Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Jo was curled up on the couch with a hot water bottle pressed to her lower back and a mug of peppermint tea going cold on the coffee table.
She hadn’t intended to cancel tomorrow, but something about the way her emotions had caught up with her today made it impossible to think straight.
She wasn’t ready for that conversation. Not while she was still aching from the night before.
It had been stupid to let Lia in again, and it had been even more stupid to ask her to play the role of someone Jo knew she could never have. But in the moment, it had felt right. It had felt necessary. Safe, somehow. Because it wasn’t really Amelia, and it was never going to be.
Only now, everything was more tangled than ever.
She’d tried to sleep it off throughout the day, she’d tried to eat something too, but Ada’s comments about pretending Lia was Amelia if things didn’t work out between them had left Jo stuck in a loop of fantasy and reality that made her feel borderline unhinged.
A knock at the door startled her. She sat upright, glancing at the time on her phone. It was almost 9 p.m. Ada wouldn’t show up unannounced this late in the evening, so that only left one person Jo could imagine standing on the other side of her door.
She crossed the room and opened it.
And there she was.
Amelia.
Hair slightly windblown, cheeks a little flushed from the chill in the air, her coat open over a form-fitting black jumper and jeans. She looked like the embodiment of every complicated feeling Jo had tried to push down since the moment she’d allowed what she felt for her back into her life again.
“You said tomorrow was no good,” Amelia said, shifting from side to side. “But I couldn’t wait.”
Jo’s breath hitched.
“I was worried something had happened,” Amelia added. “When you cancelled, I-I thought maybe—”
“I just needed some space,” Jo cut in as she gripped the doorframe. She wasn’t sure whether to let Amelia in or hide behind it. “I…wasn’t expecting you.”
“I know, but I needed to see you.”
Jo swallowed. There was something in Amelia’s tone and the look in her eyes that told Jo she should let her inside. Something wasn’t right, and Amelia had been there for her, so now it was time to return that favour. Jo stepped aside. “Come in.”
Amelia passed her with a quiet ‘thank you’, removing her coat and hanging it up on the hook next to the door. She moved like she’d done it before. Like she knew the rhythm of Jo’s home. And she did…she’d helped her move in here just six months ago.
Jo closed the door and turned to face her. “Is everything okay?”
“Not really.” Amelia paused in the middle of the living room, searching Jo’s face. “But I thought it could be if we talked.”
Jo nodded, but her heart had started to pound. “Do you want tea or something?”
“No. I just…I want to talk.”
“If this is about me cancelling tomorrow.” Jo dropped down onto the couch and picked up her lukewarm peppermint tea. Maybe she should have opted for camomile with the hope it would calm her. “I can only be honest and say that I feel like I’ve completely lost my grip on what I’m doing.”
Amelia sat beside her, leaving a respectful space between them. “I know what you mean.”
“I went to Satin last night to be with Lia so I could stop thinking about you again.” Jo closed her eyes and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.
If she didn’t, she was going to sob in Amelia’s arms. “I thought it would do me some good, that I could put everything into a little box and the two wouldn’t cross over. ”
“But they’ve crossed.”
Jo nodded as her throat constricted. “And it’s messing with my head.”
Amelia’s gaze was steady, but Jo couldn’t look into those gorgeous eyes. Half of the time, they were the fucking problem. “What would you do if the two were the same?”
Jo’s head snapped around. “What?”
“If…what you had with Lia and what you’re beginning to feel for me weren’t two separate things.”
“I-I don’t know.” Jo’s stomach flipped. “But what I do know is that I can’t stop thinking about you. I wake up thinking about you, I fall asleep picturing you, I wonder how to ask when I need you…”
Amelia’s eyes softened, but they quickly glossed over like she was holding back more than she could say. “You don’t ever have to ask when you need me.”
Jo smiled weakly. “I do. Because it’s not fair. You’re Callum’s mum, and I’m—” She gestured helplessly. “I’m me. A constant fucking mess.”
Amelia reached across the small space between them, her fingers grazing Jo’s. “You’re not a mess. You’re just scared.”
Jo laughed, though none of this was funny. Not in the slightest. “Terrified, more like.”
“Me too,” Amelia admitted. “But I’d rather be scared with you than keep pretending none of this is happening.”
Jo relaxed a little. “Even if I keep running away?”
Amelia nodded. “Even then.”
