CHAPTER NINETEEN #2
God, how could I have been so stupid? How had I not seen the betrayal coming? I wasn’t sure what was worse. The shit with my – with Cassie, or all the fucking men she’d apparently been seeing. I knew we weren’t officially dating, but last night had changed things. I thought –
What was it about me that made the women in my life want to betray me? What kind of fucked-up cosmic karma was this? I’d finally let my guard down, after so long keeping people out, and all that happened was that I got hurt. Again.
After tugging a T-shirt over my head, I picked up my phone, rage fuelling me to recklessness.
Paddy
Where are you?
I fired off the message to Jessy. ‘Shit,’ I muttered under my breath, chest tight and painful.
I needed to talk to her. I never wanted to talk to her again. I didn’t know what I wanted.
We had a contract. But I’d be damned if I was going to let a piece of paper force me to be with a woman who didn’t even have the integrity to tell me she was seeing other people.
Which, by the way, I thought furiously, is completely against the contract.
Fuck. I couldn’t wait around for her to reply. I needed answers and I needed them now.
It took me three attempts to find a pair of matching shoes and two minutes to remember how to lock my own front door.
Paddy
I need to see you
I’d sent the message before I started down the stairs, and by the time I’d reached the bottom of my block of flats I had a reply.
Jessy
Missed me?
Paddy
Where are you? At home still?
Had she even gone home, or was that another lie?
Jessy
Can’t stand to be without me, huh?
Before today her casual flirty tone, the speed at which she replied – both of those things would have made a smile spread across my face.
But now I wondered. Was she deflecting? Was she with another guy? Why hadn’t she just said where she was?
Jessy
Ran home to grab some clothes. Why, what’s up?
Paddy
lmk your address
She’d sent it before I reached the Tube, and as I tapped in, I tried to calm my racing heart.
My brain wouldn’t stop reminding me of the images from both articles. The photo with Dillon was particularly bad. She knew what Celine did had messed me up. And then, there she was, doing the same shit.
Oscar winner. I wanted to punch something.
Was this going to be the rest of my life? Always desperately trying to be better, to be enough … and never managing it? Trying to trust, and having that trust flung back in my face?
It took me less than half an hour to reach Jessy’s street.
When I knocked on the door, I could feel the tension thrumming through my body. I was surprised I wasn’t shaking with it.
A part of me hoped, prayed, that there was some reasonable explanation for all this. That Jessy hadn’t gone behind my back, like the article said. There had to be something.
Jessy wouldn’t – she wasn’t the type. But if there was one thing life had taught me, it was that no one could ever be fully trusted. Not when it came to me.
Jessy’s front door opened and a guy blinked at me. ‘Yeah?’
I stared. He was tall, with a scraggly beard and a cup of tea in his hands. He looked so at home I was taken aback for a moment, wondering if I’d got the wrong place. I looked at the door number again.
‘Hello?’ The guy frowned. ‘What do you want?’
‘I … does Jessy Donovan live here?’ I managed.
His gaze was sharpening now, and I had to hope he wouldn’t recognize me. ‘Yeah, she’s one of my housemates. Are you –’
The confusion faded.
That’s right – Jessy lives in a houseshare.
‘She’s in the living room.’ The guy gestured to the right with his cup of tea before turning and walking away.
I guess that counted as an invitation.
Stepping gingerly over the threshold, I saw immediately that Jessy’s hallway was absolutely nothing like mine.
There were about fifty coats of different sizes, shapes and colours, mostly hung up by the door, but some had slid down to the floor.
Twenty or so pairs of shoes were piled up underneath them, a vacuum and a mop propped up against them.
The place had not so much a lived-in but a worn-down sort of vibe.
And to my right was a door, slightly open.
And through that door came a voice.
‘Ross – seriously, we can’t –’
I had never walked so quickly as I did to that door, and when I pushed it open, I saw one thing.
Jessy. Jessy, pressed into the embrace of a guy who looked all too comfortable with his arms around her. My brain short-circuited, before starting up again and firing in all directions.
So, this was Ross. The famous ex-boyfriend. Or perhaps less of an ex and more like the current boyfriend. The one who had treated her badly. The one her mother had hated and her sister had warned her about. And she had clearly ignored both of them.
‘Jessy.’
Ross turned to look at me as I spoke, her name tugged from my lips before I could stop it. His brow wrinkled as Jessy stepped out of his embrace.
‘Patrick, you got here quickly –’ Was the surprise in her voice from having been caught?
‘Patrick who?’ Her ex folded his arms and looked me up and down with a territorial glare that I recognized. It was one I’d seen on my own face.
Possessiveness.
‘He’s no one,’ said Jessy quietly. ‘You need to go, Ross.’
