44. JULES
JULES
LONDON
I’m lying on my kitchen floor. I got over how uncomfortable it is about an hour ago.
The marble still feels cold under my cheek.
Quite remarkable, really. I hoped at some point I’d fall asleep to make the day go quicker, but I’ve just been staring at the bottom of my island.
Counting its ridges. Judging the thin line of dust my cleaner missed.
I jump when simultaneously my doorbell rings, my phone buzzes, and a faraway voice calls my name. I release a small sigh and do nothing. I’m not in the mood for visitors. Or calls. Maybe tomorrow. Probably not.
I’ve found myself in a bit of a stalemate.
No path forward, no path back. Everything I thought about myself is wrong – I’m not healed, I’m not powerful, I’m not good at my job, I’m not significant, I’m not better than my exes.
I thought I could fix everything, but it turns out I can’t even fix myself.
The brand I spent years building has gone up in flames.
Two brand partners have terminated their contracts.
Podcast downloads have sharply dipped. Tom never wants to see me again.
I haven’t checked social media in a couple of days but when I last looked, my follower count was sliding in large chunks.
The comments sections were battlegrounds, my own content evidence against me. How quickly fortunes can change.
My phone vibrates on the counter and I ignore it. It’s too far away. I don’t have the energy.
The thing I feel the worst about is Minnie.
She’s been against this fake dating scheme from the start, not to mention nervous about me preying on men in her line of work.
She’s a serious journalist, and me and my fluff proved her right, dragging her down and undermining her credibility.
The last thing I saw on Instagram was a deluge of comments blaming Minnie for allowing me into this world, and even suggesting she had something to do with manipulating Tom.
She stuck by me through my mum’s cancer, Damian, my OCD episodes, the lot, and this is how I repay her. I feel revolting.
I want to face her with honesty and sincerity, and I’m not in any state to do that right now, especially since I’m covered in desiccated coconut.
I wanted a snack, but my exercise today has consisted of approximately eight steps, and I haven’t been shopping since who knows when, so that was the best I could—
My phone rings again.
Get the message. Leave me alone. I’m busy.
I haven’t cried today, which is progress. To be honest, I think I’ve cried myself out. Is it possible to—
CRASH.
It came from my dining room. Glass shattering, shards falling to the floor like heavy rain. I yelp but stay put.
After everything, I’m being robbed.
Sad that I can’t even find it in me to hide, or even shove on my LED mask and petrify them.
New low, Jules.
‘Jules?’
That’s no burglar. I summon the energy to sit up, and it’s a bigger struggle than I’d like to admit.
He stumbles into the kitchen, chest heaving, wearing a very dapper long coat.
Even though my life’s imploded, I look like a troll, and have something sticky in my hair, my chest gives an inch at the sight of him.
His tussled hair, his flushed cheeks, his Arctic coat even though it’s only October and unseasonably mild – if the radio forecast’s anything to go by.
‘Do I ask why you’re on the floor?’ he pants, standing over me.
‘No.’
He unbuttons his coat, and his casual tone belied by shaking fingers. ‘Do you need a hand up?’
‘No. Look, I don’t want to talk about it—’
‘Who says I’m here to talk about anything?’ He drapes it over a high stool. ‘I’m here to sit on your kitchen floor. The floor’s great. Who needs back support? Not this guy.’
Even though I feel hollow, my face morphs into a smile, and his eyes lose some of their tension.
I know I didn’t want visitors but if it has to be someone, I’m glad that someone’s Tiago.
His presence soothes my soul, even though he has a voice like a foghorn and hums reggaeton if he’s silent for too long.
He sits cross-legged beside me. Close enough to feel him, but not close enough to touch, treating me like I’m a spooked horse.
‘Sorry about your window,’ he says. ‘I’ll pay for a new one.’
He’s trying to keep the mood light, but concern’s written all over his face. I mean, he broke into my house. He’s supposed to be in Mexico City tomorrow for the start of the race weekend. I didn’t mean to worry him. I wish I could stop making the wrong choices.
I rub my eye. ‘You really wanted to sit on my floor, didn’t you?’
‘Darn straight. You know what else I want to do?’ he asks.
My insides recoil. I said I didn’t want to talk about it.
‘Watch Gilmore Girls,’ he finishes.
I stare vacantly at him. ‘What?’
‘Specifically, the episode where Rory starts Yale. That’s where I’m up to.’
That’s season four. He hasn’t just dipped in, he’s put in real commitment. ‘You’ve been watching Gilmore Girls?’
He nods. ‘Turns out I missed a lot of the story when I was yelling at my sisters to turn it off. Who knew?’
‘Who knew,’ I repeat dumbly, not knowing what to do with this information. He watched Gilmore Girls for me? Why would he do that?
He sets it up in the living room and I shuffle to join him. On the coffee table is a packet of M his face is inches from mine.
We’ve watched TV like this dozens of times, usually followed by sex, and there’s an aching familiarity to it.
Everything inside me is screaming for me not to ruin it but I’m sick of hiding myself.
He’s gone to so much effort to be here, the least I can do is be totally honest.
‘I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,’ I blurt out.
He blinks slowly and takes his time pausing the TV, sitting slightly further down the sofa, his arm running along the back. He’s surely disgusted by me.
‘I know.’
Well… that was unexpected. ‘What? How?’
