Chapter 31
Chapter thirty-one
Emily
I call in sick to work for the next week. I spend most of it under my duvet. My phone died five days ago and the best thing I did was decide not to charge it.
It took twelve hours from the picture of me kissing Jack being released, for the press and the general public to identify me.
From that point, my phone hasn’t stopped ringing.
Friends and family wanting to know if it is true and what Jack Cartwright is really like.
One particular number lit up my screen almost non-stop from the moment he left. But I’m not ready to talk to him.
I have had thousands of ‘follow requests’ on Instagram, so many that I just deleted the app off my phone.
Facebook and TikTok have become my worst nightmare, with people I met years ago sharing the articles claiming we were best friends in high school.
No, Thomas, I sat next to you in maths, and you always copied my answers.
Four days ago—after I decided a glass (bottle) of wine would be a good idea to take the edge off (drown my sorrows)—I decided to do exactly what Jess told me not to and picked up my laptop to read the comments on the stories about me.
‘Fat’, ‘Ugly’, ‘Gold digger’, were just some of the lovely things people had to say about me.
I closed down the pages soon after reading those.
I have never been insecure about how I looked before, but these comments have me noticing things about myself that I had never picked up on.
For example, I always used to like that I was starting to get laughter lines around my eyes, they mean I’ve spent most of my life happy.
But no, apparently crow’s feet are highly offensive and any woman that has them needs to spend the rest of her life locked away where no one can see her horrible face crinkles.
Eight hours after my doom scroll, someone knocked on my door and requested an interview. On my doorstep. When I was hungover. I slammed the door in their face, closed all the curtains and I haven’t answered the door since.
It was around that time that I built a lovely little nest in my bed to curl up in. I have only left it to get more snacks or to pee.
Now, I am dangerously low on Diet Cokes, my hair tie snapped and is somewhere tangled in my hair, and I can’t remember the last time I showered.
I’m a fucking mess.
Jack left and took my heart with him. But he didn’t take my feelings like Chris did. When Chris left, I was numb. Scarily numb to the point that something was wrong with me. I should have been upset that my fiancé decided one day to leave me and never come back. But I could feel nothing.
That’s not a problem I have now. No, I’ve actually managed to cry about losing Jack. A lot. Like a whole fucking lot. Like an I’m not sure how I haven’t died of dehydration level of crying.
“Why don’t you fuck off and find someone else to harass!” The shout and slamming of my front door startles me from one of my many daytime naps I must have drifted off into.
“Oi, newly off grid, Emily. Where the fuck are you?” I roll my eyes but can’t help but smirk at Jess shouting for me.
“Upstairs,” I call down.
“What the fuck happened here?” she gasps as she opens my bedroom door.
I sit up and fully take in the scene she has been welcomed with.
There are empty Diet Coke cans and crisp packets piled up on the floor, a mass of used snotty tissues next to my head and a half-eaten jar of Nutella sat on my bedside table.
I lost the spoon somewhere on my floor yesterday.
That is all before I even know what I look like.
“This is worse than last time,” she whispers in horror.
I roll my eyes at her, “You’re being dramatic.”
“I’m being dramatic?” She laughs, “I’m not the one that has called in sick to work because they had a fight with their boyfriend.”
My boyfriend? Oh Jack. “I don’t even think we’re together anymore,” I say quietly.
“Oh, fuck off. He’s been trying to get hold of you all week, just like the rest of us.
He finally flipped and tracked me down. Must say it was delightful getting a message from the Jack Cartwright.
I was hoping for a dick pic seeming as you still won’t tell me if it’s tattooed or not,” she teases.
“Anyway, I ended up having to get Dan to get Chris’ old key, so I could come round, since you haven’t been answering the door, and your phone appears to be broken.
Side note, we will be talking about the fact that Chris still had a key to your house at a later date. ”
“It’s dead.”
“Yes, you could have been.”
“My phone,” I say flatly.
“And your charger…”
“I don’t want to speak to anyone.”
“That’s a shame. Because I’m here now.” She says as she perches on my bed, puts her arm around me and pulls me in for a squeeze only to immediately push me away. “You fucking stink.”
I huff a laugh, “Yeah, I haven’t showered for a bit.”
“Or brushed your teeth by the smell of it. Fucking hell, Em. If I knew it was this bad, I would have been round sooner.” She looks at me with sadness in her eyes. “What did he do?”
“Nothing,” I sigh.
“Don’t shut me out.”
I stop her with one finger raised, “It was me. As soon as I saw all the messages, it sent me back to when I found out Chris had cheated. It’s all I could think.”
“Valid,” she nods.
“Jack didn’t think so. I appreciate the best friend immediate back up, but it wasn’t valid. I should have believed what he was showing me was genuine. I hurt him, by not trusting him.” I wring my hands together for something to do.
“So… you’ve not been in work because you hurt a man’s feelings?” She looks at me confused, “I thought we enjoyed upsetting men?”
A small smile tugs the corner of my lips, “No, I’ve not been in work because everyone knows about me and Jack, and they will all be asking questions I can’t answer. And I can’t leave the fucking house because that guy is still in his car waiting for a picture of me!”
Jess grins. “Yeah, I shouted at him.”
“I heard.” My voice catches as I say, “He just left.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mid argument, or what felt like mid argument. He just left, saying I needed to decide if I trusted him or not. Then, he’s just left me to deal with all this media shit, that I don’t understand and I am unprepared for.
He hasn’t tried to contact me since that first day.
Even if he’s done with us, he could have at least checked if I was okay.
Or got in touch with whoever and tried to sink the story.
