Chapter Forty-Four
Ollie
I tap out a jovial-sounding Now who’s ghosting who?
message to Aury, seeing as she hasn’t responded to the text I sent yesterday.
Maybe she’s giving me a taste of my own medicine, which would be fair.
I didn’t reply for an eternity. She’s only been hard to reach for a matter of hours.
I hit send and wait for something – anything.
This is agonising. I wonder if she felt the same way, waiting for me to respond for all those months. Probably not.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Ben shouts from the kitchen and I jog along the corridor to our under-decorated lounge. He’s probably shouting at the football, but the TV isn’t on. Instead he’s pointing to his laptop. ‘Look at this.’
I sit next to him on the sofa and worry that this is going to be porn or something. Instead it’s a picture of … I blink: what am I looking at?
‘It’s Aurora,’ Ben says as if I’ve suddenly gone stupid, which I think I have.
‘Oh,’ I say slowly, because it is her. Although I can’t really tell, because her mouth is sealed to another man’s mouth. They’re standing in a lift, his arms around her, and the kiss is full-on.
‘What is this?’ I ask.
‘Daily Mail,’ Ben says simply. ‘Sidebar of shame. Aurora’s on the sidebar of shame. How cool is that?’
My stomach lurches. I think I’m going to be sick. ‘How do you know it’s her?’ It might not be. It might not be her.
‘“Reality-TV star-turned-presenter Sam Charlton and model Aurora Miller pictured in the Beverly Hills Hotel in California”,’ Ben reads.
‘Oh,’ I say again, quieter now.
‘They’re going upstairs in that lift,’ Ben comments, leaning towards his screen to squint closely at the image. ‘Yeah … look, one of those upper-floor buttons is lit up. They’re going up.’
My face flushes hot, my sinuses stab with pain – a sure-fire sign I’m about to throw up.
I stand, move far away from the laptop and begin jogging down the corridor to our bathroom.
Behind me I can hear Ben’s excitement continue with, ‘I’m calling Liv.
Then I’m calling Aurora. You want to listen in? ’
No, I think, before throwing up in the toilet. No, I absolutely do not want to listen in.