Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘Did you know you have a spider in the corner of your ceiling?’
Jess was lying sideways on Lola and Malik’s sofa, swinging her legs over the arm, a cup of tea going cold on the floor beside her. Lola was curled up in the armchair, looking at Jess with far too much concern, and Malik was in the kitchen, cooking his famous spaghetti bolognese that Jess was so fond of.
‘He’s called Marvin,’ Lola said. ‘We’re friends now.’ She sipped her tea, then rested her mug on her knees. ‘I’m so sorry about Ash. Are you sure it’s over?’
Jess closed her eyes. ‘I haven’t heard from him since he left the flat on Thursday.’
‘Have you messaged him?’
‘No.’
‘But you called in sick to work, yesterday and today? A Saturday?’ Lola sounded as incredulous as Jess felt. She nevercalled in sick; not even when she had sprained her ankle running to get to Waterstones before they closed one evening last year. She’d just hopped about, then hobbled, sat in the storeroom more than usual, and fulfilled all Wendy’s wholesale orders.
‘I just felt so... hopeless.’
‘Because you told Ash to go.’
‘He was going to go anyway, and that made me so angry. He’d just told me this awful thing about his family, and I could see how upset he was, even though it was all tight muscles and defensiveness instead of tears. Then, when I tried to get him to stay, he said this thing about me not having a proper family, and I know he’s right, so—’
‘He’s not,’ Lola said.
‘Then I told him to go, so I guess it was mutual.’
‘You do have a family,’ Lola said. ‘You might not be that close to them, but...’ She smiled, and Jess returned it.
‘You know how I feel about Edie and Graeme.’
‘Your mum and dad.’
‘Guys, do you want red pepper in the bolognese?’ Malik called from the kitchen.
‘Yes!’
‘No thanks,’ Jess said at the same time.
Malik appeared in the doorway. ‘Entirely unhelpful,’ he said with a grin.
‘Just put peppers in her bit and not mine.’ Jess shrugged, which didn’t really work when she was lying down.
‘Always a delight to have you here, Jessica,’ Malik said.
‘I bought wine!’ Jess shouted as he retreated to the kitchen.
‘I told you, you’re a delight!’
Jess laughed, then her smile fell. ‘Thank you for putting up with me.’
‘Never a chore,’ Lola said immediately. ‘But if you come round, you have to let me say some things.’
‘Always.’
‘Do you think, as mutual as you said it was, that you pushed Ash away like you’ve been doing with your mum and dad? Because, other than your incredible best friend,’ she pressed a hand to her chest, ‘you don’t like letting anyone get close?’
Jess pulled herself to sitting and picked up her cold tea. ‘You know what Edie said.’
‘And I know how you interpreted it.’
‘We’ve been through this a million times.’
‘It seems worth repeating, especially when something like this happens.’
‘This?’
‘Ash,’ Lola said. ‘I’ve only met him once, but he seemed so... whole. A kind, funny, well-rounded person, which shouldn’t be a rare thing, but I think when it comes to age-appropriate single men, it actually is. And I also have to mention – though this is the least important thing – he is completely gorgeous.’
‘He’s not whole,’ Jess said. ‘He’s dealing with this horrible situation with his dad, and he’s kept it from me for months. He only told me about it because we were having a fight about how I wouldn’t let him in, and he hadn’t realised he was doing exactly the same with me.’
‘So you’re as bad as each other? You like helping everyone, as long as the attention is focused on them and you’re in the background. As long as you don’t have to rely on anyone for anything or ask for help yourself.’ Lola shook her head. ‘And I understand that it was the hardest thing ever, finding your birth mum, being told she’d died, and for your aunt to respond the way she did.’
‘That was a decade ago,’ Jess said.
‘I am 100 per cent sure it doesn’t stop being traumatic,’ Lola replied. ‘And then, what you overheard Edie say: you interpreted it to fit your insecurities, and you’ve let it dictate all your relationships since then.’
‘Lola.’ Jess put a warning tone in her voice.
‘Spaghetti or tagliatelle?’ Malik called.
Jess let Lola answer, because the memory was replaying itself.
It had been just under two years ago, late in the summer, and Jess had been at the Peacocks’ Bexleyheath home, helping Graeme build shelves in the alcove in the spare bedroom. Jess had stayed upstairs after Graeme had let their neighbour Celine in, and as she’d come downstairs to get a drink, she’d overheard them talking.