It feels really shitty of him that he hasn’t, so I am leaning in to being mad at him.
It hurts less that way,” I say, deflating back into my pillows.
“See that’s where I think you might be a little wrong, and if you turned your phone on you might have seen…”
“Seen what?”
Jess holds her phone out to me; it is open on Jack’s public Instagram page. The most recent video, posted five days ago, is an interview that looks like it has been recorded in his kitchen.
***
Jack
I fucked up. I left it too long. I should have just gone straight back to her house as soon as Aimee called me out for my shit.
I shouldn’t have let the press continue the hunt to find her.
They’re probably parked outside of her house right now waiting for either her to come out or me to go in.
I should have sorted out something with my contact in the media and worked with them instead of just hoping they would go away. They never do. I know this.
She hasn’t answered my calls over the last week and I don’t blame her.
I was a dick and she told me herself that she withdraws from people to deal with things on her own, why would she let me be there after I abandoned her.
Just like he did. On top of that, I brought her into my world and didn’t protect her from the things that could upset her.
Hopefully, Jess will hold up her end of the bargain and Emily will be watching my video now. All for the cheap price of VIP season tickets.
It broke my heart when Jess told me Emily hadn’t been in work this past week. Calling out because of me for the second time. None of this is helping me think this plan is going to work. But I had to do something. I had to try. I need her to know.
I take out my phone and open the video I asked Aimee to help me film. It’s the only thing I could think to do so I could not only tell Emily the truth, but so the whole world would know. I am hers, and she is mine. If she will have me.
Aimee and I are sat at my breakfast bar and she has a list of questions in front of her.
The way she interviewed me makes me think she should try out for presenter jobs, the camera loves her, and I don’t know if it’s just because she is my sister, but I have never felt more comfortable in an interview before.
Maybe it’s because it is the first interview I have been one hundred percent myself in.
Aimee sits straight backed, her attention solely on me, “So, it’s finally here my brother has agreed to a full interview with me! Let’s not make people wait and get straight to the gossip. Much to most people’s horror, you are off the market officially.” I roll my eyes at her. “Who is Emily Ryan?”
I puff my chest out in pride to reply, “Emily Ryan is my girlfriend.”
“How long have you been together?”
“Since early February, so a few months now.” I’m done being vague.
“Where did you meet?”
“At one of my games. She works for the ground, and I have had a huge crush on her since the first time I saw her.”
“Since February?”
I laugh, about to admit something I haven’t even told her.
“No, that’s not the first time I saw her.
” I grin at the memory, “I heard her first actually. Her laugh. I remember thinking someone must have told the funniest joke she had ever heard because her laugh was the loudest, dirtiest, borderline cackle I had ever heard. I remember looking over to a group of people in high vis jackets, all stood in a circle, giggling at each other. Her head was thrown back, nothing but pure joy on her face. And I remember being jealous.”
“Jealous?” Aimee interrupts.
“Yeah, of her utter unrestricted joy. She didn’t care who was there, she was fully doubled over laughing.
Loudly! I can’t explain how loud she is.
I heard her from across the pitch.” I chuckle, “I know now, that’s her ‘that’s killed me’ laugh.
It was so refreshing, to see someone so at ease and relaxed enough to fully be herself like that.
Then when I looked closer, I noticed she was with three men, and I got a whole new kind of jealous.
I have never been jealous of other men before, but here they were, with this beauty and one had made her laugh like that. ”
“That seems kinda…” Aimee makes a face.
“Kinda ridiculous? Yeah. You’re telling me. But you hadn’t seen her. I have no other word to describe her but breathtaking. I remember in that moment begging whatever God was listening to make it so that I could be the one who got to make her laugh like that one day.”
“I guess that’s kind of sweet, kind of possessive too but I can forgive that now I have seen the two of you together.” My sister grins. “So, you said it wasn’t February… when was it?” Aimee asks.
“That was on my first day with my new team.”
Aimee’s eyes widen at the reply, clearly shocked at my answer. She clears her throat and says, “But that was two years ago.”
“Yup.” I say, “And I looked for her every game. Every single day. I looked over to where she usually sat with the first aid team. Just hoping to get a glimpse of that smile. Some days I was blessed, others I wasn’t.”
“Why didn’t you approach her and say something!?” Aimee almost shouts the question at me and my eyebrows raise in shock at the outburst.
“Well, see that’s where things got tricky… Early on, I was warming up close to her side of the pitch. I always tried to put myself there.” I shrug. “Anyway, she took her gloves off, for whatever reason, and there was a ring on her finger.”
“Oh yeah. Him.” Aimee rolls her eyes.
“Yeah. Him.” I chuckle, “I was still getting back from my injury and as much as getting to know someone as carefree as her would have helped my recovery mentally, I knew I wouldn’t have been happy with just friends with someone as beautiful as her.”
Aimee doesn’t hide her smile. “So, how did you finally get to this point?”
I grimace. “Well, I sort of broke her nose. It was an accident!” I add quickly.
“I went to apologise and when I was in the room with her all the feelings I had been ignoring for two years came rushing back. I had meant to just shake her hand and leave. But as soon as I touched her, I didn’t want to let go.
Then, when I looked at our hands together, I noticed the ring was gone.
So, I asked her out.” I grin my big, for the press, smile.
“And the rest is history?” Aimee asks.
“Oh no, she rejected me like one hundred times. I just never gave up.”
“Creep,” Aimee teases.
“Yeah, I see how that could have come across… Anyway, it worked out well for me!” I grin again.
I cringe inwardly as I re-watch that line, ‘worked out well’ my arse. She won’t even take my calls.