Chapter 35
“Just message him and ask.” I sigh at Anna, finally turning to face her under the covers of her spare bed. That’s where she found me when she followed me home from the reunion.
I’ve been lost in my thoughts, sobbing quietly into my pillow as the emotions I’ve been stifling for the last few weeks rise to the surface and refuse to be pushed back down.
Anna, on the other hand, has been voicing her thoughts to me as they pop into her head, her voice playing out like the running AFL commentary while I lay curled next to her, her hand rubbing slow circles over my back.
“I’m not going to ask if he left with anyone else!” She huffs, brushing my hair back from my face. I wipe my nose with my sleeve.
“Why not?”
“Because he’ll think I care!”
“But you do care?” I sniff.
When she doesn’t respond, I add, “It’s okay to admit that you care, you know.”
She eyes my red and blotchy face for a few moments, and I’m convinced she’s going to say that I care and I don’t look okay. But instead, she sighs. “Okay, fine. I care.”
I offer her all I’ve got, which is a watery smile. “He cares about you, too. I can tell.”
She bites on her lower lip, worrying it between her teeth as she considers my words.
“Tell me, what’s different about Percy than the other guys you see?” I ask, desperate for any distraction from my own messy love life. I can’t help the lyrics from our song playing on repeat inside my mind, or from seeing that woman’s hand resting on Zayn’s arm.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s that there’s history between us? We just have this connection that I’ve never felt with anyone else before and it’s hard to explain it. I find myself genuinely interested in what he has to say.” She sounds surprised by her own words.
I sniff again as I nod slowly, understanding her completely.
“You really think he cares, too?” she asks, and for a moment I have to remind myself that it’s Anna I’m speaking to and not some weird alien that looks like her. She’s never cared what anyone else has thought of her, let alone asked me about it.
“Yeah. I can tell by the way he looks at you.”
“How does he look at me?”
“Like he’s trying to commit your face to memory.”
We both jump when Anna’s phone pings between us.
“It’s him!” She snatches the phone up and her fingers start flying across the screen. I chance a swift glance down at my own dormant phone. Of course Zayn isn’t going to text you, you idiot. You told him it was over and that you’re going back to your ex.
“Guess he didn’t leave with anyone. He asked if I want to meet up.”
I force out a small laugh and ignore the stabbing pain in my chest. Did Zayn leave alone too?
“Wait,” Anna says abruptly, her fingers pausing. Her eyes soften on my face. “Do you mind if I go?”
“Of course not. Be free and have conversations that you’re genuinely interested in.”
I give her another watery smile and she snorts, whipping off the covers and exposing me to the cold air, not that I even feel it.
“Hopefully there’ll be a little less conversation and a little more of the horizontal tango on he cards tonight, though.” She leaves before I can muster up the will to laugh.
A week passes in a flurry of fundraiser preparation.
I miss another family lunch. That’s two in the space of three weeks and my mum is beside herself, but I can’t bring myself to face my family right now.
Daniel texts me on Wednesday to tell me our first counselling session is booked for the following week. I feel sick.
I don’t hear from Zayn, which makes me feel sicker.
I have a growing fear that by the time I’m able to sort out everything out with Daniel and my family he will well and truly be over us.
And who knows how long it will take? I’m no closer to coming up with a solution to my problem than I was when Daniel offered me the ultimatum.
It’s not like I can pull five hundred grand from my ass to pay off my family’s debt.
I wonder if there’s some legality that can help my family out of this situation, like the fact Daniel and I were married at the time and I can argue that ‘I’ leant the money to them. Or if there was some kind of contract signed about when and how the money was to be paid back.
If only I had a lawyer I could ask that I wasn’t afraid would front the money himself.
I can’t even ask my dad or brother about it, because if they’re aware of the situation, I know they would both agree to bankrupt themselves to free me.
It’s annoying that everyone in my life has to be so fucking self-sacrificing.
“I could say the same thing about you.” Anna rolls her eyes when I bring it up with her for the hundredth time the night before the fundraiser. “You are literally staying with a rapist to protect your family’s livelihood. It doesn’t get more self-sacrificing than that.”
It’s not like I can’t see where she’s coming from, but she can’t understand the guilt I feel over being the one who brought Daniel into our lives in the first place. I’ll find a way out of it.
I have to.