He raises his eyebrows like, Are you really going to make me say it, and I raise mine like, Yes I really am.
‘Alright.’ He interlocks his fingers and loosens them.
‘You’ve built your entire life around a need for control; you only use even numbers; you triple check everything; you hyper-focus on the tiniest details; you check plug sockets in every room; you count under your breath when you’re nervous. Want more?’
I frown. ‘Lots of people are control freaks.’
‘Jules, when you were in Miami, there were at least sixty photos on your phone of your appliances and plug sockets switched off.’
‘I—’
‘Look, I don’t care. I appreciate you telling me but it’s not a big deal. We all have our differences.’
‘It is a big deal. It ruined years of my life.’
Tiago purses his lips and lays a hand over mine. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not trying to downplay anything. I know it’s a serious mental condition. I’m just trying to tell you that I—’ He stops himself. ‘You’re not it, and it’s not you.’
‘It doesn’t feel that way,’ I murmur. ‘Living with OCD is like sitting on a paddleboard in a rocky sea. You do everything you can to stay upright because if you fall in, it can take years to climb out.
‘My first episode was after my mum died. I thought her monitors were going to electrocute the house. The thoughts were in my voice so I didn’t recognise it as foreign for months.
OCD preys on something you’re already worried about so it feels like a natural extension.
I checked sockets; I counted matches; I “sealed off” rooms after I checked them.
My dad didn’t have a clue what to do, so he just stayed at work more. ’
Tiago looks like I’ve wounded him.
‘My second episode was after Damian dumped me,’ I go on. ‘I became fixated on my looks, constantly scanning my reflection; analysing pictures; obsessing over symmetry.’
‘That fucking bastard. Does he know?’
‘Of course not.’ I fiddle with the ends of my hair.
‘It leaks into your whole life, and once you’ve managed to get it under control, you’ll do anything to avoid another episode.
I squeezed my life into manageable boxes.
I don’t like variables or surprises. I’m suspicious of anything new or chaotic.
I don’t drink, I don’t like being driven, I don’t like flying.
I like my lane where I can control everything. ’
Thoughts pass across his face quicker than I can read them. ‘I surprise you.’
‘I know.’
‘I’m new and chaotic.’
‘I know.’
He tilts his head so he’s looking up from beneath his stupidly beautiful lashes. ‘Juliet Butler, what are you trying to say?’
I want to tell him that I trust him like no one else.
That he makes me brave. That nobody makes me laugh like he does.
That the way he looks at me makes me feel like I’m a prize.
That I want to be part of his family so much it hurts.
That I’ve never let a man in like I’ve let him in.
That I know deep in my soul that he’d never do what Damian and Logan did.
I want to tell him I love him.
But I can’t.
I’m career suicide. We’ve spent so long building his reputation, I’m not about to blow it to oblivion because of my selfishness.
And who’s to say he even wants me back? I know he fancies me, he’s sexually attracted to me, and he cares about me, but love?
A relationship? A future? Let’s be real.
I’m a vacuous cancelled influencer who’s probably going to be broke this time next year.
Women fall over him; it’s a pipe dream that we could be anything more. That any man could love me for me.
‘That you’re persistent,’ I reply.
He was clearly expecting something more sincere but doesn’t voice it. I feel a stab of guilt, though not enough to follow it up.
‘I think you should confront Damian,’ he says.
‘Absolutely not.’
‘He’s out there shaking his blonde mane around the court with no fucking clue of the damage he’s done. You can’t let him get away with that.’
‘He wouldn’t care.’
His brow’s a hard line. ‘Anyone would care.’
‘I don’t want to confront him. For me.’
‘That’s different,’ he concedes as his thumb runs across the back of my hand. ‘But I think he’s leaked into your whole life just as much as OCD. Don’t you want… I don’t know, closure? The opportunity to face that?’
I shake my head resolutely. I can’t look Damian in the eye. There’s a chance I could go back to my old simpering self, and I don’t want to find out. ‘I can’t do it.’
‘C’mon, Jules, you’re strong as shit.’
Did he see me on the kitchen floor? ‘No, I’m not.’
‘Fine. Tell me what you’d say to him.’
‘What? No.’
‘I can be very hateable. You know that more than anyone.’
‘I didn’t know you then,’ I point out. ‘I could never hate you now I know you.’ You’re my favourite, I want to add but don’t.
He exhales roughly. ‘You can’t just stay cooped up in here forever. You need to make things right one step at a time, and I think this is a step you can take right now. What would you say to him?’
‘That he…’ I falter, feeling like I really, really, really don’t want to open that box but it’s creaking open anyway, ‘made me feel small, and weak, and unlovable.’ I’m gaining speed, the words coming with surprising ease.
‘That he’s a bully. His actions were abuse.
He tore me down to cover his own insecurities.
And I let him.’ Oh good, I’m crying again.
‘He colours how I see myself, and h-how I let others see me. I built a career around getting back at him, and now it feels empty and m-meaningless.’ I wipe my tears with my sleeve but they keep coming.
‘And I hate him. And I hate how much I hate him. It consumes me, and it makes me feel like a f-fool because you’re right: he has no fucking idea. ’
I cover my eyes with both hands and bawl. Tiago’s arms circle me, reminding me I’m in my house. I’m safe. With him.
‘I’m so proud of you, Jules,’ he says into my hair.