‘Jess is better at DIY than me,’ Graeme had said. ‘She’ll probably build you shelves too, if you ask her. She likes the practical things.’
‘Always trying to be useful?’ Celine had replied.
‘Until she stops coming round altogether.’ That was Edie.
‘What do you mean?’ Celine had asked.
‘She’s beginning to distance herself. We’ve tried our best, but she’s never really acted like she wants to be a part of the family, has she?’
‘She just gets by on her own, love,’ Graeme had said. ‘She’s independent, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Most twenty-five-year-olds haven’t even considered leaving home yet.’
Edie had sighed, then said the words that had branded themselves on Jess’s consciousness. ‘It’s hard to feel loved when you’re not wanted or needed.’
Jess hadn’t waited to hear more. She’d gone back upstairs, had busied herself with the shelves for another hour until Graeme had forced her to call it a day.
It had been another three months before she’d confessed what she’d overheard to Lola, when they’d gone away for a weekend to Aldeburgh, renting a tiny cottage with the money they’d saved up. Lola had been shocked, but not for the same reasons as Jess.
‘She meant it about her, you doofus!’ Lola had thrown a cushion at her, narrowly avoiding knocking a figurine off the table. ‘She meant that you don’t want or need her, so she doesn’t know if you love her. She didn’t mean that you weren’t wanted.’
‘You can’t know that,’ Jess had said. ‘Maybe they never really wanted me. What if they wanted to adopt a younger child and I was all that was left? A Raggy Doll from the rejects bin.’
‘No way.’ Lola had been adamant. ‘Every time we go round to theirs, it’s so obvious how much they love you. Your mum thinks you don’t need her, that you’ve always preferredbeing on your own. That’s what she was saying.’
But Jess hadn’t been able to convince herself, and it had turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy. She had begun to do what Edie had accused her of: she’d stopped visiting and phoning as often, slowly extricating herself from the family unit. She had never confronted them because she knew they would say the same as Lola – they wouldn’t admit the truth. Instead, she’d let the rejection calcify inside her, alongside her aunt’s: another tick in the column titled, The only person you can count on is yourself. She even had that as a print in her shop, though it was one of her worst sellers. She refused to remove it out of principle.
‘You can’t just hang out with me and Wendy for the rest of your life,’ Lola said now.
‘That’s not what I do and you know it.’
‘But you really like Ash. He’s different, Jess – in a good way.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s Sunday tomorrow, so I’ll know then, won’t I?’
‘Know what?’
‘If it’s properly over. If he turns up at the usual time, we can talk about it. If he doesn’t, then that’s it.’
‘You’re going to let him dictate what happens between you?’ Lola went to get the bottle of red wine Jess had brought round. ‘I thought that was part of the problem: that he showed up when you told him not to, that he decided to go when you asked him to stay. What will you do if he doesn’t turn up? Just accept he’s in control, or do something about it?’
Jess didn’t reply. She didn’t have an answer. Instead, she closed her eyes and listened to her best friend struggling with the corkscrew, and Malik singing in the kitchen, and inhaled the delicious, tomatoey smells.
Lola squeezed her shoulder and, when Jess opened her eyes, thrust a glass of wine into her hand. ‘The best cure for heartbreak.’
‘I’m not heartbroken,’ Jess scoffed, then took a sip. ‘It’s not like Ash and I knew each other very well, anyway.’
Lola sat next to her. ‘That’s because you didn’t let him, not properly. I get that you didn’t want to rely on him, but sometimes you have to admit that people are worth holding on to. They’re worth fighting for, even when things are hard. I would bet you anythingthat he turns up tomorrow.’
‘You would?’ Jess didn’t want to admit that, since he’d left her flat on Thursday, that was the one thing she’d been hanging on to. Because she didcare about him, and she wanted to fight for what they had.
‘I would.’ Lola’s nod was firm. ‘Now, come and help me lay the table. Malik’s spag bol is worth clearing off all the piles of crap for – no eating off our knees tonight. We can celebrate the fact that you’ve found someone you really like, and that you’re prepared to do the hard graft to make it work.’
‘OK.’ Jess let herself be infected by her friend’s positivity. She let herself believe that, the following day, Ash would appear in the doorway of No Vase Like Home with two coffees and an apology, and she would tell him that he didn’t need to apologise, that she was the one who needed to say sorry, and they’d go to Felicity’s house together and Jess could get rid of this awful, tearing ache inside her.
With a smile, she went to help her friend clear the tiny dining table, so they could sit down and have a meal together.