Chapter Thirty-Six
Thirty-six
I decide to give Jack the benefit of the doubt.
We all have bad days—days when things aren’t clicking as well as they should—and he’s had a shock.
I’d likely be confused—discombobulated, even—if he turned up wearing one of Freddie’s novelty shirts.
If he turned up smelling like Freddie. It’s all part of the process.
And although the sex needs considerable work, the way he looked at me when he saw me on the stairs, that hunger in his eyes?
Well, that’s what I’ve been searching for. I felt special again.
So I put on the clothes he laid out on the bed.
I won’t mention the drinking again. He’s worse when he’s sober, and if it helps bridge the gap between Alice and me further, then it might even be useful.
I’ve had to block that number that keeps calling.
It’s been incessant—at least once every two hours.
Whatever it is, Mum is not giving up easily.
Once I’ve decided what I’m going to cook for dinner and been to the shops and done all the necessary prep, I pass the time until Jack gets home on my laptop in the sitting room.
I’m firing off a message to Tilly when I catch sight of the folder of photos I keep of Freddie.
My chest pangs as I click on it. As hundreds of images of him fill the screen.
I scroll through them, wondering if this is a strange sort of self-sabotage, yet I’m unable to stop looking.
There are a few of Freddie and me together: in a pub, his hand resting on my shoulder, our heads tilted slightly toward each other, as though there were an electromagnetic field between us.
We could barely keep away from each other in those days.
Before everything started going wrong. I scroll again.
One of him in a towel in his bedroom, hair wet, looking slightly away from the lens.
One of him at his cousin’s wedding, giving a speech that made everyone laugh.
It’s hard to believe this is the same man who gave away everything we had so easily.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I jolt back to the present and twist in my seat to see Jack in the doorway. In full view of the screen. He looks furious.
Fuck. I was doing so well. This will be a tricky one to navigate my way out of.
Feminine wiles? Grief-stricken girlfriend?
I can’t decide how to play it. So I go with the safer option.
Meek and weak. Because—when all else fails—men do like to be reminded that they can overpower us, should the mood strike them.
I discovered that little nugget in a Reddit thread that started with a man going on about why men love feminine women.
It descended, quickly, into something far darker.
I make a show of pressing a delicate hand to my chest, because my feminine constitution can hardly take the surprise. Victorian women had it right: If it weren’t a little overdramatic, I might even consider fainting.
“Jack,” I say breathlessly. “I didn’t know you were home.”
I have no idea exactly what the time is, but from the light outside he must be back earlier than usual.
“Well. I am. I got sent home. My meeting went badly.”
I stand from the sofa, still with my hand pressed to my chest, and approach him. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“And then I come back here, and you’re looking at pictures of your ex?”
“I can explain.” The tremor to my voice is entirely real. “I remembered that I still had photos of him. And it didn’t feel right to have them. Not when what we have is so good. I was about to delete them.”
It is a flimsy lie, but the words trip over themselves in their haste to leave my mouth, which adds a nice legitimacy to what I am saying.
He’s doing that thing again; his eyes dart over me as though he is trying to read the lie on my face, but I don’t make amateur mistakes.
Not anymore. I keep my eyes fixed on his, reach out, interlace our fingers.
“You know it’s you, Jack,” I say, voice low and earnest. “It’s always been you. ”
And when he doesn’t resist, I stretch onto my tiptoes and give him a swift kiss on the cheek. He nods his acceptance when I lower back down. Like—once again—he was only searching for confirmation of my dedication to him.
“Just get rid of them,” he says roughly, and I am so pleased to have avoided another meltdown, I nod vigorously. I won’t, though. I need to keep these photos as a reminder of how wrong a relationship can go. “After dinner, OK?”
My cooking skills have improved dramatically already.
Turns out, practice really does make perfect.
I do, admittedly, try extra hard for dinner that night, to make up for my faux pas, and, as I pull the chicken out of the oven, I congratulate myself on my versatility.
I am excelling at the parochial gender roles of a half century ago, though I’m not entirely sure that’s something to boast about.
After dinner, Jack reminds me to delete the photographs of Freddie, and I make a show of collecting my laptop, tilting the screen slightly away from him so he can’t see that I’m simply moving them into another folder.
It does strike me that now would be a good opportunity to ask to see a photograph of Alice—quid pro quo and all that—but there is still a faint crackle of tension in the air, and I don’t want to rock the boat.
We sit on the sofa and the chest seems to wink at me from the corner.
I’ve had no luck getting into it, despite renewed efforts to find the key and—when that failed—pick the lock.
It’s a skill I realize I should really have taught myself earlier.
It would have saved me a whole lot of trouble.
I haven’t forgotten Jack’s reaction when I asked about Alice being in remission.
The way his eyes shot to the left. And I can’t help but feel that the answers may be contained in that chest. I don’t like the idea that he might still be hiding something from me.
Honesty and trust form the foundation for any good relationship, after all.
And, while I am going to great lengths to prove my dedication to him, he seems to have forgotten that it’s a two-way street.