Chapter 20
Ava
I’m in the passenger seat of Scottie’s Audi, watching the Highlands scroll past in shades of wet slate, and all I can think is: So this is what the morning after the apocalypse feels like.
I haven’t touched my phone since we left Oban an hour ago. Laurel’s screenshot is burned into my retinas. Nevin’s wounded-puppy act. The hashtags. The thousands of strangers already picking sides in a war they know nothing about.
Last night, I finally called Laurel. One hour on the phone, ugly crying into Katie’s pillow while Scottie pretended not to hear through the wall.
I told her everything. Nevin. The bathroom door.
Scottie’s fist. The way I’ve been whittling myself down to nothing for months and didn’t even notice until I stopped.
She didn’t say I told you so. She listened.
The cuffs of Scottie’s grey hoodie are hanging past my knuckles. I’m practically wrapped in a blanket. My knee jitters, and I clamp my hand hard over my kneecap and force it to slow. Four counts in. Four counts out. The same technique I use before stepping into the wings.
Scottie’s fingers curl around the steering wheel, the bruises fading to green and yellow.
Ha. I know that all too well.
He keeps his focus on the road. But occasionally his pinkie drifts from the gearstick to brush my knee – the one I moved as close as possible on purpose. The silence between us is strange. Not awkward but loaded with all the things we haven’t said.
‘You’re a hundred miles away again, Marzipan.’
I pluck at my cuticle until it bleeds and stuff my hand under my thigh to hide the evidence.
‘Well, yeah. My life is basically nuked.’ I turn to face his profile. ‘I can’t go home, because there’s no home to go to.’
‘What about your mum?’
‘She’s in Northern Ireland with her partner.
’ I pick at my cuticles again. ‘She invited me for Easter two weeks ago, but I never replied. Laurel is in Hong Kong until May. My dad is up in Aberdeen. And I can’t live in Aberdeen and work in Glasgow.
Not until they invent beaming. But I’ll bet they do the killer robots first.’
‘Our flat share in Duncraig. You can stay in our flat until you find something. I take the sofa.’
‘I’ve slept in your narrow bed for a full weekend, Scottie. I think we’re past the sofa stage.’
‘Fair enough. So it’s decided then.’
‘No. I mean…’ A wobble sneaks into my tone. ‘I can’t… You can’t—’
‘It’s not charity. More…temporary logistics until you find somewhere permanent. Maybe the ballet’s got emergency housing. Talk to them tomorrow.’
Temporary logistics. He packages the offer in practical words to defuse the fallout of my own bad decisions. I want to argue and tell him that his help is a debt I can never repay. That it makes me feel ashamed and weak. Instead, I say: ‘Okay, I guess.’
Scottie unspools against the driver’s seat. He didn’t realise he was braced for rejection until I didn’t give it.
His phone vibrates in the cup holder. The screen flashes:
CALENDAR REMINDER – MacKenzie Sports Opening 11:00
‘Scottie. That’s in…’ I check the car’s clock. ‘Forty minutes.’
‘Aye.’
‘We’re an hour away, and you’re supposed to be there, not here. It’s a sponsor event. That stuff is important.’
‘I’m aware.’ He silences the notification without bothering to check it.
‘Scottie—’
‘Brodie and Finn are the headlines.’ His voice is infuriatingly calm. ‘I bet nobody even notices that I’m a no-show. MacKenna’s there as well. They’ll survive one handshake short.’
‘This is your professional career.’
‘And you’re my—’ He stops and recalibrates. ‘You’re my priority right now, and that’s that.’
Nevin’s priorities were never in doubt: himself, his reputation and career, his comfort, his family, and then, at the bottom of the list, maybe me. Scottie’s priorities unsettle me, because he doesn’t make me fight for a place.
He’s putting me at the top, and I don’t know how to breathe up there.
He silences another reminder, and my guilt settles heavier.
‘Won’t you get in trouble?’
‘I guess after punching my teammate’s lights out, I’m already in for a monumental bollocking. And I’ll be fucked if I care.’ He hitches a shoulder. ‘Trouble is temporary. Leaving you alone right now isn’t an option.’
‘Then phone them. Tell them you’re ill. Food poisoning. Anything.’
‘And say what, Ava? If I call Wallace, he’s going to ask me why. If I tell him the truth, I’m telling him about you. About Nevin. All of it. And that’s yours to tell. When you’re ready. Not mine and not now.’
He’s right. One honest sentence, and my life becomes a staff meeting. A conversation between men in blazers who don’t know me and don’t care. I didn’t ask him to protect my privacy. He simply did it, the way he does everything. Without a fuss.
‘So you’d rather…not show up? No excuse, no reason, nothing?’
