Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jenna
When I wake the following morning, he is gone.
The panic rises in me and while I am quick to quieten it, I am not as effective as the note I find on the bedside table.
Again, he leaves his number below the message.
I didn't put his number in my phone yesterday, but I did keep hold of the note he left, folding it into my purse behind one of my credit cards.
I hold this piece of paper, staring at the slightly forward slope of his handwriting, not at all surprised that he writes in all capital letters, and I know I'll never throw his notes away.
After glancing at my phone and realising I've slept in later than I have all week - until 8:45 - I sit up and acknowledge the sharp ache between my legs and a light sting on the skin of my butt cheeks as I slip out of bed. I smile about both as I brush my teeth and scroll through other notifications that have come up, including five new messages from my brother checking I’m still alive.
I look lazily at the bath, thinking a soak would do my aching pussy good, but I realise I have too much nervous energy for that and before I can talk myself out of it, I'm changing into a clean set of gym gear and pulling my hair into a ponytail. I grab a banana from the fruit bowl and eat it as I march up the path to the outdoor gym, my headphones on and my tried and tested playlist filling my ears. I get my phone out and send Jake a quick message to let him know I'm still breathing but if he doesn’t hear from me again by the end of the day it’s because I have died and my cause of death is to be listed as “Fucking A Young Irishman”.
Focused on my phone, I'm already in the gym when I spot who else is there. It’s Marty's sister, Maeve, with an older woman that has the exact same colouring as Marty.
And when she stands up straight, coming out of a yoga position I'm not sure I could do, I see her side profile on full display complete with a familiarly commanding nose, albeit bump-free, and a very recognisable angular bone structure.
“Fuck,” I say under my breath but keep walking, albeit a little slower.
They appear to be doing stretches on the mats together and by the look of Maeve's slightly pinked cheeks, I have a small hope that they're cooling down rather than warming up. Maeve is the first to spot me and I hit pause on my playlist as she lifts her hand in a meagre wave.
“Oh, hi,” she says, and I see her glance at her mother once, twice, before putting her eyes back on me.
Maeve has a careful but impish smile on her face, as if she's considering what would be the best outcome in this scenario for me but she also can’t resist contemplating the most fun outcome for her.
“Hi,” I say, and keeping my head down, I walk past them to the machine section. I hope Maeve receives my brevity as the invitation it is to absolutely not introduce me to her mother.
I am standing on the treadmill and finally breathing somewhat normally when I hear muttering behind me. I make the mistake of glancing back and I see Maeve’s mother - Marty’s mother - looking directly at me with her hands on her hips.
I smile at her, possibly a little disingenuously, then turn back to my workout, punishing myself by increasing the incline and the speed a little. I hit play again on my music.
“Let’s go, Ma.” I hear Maeve's voice clearly despite my playlist. I patiently keep my eyes forward and wait for the song to finish before I look back, relief sinking my chest when I see they have gone.
“Thank fuck for that,” I say to myself and then, lowering the incline, I increase the speed and my music volume. I start to jog.
After a surprisingly easy twenty-five minutes of running – possibly a consequence of my boosted levels of endorphins after all the many orgasms I’ve enjoyed the last few days - I switch the machine off and turn around to go take my position at the weights.
That's when I see her walking back up the path.
Marty's mother.
I cover my face with my towel, wiping away the sweat and hoping against all hope that it will also wipe away the image of his mother walking towards me with a very severe frown on her face, but when I drop the towel I see she and her scowl are still very much on the approach.
“I forgot my water bottle,” she says, a little too loudly.
I nod and smile as she goes to retrieve a purple bottle I hadn’t noticed on the floor. I pick up a pair of 5kg dumbbells and stand in front of the mirror.
“So, you’re Jenna?” She looks at me using the mirror's reflection.
I sigh and I know she will have seen my shoulders sink. But surely she can’t expect me to want to have this conversation, even if she does.
“Yes,” I say.
She nods and her lips curl up more on the right side than the left. It’s definitely not a smile. “I’m Cynthia.”
“Nice to meet you, Cynthia,” I say and nod at her in the mirror. Then I start to pump my arms. I may as well use up all this nervous energy.
“You were with Aiden yesterday,” she says and then lowers her voice. “And last night.”
“Yes,” I say simply. I remind myself that Marty is twenty-four. I don’t need to apologise or be ashamed of sleeping with him.
“I have to be honest and say I'm a little surprised,” she begins but I'm not about to wait to hear what she has to say.
“Because I'm older? Yes, I can understand that.” And it's the truth. It's been surprising me since I met him.
“And you’re English,” she says, and my spine straightens, tingling a little. I hadn’t even thought of that being a problem, and my oversight is as sobering as it puzzling.
“I am,” I say, and square my shoulders.
“Where do you live, Jenna?”
“London.” I slam down my weights, swapping them for 8kg ones. I need to feel more of a burn.
“What do you see in him?” She crosses her arms then, her stare hardening. “Apart from the obvious.”
“Excuse me?” I turn to look at her, stopping my reps.
“He's too young for you,” Cynthia snaps at me, her eyes just as fierce.
“With all due respect, Marty's an adult, and so am I-”
“Marty? You call him Marty?” she interrupts.
“Yes, that’s what he told me his name was.” I try not to sound spiteful but it’s near-impossible.
