Chapter 1 #2
‘Sort of what?’ I mumbled through another snotty sob. ‘I leave for a couple of weeks and you sublet the rug to a penis?’
‘You’re always at Marty’s.’ She half-held the throw while unhooking me with her other hand. ‘And you never even notice when I eat your food anymore. I assumed you’d moved in with Marty.’
‘All my stuff is here. And I still pay rent. I still live here.’ I yanked off my coat and threw it at the rack.
When I dropped my bag, I lost the last shred of composure keeping me together, and burst into a full flow of tears. Not the dainty Hollywood kind either. Red-faced, cow-noised and floppy-bodied. The type of cry where you’re on the verge of ejecting a lung.
Shelly scooped me against her and steered me past the sex rug and into the kitchenette. Dominic and his naked, sweaty backside had thankfully disintegrated. She plonked me on a chair and shoved a mug into my hands.
A mug filled to the brim with wine.
At least it wasn’t tea. It would have reminded me too much of him.
‘Drink,’ she said firmly. ‘And talk. I haven’t seen you fall apart since that time you got fired from the yearbook committee in high school.’
‘That was pre the-new-me.’ Before I’d learned to stuff all my chaos deep inside and pretend I had my shit together. Fake it till you make it.
Blabbering in between mouthfuls of white wine that bordered on vinegar, I dumped it all on her. The online scandal and all the hate tells of me, Marty’s smug little ‘now’s not the best time to go public’ speech, and the way he’d used me as his human bloody shield while kicking me to the curb.
‘What am I going to do?’ I downed the mug like the answers to my imploding life might be hiding in the dregs.
‘Everything was going right. I managed to pull myself together to be the person I’d always wanted to be, and now it’s all gone to shit.
Who’s going to employ me now? Who hires the PR girl who can’t even PR herself? ’
Shelly tutted while rubbing my back like she was burping a large, depressed baby.
‘Oh, hun. I’ve wanted to tell you for years that Marty is a grade A asswipe.
Any man who wants to keep you a secret doesn’t value you.
What you need is to get away from it all.
And probably a massive pizza and a really dirty shag, but we’ll start with escaping. ’
I made a helpless noise. ‘I don’t do escaping. I can’t even remember the last time I took a holiday. I do lists. And calendars. And colour-coded sticky notes. I don’t have time for getting away.’
‘Hate to tell you this, but you’ve got nothing but time now.’ Shelly topped up my mug, nearly to the brim.
‘Well, thanks for that.’ My tears had mostly dried up, leaving more anger than sadness in their wake. The fucking gall of Marty. ‘But I can’t spend my savings on a holiday. I don’t have that much and will need to keep what I have to cover expenses until I can find someone to hire me.’
‘I have an idea,’ she said, her curls wild from her sweat session, and her throw looking perilous against her chest. ‘It’s random, but my uncle inherited this little cottage from his sister.
Up in Scotland. Some tiny village on the coast. You know the type, more seagulls than villagers.
He’s been trying to find someone to decorate it so he can rent it out.
He’s been trying to convince me to do it, but you know my style is more shabby than chic, and he’s looking to go cottage-core.
If you were up for a bit of painting and faffing, I bet I could swing it free for you. ’
‘A cottage,’ I repeated blankly. ‘In Scotland.’
‘Yep. Mostly cosmetic stuff. Paint, curtains, that sort of thing. Lots of time to hide out and lick your wounds before you come back to London and face the real world. It’s exactly what you need.
Fresh air, locals who have no idea who you are, there’s even a cute as shit book club Uncle Henry tried to convince me with. ’
It had been years since I’d read for fun. I’d binged nothing but self-improvement and business sludge for years. Shelly planted a tiny seed of maybe.
My phone buzzed on the counter. Probably another tag. Another youth calling me everything from incompetent to morally bankrupt. I reached for it, but Shelly snatched it, flashed it in my face to unlock it, and swept across the screen with terrifying efficiency.
‘What are you—’
‘Deleting your socials,‘ she said. ‘Trust me, hun. They’ll move on to the next scandal soon. Protect your peace.’
‘I need my socials!’ I protested, trying and failing to grab the phone and becoming all too familiar with the amount of wine I’d consumed. ‘It’s my job.’
‘Not anymore.‘ She dropped the phone into the biscuit tin and shut the lid with a clang.
‘I can’t go without a phone.’
‘I’ll charge up my old pay-as-you-go. It’s not even a smartphone, so there will be no temptation to log back in and dredge up your pity party.’ Shelly had me stumped.
‘What about paying for stuff?’ I said.
‘Let me tell you about this thing called a debit card…’
I couldn’t help but smile at her.
‘And my rent?’
‘Dominic can cover it if he’s moving in. We’ll keep your room as is until you come back. You’ll be all fresh-faced and like a new woman. Then Marty can suck it.’ Shelly opened a pack of crisps, slitting it down the side to make the pack into a makeshift plate.
From the living room, a grunt of agreement floated in. ‘Does that mean I finally get a drawer?’
Shelly rolled her eyes before calling back through to Dominic. ‘Yes, you can have a drawer.’
My life could only be described as monumentally screwed up, and if Shelly’s sex-gremlin of a boyfriend was happy to foot the rent…
maybe it could work. I’d never had a place to decorate.
The apartments were way too expensive in central London for me to buy.
And moving a single cushion at Marty’s was practically a capital offence. It might be nice.
Shelly reached over and took my fingers in her hand.
I tried not to think about where they’d been.
‘You’ll go to the cottage. You’ll paint a wall or two.
And when London stops foaming at the mouth, you’ll come back glowing.
It has to be better than staying here and listening to me pounding Dominic every night. ’
‘Glowing from being in Scotland?’ I mumbled.
‘Fine. A damp glow. Either way, it’s an adventure.’
I stared into my mug. Scotland. A cottage. Rain instead of the online witch hunt.
A chance to… pause.
‘Fine,‘ I sighed, defeated. ‘But if I die in a tragic wallpapering accident, it’s on your head.’