‘He’s no one.’
Fire burned in my chest. ‘Yeah, you should go.’ I directed all my anger at Ross. I needed to direct it somewhere, why not at him?
‘Or what?’ he spat, stepping towards me, chest out in a poor imitation of a threat. ‘You going to get one of your people to fight for you?’
I laughed in his face as I shoved his shoulders, heat boiling in my veins. ‘I don’t think I’ll need any help getting rid of you, you pathetic shite –’
‘Ross!’ Jessy screamed as the man lunged at me.
I stepped back, dodging the swing, tempted to hook my right but forcing myself not to.
There would be paps outside before you know it. Best not to get photographed after a brawl.
Jessy was speaking in a low, urgent voice. ‘Just leave – go, Ross, get out –’
‘Fine.’ Ross shrugged and moved to draw Jessy in again, but this time she stepped back, her cheeks pink – with embarrassment or anger I wasn’t sure. ‘I’ll see you later, Jessy,’ he threw over his shoulder as he left the room.
He had walked out of the room before I could say anything, but when the door clicked shut, I breathed out slowly.
Silence filled the room. A silence I couldn’t let go on any longer.
‘I can’t believe it,’ I said quietly. The adrenaline that had pumped through me not even a minute ago was suddenly gone. The only thing I felt now was empty.
Jessy had wrapped her arms around herself, her gaze far away. ‘What?’ Even her voice sounded distant.
‘I –’ My mouth was dry, and I swallowed again before I continued. ‘I can’t believe you would do this to me.’
I sounded so pathetic. Here I was, standing in a living room with two beat-up sofas, a bookcase with hardly any books, and a TV that looked like it had seen better days, in front of a woman I had thought I was in love with and maybe loved me back.
Where the fuck had it gone so wrong?
‘What are you talking about?’ Jessy asked, genuine confusion written across her face. ‘I … I saw your message, but Ross –’
‘Yeah, you were busy.’ My tone was cold. It had to be. All my hopes of finding some kind of explanation for Jessy’s behaviour had disappeared. Now I was in protection mode.
A state I knew all too well.
‘Patrick, is there something wrong? Last night –’
‘Last night was a mistake.’ I cut across her, hardly able to believe she could even refer to it.
Jessy Donovan was not the woman I thought she was.
She stared at me in confused horror. ‘A mistake?’
God, she was good. How did she get her voice to wobble like that?
‘Yeah. I guess it was just another mistake you made,’ I said bitterly, hating how this hurt so much. ‘Like meeting all those other guys in public, when you should have brought them back here.’
Jessy stared. ‘Other guys? What are you talking about?’
‘Did you seriously think I wouldn’t find out, Jessy?
You think cameras haven’t been following you everywhere, just waiting for a chance to catch you slipping up?
’ My chest was heaving with the effort to keep my anger under control.
‘You cheated on me,’ I said bluntly. ‘In front of the whole fucking world – I’m an idiot,’ I said, my voice descending into mumbling.
‘Such an idiot, thinking I could trust you.’
‘Cheat on you – you’re not – what are you talking about?’
‘I was taking this seriously!’
‘And so was I!’ Jessy looked bewildered. Could she really not see how she had hurt me? How she had humiliated me? If the articles weren’t enough, seeing her with her ex, inside her house – somewhere she’d never invited me – was the last straw.
I swallowed hard. ‘I thought this – I thought we could be something more, but you couldn’t wait to cheat –’
‘You know what, I’m really getting tired of you accusing me of being unfaithful. Not that there’s even anything for me to be faithful to,’ Jessy shot back at me, her tone angry now. ‘The whole thing was supposed to be fake, remember?’
I took a step away, the pain her words inflicted so tangible I was almost surprised not to see them cut into me physically.
It had been fake. It had felt real to me. But that was it. It had only felt real to me. Jessy had just been entertaining me all along.
‘Patrick, just talk to me. Please!’ She reached for me, but I jerked away quickly. I didn’t think I could continue standing if she had taken my hand.
Pain bloomed in her eyes at my rejection, and she dropped her arm.
Good. Let her see she isn’t going to worm her way out of this one.
I should have felt satisfaction, but all I felt was hollowed out. How could this have gone so wrong so quickly? Hell, I’d been burned before, but this had been a flame I’d willingly fanned.
And now I was the one nursing another burn.
‘And my mother? Seriously?’ I muttered, lost in the memory of the articles that had shattered my morning. Shattered my heart. ‘You know how I feel about her – how she and I … Did you really think I wasn’t going to find out?’
When I managed to lift my gaze, my gut twisted. She was so beautiful, and I had really thought –
‘Patrick,’ Jessy said slowly, reaching for my hand. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’