“That's the name his ex gave him. His ex who died.” She emphasises the last word with heavy eyebrows and an unforgiving glower.
“I know about Arnie.” This conversation is moving from places I never expected to topics I wouldn't have dreamed of discussing with her, at least not like this.
“Then you'll know Aiden's been through a lot this last year. And even before that. He spent months with Arnie, looking after him. Nobody should ever have to watch someone they love die like that. Especially not a twenty-two-year old boy.”
I bristle at the word ‘boy’ but I know nothing is to be gained from highlighting just how far from a boy her son is.
“I agree with you on that. And I truly wish it hadn't happened.”
“Then maybe you'll also agree that this is not a good idea.” She nods at me.
“There is no ‘this’. We spent the day together yesterday...”
“And night,” she adds firmly. “You spent the night together.”
I shake my head and move to return the weights. “I don't think either of us really wants to have this conversation.”
Cynthia shuffles to keep close to me, her arms folded across her chest. “And yet we are having it. And I'm asking you to stay away from Aiden. You don't know what he's been through.”
“He’s told me all about Arnie,” I say again. I take a moment to look at her, really look at her. I know it’s fear making her say what she’s saying, but fear of what?
“Did he also tell you about what happened after that? How he disappeared completely for months after Arnie died. How he went on this drink and drugs binge around Ibiza, Majorca, and the other smaller island there that I can never remember the blasted name for.”
“Formentera,” I say with a sharp inhale.
“Yes, that's it, thank you.” She gives me a quick nod. “Anyway. We barely heard from him for nearly six months until we got a phone call that he was in hospital.”
“Hospital?” I ask without thinking.
“So, he didn't tell you,” she says, and she can't contain her satisfaction. Her dark eyes sparkle like his do when he comes up with a quick and witty retort for me, but it’s brief because as she continues to talk it completely disappears and there is nothing happy or triumphant about her expression.
“He was in a scooter crash. Punctured a lung.
Broke seven ribs. But if you'd seen the state of the scooter, you'd know that it was a miracle he walked away with just that.”
A rush of different impulses fill my mind, but the one that is loudest, strongest, is the one to defend Marty. “People get in accidents all the time. I'm sorry that happened to him but I don't really understand your point.”
Cynthia is quick to reply to that although the way her voice cracks makes me think it pains her to do so. “There were multiple witnesses and they all said he was speeding up as he approached the wall he crashed into. He wanted to do it. He did it on purpose.”
A chill snakes its way down my back, like one of the many beads of sweat now pooling at the base of my spine.
No. Not Marty. Marty who is full of life. Full of pain and loss and grief too, yes, but so very full of life.
“He didn't tell you that part, did he?” Cynthia asks and while her tone is sly, her voice still cracks, like maybe it’s actually a great effort for her to sound so mean.
I drop eye contact with her, feeling increasingly out of my depth. Cynthia continues to talk and I sense her trying to catch my gaze again but still I look away, listening, processing. Or trying to.
“That's what Aiden does,” she continues.
“He rushes into things. He goes full throttle.
He did it with Arnie. When they went travelling, when they fell in love, and when Arnie got the cancer.
Aiden was all in, straight away. And then when Arnie died, he was all in on self-destruct mode.
He drank, he got high, and I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this but he slept around too, shagged his way through...”
“Ma.” Maeve’s voice silences Cynthia and makes us both twist our heads towards her. “That’s enough.”
Maeve’s shoulders and her jaw are squared in exactly the same way Marty's was when we had the small confrontation in the bathroom yesterday.
“She should know,” Cynthia says.
“Her name is Jenna, Ma.” Maeve steps forward to create the third point in a triangle between us. “And you're meddling.”
I could pick Maeve up and spin her around in circles, I'm so grateful for her presence and solidarity in this moment.
“I'm not meddling! Not really. Not when it's my responsibility to look after Aiden and make sure he doesn't get hurt.”
“I would never hurt him,” I blurt out. “I care about him.”
Cynthia snatches hold of my words. “If you do, then you'll leave him be. Let him have a holiday with his family. Let him have this week with us before he has to go back to reality again.” Her tone is softer now, but still not calm.
There's still tension in every sound, as if she's truly begging me to do as she asks.
When I don’t reply, Cynthia tuts out a sigh that I feel in my own lungs. Then she turns and walks past Maeve and back up the path, one of her hands on her face and her shoulders shaking.
I exhale as I turn to Maeve.
“Thank you,” I say to her with a slight nod.
“Don't thank me,” she says, shrugging as she takes half a step closer. “What she said was true.”
“What?” I pull my head back.
“All of it. It's true. He did get in that accident, and people did say it was deliberate. And he did drink and shag his way around the Balearics. He was a massive dirtbird man whore.”
“Right,” I say in a whisper, and nearly chuckle to myself because part of me is wishing the context was different so I could address her slut-shaming and being derogatory to sex workers.
“But wouldn't you have too?” Maeve asks pulling me back into our conversation.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Wouldn't you have done the same, or something just as unhinged, if you were twenty-three and you'd just buried your first love and best friend?”
Maeve doesn't wait for my answer. She is gone as quickly and quietly as she arrived, leaving me standing there under a hot sun, its rays toasting the already pink patches of sunburn I got yesterday, any energy I had for my workout now completely gone.