie commented, pouring fresh tea into all three of their mugs from the pot on the coffee table, then opening a tin of home-made lemon shortbread.
She’d turned up this morning armed with tea party supplies, declaring that if they were going to spend the day ‘shovelling Marc’s shit’, they might as well do it with high-quality snacks.
‘I’d say it comes down to how much time we can reasonably spend worrying about this over the next two weeks,’ Livi said sagely.
‘I know there’s a concern that temporarily suspending the accounts and turning off comments could make you look guilty, but it’ll mean you have the headspace you need to do next week’s wedding, plus finish sorting Ed and Joe’s.
My other thought is, there’s a chance that going dark works in your favour.
The story might shift. It could even become a thing in its own right: angry man bullies blameless businesswoman off the internet, sort of thing. ’
‘Let’s press pause then,’ Hannah said with a sigh.
It was the right decision, but temporarily deactivating her accounts was a bitter blow; it felt like admitting defeat, when her natural inclination was to take the fight to someone who’d wronged her.
How had she gone from organising her biggest ever event, and fending off a triple-digit increase in enquiries, to this?
The injustice of it brought furious tears to her eyes.
At the same time, it struck Hannah that she was abundantly grateful for her sister’s input at this moment.
She was too emotional to be thinking about the situation as rationally as Livi could.
What was more, she trusted Livi’s instincts and judgement implicitly.
Her sister was smart and qualified enough to make the right call, and would only ever act in the best interests of the firm.
Would Hannah be able to say all those things about anyone else she employed?
Would she even need an assistant or partner next year, given what was happening?
She felt the now-familiar pang of wanting Livi to stay on board with Eventurous and, as always, found it rapidly chased away by the thought that she was being selfish.
She didn’t want Livi to limit herself or feel beholden to staying part of a family business .
. . especially not under the current circumstances.
Her phone buzzed with an incoming notification and she flinched, no longer sure that the little glass rectangle could offer anything but bad news.
She picked it up and eyed it quizzically.
She had a text from a number she didn’t recognise, and she had message previews turned off.
Hannah rarely had her phone out in front of clients, but as and when she did, the last thing she needed was messages like ‘What curry do u want?’ ‘Can I borrow your black heeled sandals Saturday?’ or ‘Remind me of yr Netflix password pls’ appearing.
With three younger siblings – one of whom had been on a student budget until very recently – this tended to be the flavour of text she received.
Hannah supposed this one might simply be spam.
Some ambulance-chaser firm, perhaps, or a message from a retailer whose mailing list she’d forgotten she’d joined.
But maybe it was another journalist; someone who’d got hold of an old acquaintance or client and managed to wangle her private number out of them. That idea was nauseating.
Queasily, she swiped to open the text, then felt her heart leap in her chest.
Hope you’re OK. I miss you x, it said.
She knew who it was from immediately, and somehow couldn’t find it in herself to be angry that it had taken him more than four years to send it.
Hannah stared at the phone. Put it down for a few minutes, then stared at it again. She repeated this process several times, prompting Livi and Charlie to ask what was wrong with her, besides the obvious.
In the end, she went long enough without replying that another message came through.
Shit. I hope it was OK for me to even say that. Argh. Sorry if not.
She pocketed her phone and retreated to the bathroom, then eyed the text thread again, the words shining up from her phone screen in the dim, windowless room. I miss you.
It’s OK, and so am I, Hannah finally messaged back. It was mostly true.
She was holding back from saying what she meant, though, and she didn’t know why. The urge to share less than she felt was instinctive. It came from somewhere so ancient she barely even registered it. Three months ago, she wouldn’t have noticed the reflex at all.
She remembered how Jude had been with her the other night; how badly he’d needed to hear her say that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. It will kill me to hear you say this was a mistake. I won’t be able to live with you regretting me.
He had agonised about telling her he missed her.
Worried about how she’d take it and whether it might be misinterpreted, then thrown caution to the wind and said it anyway.
He had been brave enough to share it, simply because, right now, it was real.
And she missed him, too. She’d been missing him for years, and now she felt his absence like an ache.
Even if she couldn’t keep him forever – even if he didn’t want or couldn’t offer that – she realised she owed him honesty.
More than she’d have given him before, and more than she was comfortable with now.
Hannah had let very little in life frighten her, and she recognised it was time to reckon with this specific kind of cowardice.
She’d dressed it up in concerns about ruining their friendship, making Jude feel trapped, knowing that on paper the two of them made no sense together.
All of those anxieties were valid, but her fear went deeper than that. Right back to her roots.
I miss you too x, she typed. Four words that, ridiculously, felt like she’d screwed them from her very soul.
It wasn’t much, she reasoned. But it was a start.
She pressed send, then went back to work.