Chapter 20
The next day, I walk up the road to Angie’s house feeling like
I might vomit. I tried to call her last night but she didn’t pick up, so I spent another night on Max’s sofa—Fran texted me to say she’d be out for the evening—and decided to just show up today.
She still hasn’t reached out to me at all, which is unfathom-ably unlike her. But I’m hoping that she’ll be more open to my apology now she’s had a couple of nights to cool off and because Jacob won’t be around. I know for a fact Jacob plays football on Saturday afternoons.
I reach her front door.
I breathe in. And out. Breathe in. And out.
Angie’s never been one to keep her anger inside, so I’m expecting a full-on EastEnders-style confrontation, but once she lets it out the storm usually passes pretty quickly. I just need to get it over with.
With a shaky hand I knock. I hear footsteps.
“Hi.” I cough as she opens the door. Not for the first time this week I’m highly aware of my “Live, Laugh, Love” T-shirt. Angie’s in her tracksuit bottoms and crop top that shows off her toned stomach. Her makeup is perfect, as usual, even though she’s probably been working out.
She looks at me like I’ve seen her looking at kebabs, or unkempt facial hair, and steps aside. “Come in.”
I enter her pristine hallway. Everything is white, cream, or beige in Angie’s house. Apart from the special navy “Becky blanket” she gives me to sit on since the Unfortunate Pesto Incident.
“Ang, before we talk about anything, please can I borrow some clothes? My case is still at my Mum’s and . . .” I gesture to my T-shirt.
She nods and I gratefully rush upstairs to her room and pull out a normal top to change into, before coming back down to the kitchen.
Angie is already at the espresso machine that I can never remember how to use, with two giant mugs.
I sit on a stool at the islet in the middle of the room and take in the gleaming gray tiles and standing column wine rack she agonized for hours over when she moved in.
At Angie’s I always feel like a kid visiting their posh babysitter’s house.
She and Jacob bought this place together; he’s a finance bro, so pretty loaded.
Angie presses a few buttons and the machine whirs. The comforting sound of hot coffee pouring fills the room.
“No Jacob?” I check, just to make sure.
She shakes her head. “No. You can relax.”
Thank God. I’m unsure how I can ever be in the same room as him again.
Angie passes my beverage across the counter but doesn’t sit down opposite me. She remains standing on the other side of the islet.
“Dim,” she says, and the bright, stark lighting softens. She
puts her mug to her lips and takes a delicate sip. I do the same and swish the coffee around my mouth, which has gone dry with nerves.
“Angie,” I say finally. “I’m sorry.”
As soon as the words are out of my lips, I know just how much I mean them. I’ve never meant anything so earnestly. Now I’m here, I allow myself to feel just how desperate I am for her forgiveness.
“Sorry for what?” Angie asks.
“Err, the letter,” I reply. Does she have amnesia?
“Yes, but why? Sorry for what you said because you didn’t mean it?
Sorry because you could have phrased it differently?
Sorry you wrote it in a letter instead of saying it to my face?
” She delivers the lines coolly and I can tell she’s been practicing them in her head.
I wish I’d been more prepared with my answer.
“Er . . . all of the above,” I croak. My mouth is dry again already. I take another slurp of coffee.
“So you didn’t mean it?” She folds her arms. “You don’t think Jacob is a creep?”
Uhhhhh. Oh God. “No?” It comes out like a question.
“His presence doesn’t inspire the urge to wax off your own eyebrows?”
“No.” I feel a smirk coming on. For the love of God, whatever you do, do NOT laugh. I bite the inside of my cheek.
“Not even slightly convincing, Becky.” Angie shakes her head.
“OK. I guess . . . I meant it a bit,” I admit.
“Say that, then,” she says. “Say what you mean. Lying hasn’t got either of us very far, has it?”
This conversation feels very Angie and yet not at all like Angie at the same time. I’m used to her being a bit brutal, but something has shifted. Her snark has dissipated. Her comebacks aren’t as caustic. I notice that behind her makeup she has dark circles.
“Is everything OK, Angie?” I ask.
She takes a breath. “Jacob’s gone,” she answers.
“Gone?” I repeat dumbly. “Like, gone out?”
“Gone gone,” she clarifies.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s moving out.”
I nearly fall off my chair. I was not expecting to hear this. Angie’s obsessed with Jacob and their life together. They’ve been a couple since forever.
“What happened?!” I press.