The weight of Amelia’s words settled deep in Jo’s chest. She’d wanted someone to say that for years. That they’d stay, even when she panicked. Even when she disappeared into herself. But before Jo could reply, her phone buzzed on the table.
Her heart dropped when she saw the name.
Callum.
The blood drained from her face. She reached for her phone, her thumb hovering over the screen, but she didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Not when she was sitting here, stupidly in love with his mum.
Instead, she turned to Amelia, her eyes wide with conflict. Amelia stared back at her, and in that look, Jo knew what Callum was calling her for. Something neither of them was ready to face.
Amelia watched the colour drain from Jo’s face, her slender fingers clenched tightly around her phone as Callum’s name blinked back at her.
Any warmth or hope between them had just vanished the moment they’d been interrupted.
It felt as though the air had shifted. Hardened.
Amelia could see it in Jo’s posture, in the way her shoulders tensed, in the glassiness of her stare.
Her own pulse rushed in her ears.
While she had come here to tell Jo about Callum and about Lia, she’d hoped they could have talked about the future beforehand.
At least then, it may have softened the blow when it came to being honest about who she was at Satin.
But there was no putting it off now. Especially not after the call Jo had just missed.
It was time to come clean…and then lose the only woman she’d ever really cared about.
“I should have called you the second he called me,” Amelia said softly, her voice barely audible over the sound of her own heartbeat. “He called me when I was getting ready to head over here.”
Jo slowly placed her phone face down on the coffee table and turned to her. “H-he’s coming back, isn’t he?”
Amelia nodded. “Thea broke up with him.”
Jo stared down at her hands and picked at her fingernails.
Amelia wanted to reach out and take them in her own, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so.
Because what came after their conversation about Callum was going to be the end of everything here.
Amelia couldn’t leave this flat tonight with Jo’s skin lingering on her palms. She wouldn’t survive it.
“He said he wants to see if anything’s still there between you.”
Jo scoffed. “No thanks. I never want to see him again.”
“I’ll speak to him when he gets home. Tell him you’ve moved on,” Amelia wanted to take that burden from Jo.
“I’ll make it clear that it’s not a good idea.
” You selfish bitch! Amelia knew why she was offering to be the mediator in this.
Because she wanted Jo for herself. “But I thought you should know. Before he shows up at your door pretending he’s the answer to your heartbreak. ”
Jo sank back on the couch. “So, what does this mean for us?”
This was the moment she’d been dreading. A moment she had imagined over and over, in every possible version, but nothing she’d rehearsed felt right. Nothing could cushion the blow. “I don’t think there can be an ‘us,’ Jo.”
There it was. The silence in the room was deafening. Jo didn’t flinch, she didn’t speak, and her jaw was set so tightly that Amelia was worried it might snap.
“I’m trying to do the right thing,” Amelia’s voice broke. “For once, I’m trying to keep us both from getting hurt.”
Jo looked back at her, tears slowly trickling down her face. “So this is it? After trying to figure out if we could ever possibly be together…that’s it?”
“It has to be.”
“R-right.”
“But that’s not all,” Amelia’s stomach was roiling over and over again. “There’s something else you need to know.”
Jo sat up straight. “There’s more?”
Amelia nodded slowly. She couldn’t look the woman she secretly loved in the eye ever again. “It’s about Lia.”
That name. It physically shifted something in the room.
Jo frowned. “What about her?”
“I…am Lia.”
Jo glared, every emotion crossing her face as she frowned further. “What?”
“I’m Lia.” Amelia’s throat burned, and her heart… Well, she wasn’t sure it was still in her chest. “I’ve been her the entire time. From the very first night in the dark room.”
“No.” Jo slowly rose to her feet, her hands shaking at her sides. “You’re joking. Ada’s put you up to this and really…you’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“What the fuck, Amelia?! You…you let me—” Jo’s voice cracked with disbelief. “I’ve said things to her, done things…to you, thinking…Jesus Christ.”
“I know,” Amelia rose to her feet and stepped closer to Jo. “I know, and I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Jo paced as she ran her hands through her hair. “You lied to me. You let me pour my heart out to someone I thought was a stranger while you sat there in the fucking dark, pretending it wasn’t you.”
“I never meant for it to go this far.”
“But it did!” Jo snapped, the fury in her eyes intense. “You listened while I said all those things. You let me say them. You let me fuck you and talk about you…while you pretended to be someone else.”
“I was trying to give you what you needed.”
“You have no idea what I needed!”