Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Relaxed on Ellie’s couch, Alba tapped her foot lightly against the rug and kept her eyes fixed on the television, waiting for the next question to flash up on the screen.
Tonight’s episode of Beat the Chasers had become an unexpected comfort.
It was her favourite quiz show. And, as it turned out, Ellie’s too.
That knowledge made Alba smile to herself as she sank further into the cushions.
They’d spent the last half an hour talking about nothing particularly important—small things, easy things, the kind of conversation that drifted naturally and didn’t ask too much of either of them.
It should have felt strange sitting here in Ellie’s home on a Sunday night, but it didn’t. Not anymore.
The tension that had fizzed between them when Alba had first arrived had shifted into something oddly familiar, but she had a feeling Ellie’s cosy home was helping with that.
It was full of soft lighting and thoughtful little touches that made it feel lived in rather than staged.
It was the kind of place that held history within its walls, and it spoke volumes about the woman who owned it.
Perhaps that was ridiculous, given that Alba had only really spent one evening with Ellie before tonight, and that evening had involved alcohol and confessions in a dimly lit bar.
Still, homes told their own stories, and Ellie’s told Alba that beneath the ache she carried, there was warmth here, care, a…
softness that hadn’t quite been extinguished.
When the next question flashed up, Alba sat forward quickly. “Sanna Marin!”
“The answers haven’t even come up yet,” Ellie said, pausing the show and turning to look at Alba with amused suspicion. “How confident are you?”
Alba gave her a look. “That the former prime minister of Finland is Sanna Marin? A million percent certain.”
“Ah! Geography. Got it.”
Alba sat back and grinned, folding one leg beneath herself. “More like…lesbian who knows a hot woman when she sees one.”
“I’m sensing a theme here. Audrey and now Sanna.” Ellie was watching her. Alba knew it without even turning her head. She could feel the weight of that blue-eyed gaze lingering, curious and a little entertained. “You prefer older women.”
“Older women in authority, it would seem.” Alba whooped triumphantly when the correct answer flashed green, then settled back against the couch with a satisfied smile. “I’m just too good at these quiz shows.”
At some point after they had finished their hot chocolate, Ellie had swapped seats and moved closer.
Since then, Alba had been trying very hard not to notice Ellie’s perfume far more clearly than she had before.
The scent was expensive and unmistakably Ellie, and it was doing all sorts of unhelpful things to Alba’s senses.
Was there anything she didn’t like about Ellie Hamilton? Alba had the distinct feeling the answer would be a very firm no by the time they knew each other properly.
“What perfume are you wearing?”
Ellie frowned, as though the question had pulled her out of her own thoughts. “Oh, um…one from my Penhaligon collection.”
“Classy.” Just like the woman wearing it, Alba thought, though she kept that part to herself.
As she glanced back at Ellie and met those devastatingly blue eyes, Lois’ words from earlier nudged forward from the back of her mind.
Alba dismissed them instantly. She knew she didn’t need to be interested in every beautiful woman she encountered, but Ellie wasn’t just a beautiful woman. She was…more. So much more.
“So, what can I expect tomorrow? Chaos or calm?”
“Oh, complete chaos. It’s a given.” Ellie’s eyes lit up as she said that. “But it’s a good chaos, you know? Seeing the first-year seniors coming through the door, all looking far too small to be wearing blazers and rucksacks.”
Alba found herself smiling purely because Ellie was.
That smile changed her entire face. It made her look younger somehow.
Softer. It was impossible not to feel how much she loved the school, the children in it, and the purpose it gave her.
Alba knew that feeling. She’d felt it at her old school too, before everything had become too tainted to stay.
“God, I know. Some of them don’t look old enough to be getting the bus to school on their own. ”
“And then before we know it, they’re towering over us within a year.
” Ellie laughed, but it only lasted a second.
The sound faded too quickly, taking her smile with it.
“I don’t know what I’d do without that place.
The only time I feel remotely useful is when I’m there. Being here just…doesn’t fulfil me.”
There it was again. That sadness. Not just sadness, Alba realised.
Misery. A kind of hollowness that sat too deeply to be touched by casual conversation or a quiz show on a Sunday evening.