“I found out some stuff,” she answers vaguely.
Some stuff. Angie rubs her eyes, and my stomach twists into a huge, lumpen knot.
She looks knackered. I’ve daydreamed about them breaking up a million times and imaginary me has always clicked my heels together with glee.
But seeing my beautiful, headstrong friend struggling is heartbreaking.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I continue. “I mean, we don’t have to.” I realize I may have lost the right to ask too many questions.
“Well, it was because of your letter, really,” she says.
Even though I think this will be a good thing for her, my heart sinks in the knowledge I’ve caused her pain. I shuffle uncomfortably in my seat.
“The night you came over . . . ,” she carries on. She still hasn’t sat down. “All I could think about when I went to bed was how mad I was at you and how unreasonable you were. Jacob was all, Don’t let her get in your head, babe, and saying you were just jealous of me.”
I know Jacob is an asshole, but I can’t help feeling a wave of indignation at him accusing me of being envious.
I can’t fathom anything worse than spending every waking moment thinking about house decorations and grown-up dinner parties and whether there are enough polenta appetizers for the vegans you had to invite but don’t really like or how far away to sit Pervy Uncle Bill from Booby Aunt Carol.
“But . . . I don’t know. I couldn’t stop thinking about what you’d said.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about how if you thought it, whether everyone else secretly thought it as well.
When I woke up, something possessed me to look at his phone.
I know it’s a bit, well . . . ,” she adds hurriedly, like I’m going to judge her. “But, like, with what you’d said . . .”
“Ang,” I reassure her. “I get it.”
She looks relieved. “Well, anyway . . . I found some weird messages from his friend Mark.”
I frown. “This has taken an unexpected turn.”
She laughs. “I wish he was screwing Mark. No. The messages didn’t sound like Mark at all. They had kisses and were talking about missing files. He and Mark don’t even work in the same department.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Yeah. He’d saved some girl from the office as ‘Mark’ on his phone.
There was nothing incriminating, exactly.
But . . . they’d been to the pub when he told me he was working late.
And the messages only started three days before, so he’d been deleting them.
” In true Angie style her voice remains steady and confident, but she can barely keep her disappointment out of it.
“God,” I say. “What then?”
“I asked him about it.”
“What did he say?”
“Oh, you know. That he’d saved a colleague called Delith as ‘Mark’ so I wouldn’t get unnecessarily jealous if her name flashed up .
. . That he didn’t mention the pub for the same reason.
All the stuff I’d been expecting him to say, really.
” Angie swirls her coffee. “Then, I don’t know.
I felt so confused. Like, is he sleeping with someone called Delith?
Or is she really just an innocent coworker and he didn’t want to worry me? ”
Angie forcefully places her mug down on the counter, getting more wound up as she talks.
“But anyway, when I didn’t immediately accept his answer, he changed tack, started almost blaming me. Saying there was nothing weird about his behavior and that I was just as mental as you.”
I snort. Jacob is unbelievable.
Angie shakes her head. “Anyway, he went off to work and I thought about it all day. And the next day. I’m not convinced he’s been banging Delith in the office toilets or anything.
Maybe. Or maybe they really did just go to the pub.
But the more I thought about it, the more I thought maybe that’s not even the main issue.
The point is . . . how could I ever know?
His immediate response was to gaslight me about it.
I don’t know . . . I had a really hard, honest look at our relationship, and asked myself whether I could trust him.
And the answer is no, I can’t. And I asked myself, Do I really want to live like that?
And no, I don’t. So when he came back last night I asked him to leave. ”
We’re silent for a moment. Angie’s looking at the floor. It occurs to me that, for the first time, we may have used the word “gaslight” correctly in a sentence. But now doesn’t feel like the right time to point that out.
“Ang, you must be gutted,” I say. I can hardly believe she really asked Jacob to go because of my letter. It’s not like I put those messages on his phone, but guilt gnaws at my stomach anyway. “I’m sorry . . . ,” I begin, but Angie holds up her hand to cut me off.
“Don’t be,” she says. “It’s good that this happened.” She sounds a bit like she’s convincing herself, but in time I think she’ll truly believe it.
I’m flooded with relief. Angie is OK. It’s raw right now, but in the long run, everything that’s happened will be for the best.
It all turned out all right. Angie will forgive me. Now we can start moving past it and everything will go back to—
“But what I’m still wondering, Becky,” Angie says, disrupting my train of thought, “is why you sent that letter?”