‘If the choice is between lying to my coach or airing your business? Aye. I’d take the monumental bollocking.’
We arrive at the familiar historic villa in Stirling. A place that says good family, good breeding, good money. The first time I saw it, I thought it was beautiful. Now I can’t unsee what it really is: a cage with a view.
Scottie parks on the street, two cars next to my Volvo, and checks his phone. ‘The dobber hasn’t blocked me. Interesting. He geo-tagged the gym at ten. He’ll be there until half eleven. We have enough time.’
The electronic lock beeps in sequence, and the front door opens. Not sure why I thought Nevin might have changed it – that would have required facing the neighbours after shouting the house down.
In the stairwell, Scottie’s hand finds the small of my back as we climb – a gentle support I lean into. It’s warm, comforting, and a world away from Nevin’s pressure that always shot a spike of compliance up my vertebrae.
At the top landing, my fingers grapple with the Yale key. ‘I can do it. Give me a second.’
‘No rush.’ Scottie waits, his breath fogging in the cold air of the landing.
Footsteps on the stairs below dump a cold wash of panic into my knees.
‘He’s not here,’ Scottie says calmly. ‘And I’ve got your back. I’m more than happy to smash his coupon in with my other hand, if needs be.’
With a brittle noise aimed at humour, I unlock the door, and it swings open.
I stall on the threshold, ambushed by the air inside. Sandalwood. Nevin. It takes one breath of his cologne to yank me straight back into the suffocating reality of living with him.
A fetid sinkhole opens in my stomach as I enter.
Everything is the same. The hole in the wall. The fugly leather sofa. The orchid I kept alive for four months. And why wouldn’t it be? Nothing has happened, at least nothing out of the ordinary. Only a regular life-threatening break-up.
In the centre of the lounge, there’s a pile.
My things. Clothes tangled with shoes, toiletries spilling from a split cosmetics bag, books with bent spines.
Three pairs of pointe shoes thrown carelessly on top, ribbons twisted.
The ones I wanted to break in for the role of Marzipan.
He piled everything I own and left it for me to find.
A performance. He’s directing the scene like a dramatic play.
Scottie’s hand lands on my shoulder, and the soft gesture settles me into the present.
‘Bin bags are in the kitchen.’ My tone drops into a thin, defensive monotone. ‘Under the sink.’
‘Ava, you don’t have to—’
‘Just get them. Please?’
He goes rummaging while I stand facing the debris.
So this is what’s left of my life.
I don’t waste time wallowing. I start sorting, making smaller heaps.
Scottie returns with a roll of bags without any comment on the carnage and helps to pack up the mess.
The clock in my head ticks, and every sound cranks up the adrenaline. But my hands are methodical, because I demand it of them. This is my body, I’m the boss. So I treat the panic like stage fright – breathe against the nausea and hit the marks.
Books. Jumpers. The red dress I wore to the cursed wedding where I met Nevin… I shove it into bags. My hairbrush. The charger for my laptop. Until it’s all packed away.
‘That’s it, then.’ I cross to the worktop – flawless white quartz – and let my keys clatter beside the fruit bowl.
A full stop after a sentence that should have ended months ago. But when the metal leaves my fingertips, something unclenches in my chest.
It’s over and done with.
It takes a few seconds for my nervous system to get the memo.
‘Anything else, Marzipan?’ Scottie brushes a strand of hair behind my ear.
‘No.’ I scan the place one more time. Every surface a potential crime scene. Each memory tainted. ‘There’s nothing else here that’s mine. Nothing that’s worth keeping. And we already took the coffee machine.’
‘Good. Because walking back in here took some serious guts. Come on.’
We grab the bags and leave. The door clicks shut behind us.
Scottie and Finn’s flat share in Duncraig is habitable chaos.
The communal areas are what you’d expect from two rugby lads in their twenties: trainers scattered in the hall, a tower of protein tubs on the kitchen worktop next to a grease-spotted stack of foil takeaway trays, a gaming console tangled with charger cables.
‘Finn’s at the event,’ Scottie says, dropping half of my bags inside the door. ‘Won’t be back for a while.’
Scottie’s room is at the end of the corridor. He opens the door. ‘Come in.’
It’s neat. Unexpectedly, obsessively neat. The bed is made. No hospital corners, but close.
‘You can unpack wherever.’
‘Scottie?’
‘Hm?’
‘Thank you.’ The words feel woefully puny. ‘For all of it.’
He shrugs, but his ears go pink. ‘Don’t go daft on me. It’s just a room for a wee while.’
It’s not just a room. We both know it’s not just a room. But what this thing between us really is – that’s very much unclear.
Scottie goes back into the hallway. His eyes glint with mischief. ‘We’re going out.’
‘Out where?’
‘Therapy.’