Had Ellie really been telling the truth when she said her separation was amicable?
Maybe she had. But if that was true, then there was something else beneath all of this.
Something heavier. Something far more devastating.
Because this woman was not okay. Not by a long shot.
“What could you do to change that feeling?”
Ellie exhaled a breath. “I wish I knew.”
“You said you hadn’t got around to divorcing your husband yet. Does that mean you see it working itself out…or?”
“No. Absolutely not. Colin met someone else earlier this year.” Ellie curled her legs to the side and settled fully against the couch. “It was a mutual decision to split. We’d just fallen out of love with one another.”
“I admire people who can come to that decision. I’ve never believed that staying for the sake of it is the right thing to do.
Not if you know you can be happier with someone else…
or on your own.” Alba glanced down at her hands, reminding herself of everything she’d tolerated for far too long.
“I know I stayed too long, but I wasn’t stupid enough to stay for good. ”
“I’ve always been very wary of Audrey. I don’t know what it is about her, but something in my gut has always felt off around her.”
“You probably come across all kinds of different people. You can likely read them better than most.” Alba had always trusted her instincts, too.
Except with Audrey. Back then, there had been no warning bell, no sense that something was wrong.
Or perhaps there had been, and Covid had drowned it out.
Those lockdown years had blurred people’s judgment in so many ways.
When you were shut inside a life with someone, day after day, it became difficult to tell the difference between comfort and dependency.
“When did you know you didn’t love him anymore? It wasn’t during the pandemic, was it?”
“I think Covid probably played a role in my realisation.” Ellie smiled faintly and lifted a shoulder. “I wasn’t the only one either. Judging by the statistics, a lot of people decided the marriage they were in wasn’t for them during that time.”
“Mm. It was eye-opening, that’s for sure.”
“I’d like to say it all worked out for me, but sadly it didn’t.”
Something shifted in the room. Alba felt it before she fully understood it.
She turned on the couch to face Ellie, her heartbeat slowing and her entire attention narrowing in on the woman beside her.
There was a change in Ellie’s voice—something fragile, almost trembling under the surface. “Because of the separation?”
“No, unfortunately not.” Ellie’s voice wavered, but she cleared the emotion from her throat quickly.
Alba had a feeling she was used to swallowing it down.
“I’m telling you this so that you hear it from me before everyone else.
I don’t want sympathy, and I don’t want you to walk on eggshells around me.
I just…think it would be best if you heard it directly from me and then we can all move on from it. ”
Alba’s fingers clenched around her mug. She had no idea what Ellie was about to say, but the air had turned heavy, as though the room itself was bracing. “Okay.”
“Six months after Colin and I separated, we lost our daughter.” Ellie barely managed to get those words out, her bottom lip trembling as she closed her eyes. “She was thirteen, she was my reason for breathing, and we lost her. Suddenly.”
Alba’s heart clenched so tight that it physically hurt. “Oh, Ellie.” Every instinct in her screamed to reach for her, but she froze, uncertain of what she had the right to do. “I’m so sorry.”
Ellie opened her eyes and looked at her with a smile so full of pain that Alba wanted to cry for her. “I know the staff at school worry about me. Part of me loves them for that, but I’m trying to pick my life up, and they make it hard sometimes.”
Alba nodded slowly, praying her voice wouldn’t betray her during this conversation. “I can imagine.”
“It’s been eighteen months. While I know there is no timescale for something so painful, I would like to try to find some kind of happiness in life again.
” Ellie shook her head. “I know that’s never going to be possible, not really, but I do want to try.
Overhearing things at work just…I don’t know.
I’m tired of it. I can’t do it anymore.”
“Have you spoken to them about it? About how it makes you feel every time they think they’re doing the right thing by asking how you are?
” Alba could see both sides of it, painfully clearly.
Of course people wanted Ellie to know she wasn’t alone, of course they wanted to hold her up when she was drowning, but good intentions didn’t erase damage.
Not when the effect was this obvious. “I’m sure they’d understand. ”
“No. I don’t have the heart to tell them to shut the fuck up.” Ellie paused as she chewed her lip. “Because that’s what I desperately want to say to them.”