Chapter 29 #2
“How was it?!” Dami asks. Angie’s gaze is still fixed on me.
“Yeah . . . I’m not sure,” I answer. “I don’t think I totally fucked it up. But I did say my favorite film was The Hobbit.”
Angie snorts. I smile. It feels good to have her making fun of me again.
“Is that bad?” Dami asks. “I’ve never seen it.”
“It’s not exactly a cultured choice,” Angie explains.
“Right.” Dami nods. “But . . . apart from that? It was OK?”
“I think so,” I say. “I mean, I analyzed every other moment on the train home and even the most paranoid and irrational parts of my brain couldn’t find too much else to stress over, so . . .”
“That’s good!” Dami claps.
“Yeah, well done, Becky Baggins,” Angie adds.
There’s a moment of silence.
“Well.” Dami pats her lap. “I think I’ll just go and check if Phil needs a hand . . .” She smiles awkwardly at both of us in turn and leaves the room.
Without Dami’s buffering presence it’s harder to look Angie in the eye. I sit down in Dami’s vacated seat.
Angie breaks the silence. “I read your letter. D gave it to me.”
“Oh,” I say.
“It was much better than the first.”
I look up to check Angie’s expression; she seems to be smiling. Faintly, but it’s a smile nonetheless.
“You were right,” I say. “I wanted my life to change, but . . . my delivery left a lot to be desired.”
“Yes.” Angie picks her nail. “And my life.”
“I’m sorry, Angie.” My voice is heavy with guilt.
“Yeah, I think I read that somewhere.” Angie presses her lips together and takes a deep breath. “Look, I should say sorry too.”
My eyebrows raise. “You’re sorry? For what?”
“I think I came down on you a bit hard about the letter. I don’t know, I think I’ve been walking around pretending everything was hunky-dory until you sent it. And, if I’m completely truthful . . . it wasn’t.”
I’m confused. “What do you mean?” I ask.
She takes a sip of wine. “I already knew.”
“You knew? Knew what? That he was hiding stuff from you?”
Angie looks like she’s gathering strength. She sighs. “So one time, he said he had to work late and my messages weren’t delivering, so I rang up the office, and the receptionist said the entire floor had gone out to the pub.”
“Why would he lie about going to the pub?”
Angie shrugs. “Not a clue. I don’t care if he goes to the pub.
But I couldn’t ask because then he’d be like, why did you ring the office, were you checking up on me?
Anyway, yeah, then a few months ago I noticed he’d left his Slack open,” she says.
“And I saw his friend Mark making jokes on a group thread about where he and Delith had disappeared to the other night.”
“Hilarious,” I say. “This Mark sounds like a comedic genius.”
Angie smirks. “Anyway, I wasn’t looking—he left it open,” she adds, like I might judge. As if I wouldn’t have shown up at his building in a trench coat and sunglasses by this point, if I were her. “But I couldn’t ask him about it, obviously, because then it would look like I was snooping.”
This conversation is baffling to me. Angie is the last person I ever would have thought cared about looking like she was “snooping.” I always thought if she suspected her boyfriend was actually cheating on her she’d be straight in there shining a light in his eye.
“He’s always flirted, but it wasn’t just that.
There have been lots of little hints. Things that didn’t quite add up.
Things I’ve been willing to overlook. And when I got your letter, I just couldn’t pretend I didn’t see them anymore.
I guess because then I knew other people saw them too.
I’ve been lying to myself for a long time.
” She looks down into her glass, avoiding eye contact.
None of this tallies with the Angie that I thought I knew so well. I knew that Angie must see Jacob’s flirting, but I always assumed she was so secure she was genuinely OK with it. I’m not sure what to do with the information that confident, outspoken Angie has things that secretly bother her too.
“I guess that makes two of us.” I laugh.
Angie draws breath. “So . . . yeah. I’m sorry for making you feel like it was all your fault. It wasn’t.”
“I still shouldn’t have sent it, in the way that I did,” I apologize. “And I am sorry.”
“Yeah, well, next time maybe just gently point to the red flags. Just don’t sit in silence stewing for years, then lob them at me.”
I laugh. “OK, so, honesty is our new policy?”
“Well, if we’re being really honest . . .” Angie pauses, like she’s about to say something important. “I hate your hair. Lose the pink tips.”
I burst out laughing. A warm, tingling sensation rushes down my back, like when someone you barely know remembers your birthday or the way you take your tea. Angie is insulting me like normal. “You’re wrong,” I assert. “The pink tips stay.”
Angie grins. “Becky, look, in all seriousness. In the spirit of helping each other see things we might rather not see, there is something I’ve been wanting to bring up with you. Don’t hate me, OK?”
I sit up, intrigued. I genuinely have no idea what she’s about to say.
“It’s just . . . I know you have this version of what happened with you and Max.
That he was perfect and you ended it because of circumstances .
. .” She waves her hands back and forth, her wine swishing against the sides of the glass.
“And he was, like . . . the one that got away. But that’s not how I remember it. ”
“Oh,” I say.
There’s a silence. Angie puts her glass down on the table.
“How do you remember it?” I ask eventually. I can’t not want to hear about this, now she’s brought it up.
“Well.” Angie grimaces. “You have this version that you broke his heart. I mean, yes, you broke up with him technically, but he decided to leave, so . . . I think the breakup is on him just as much as you. I mean, did Max ever suggest long-distance?”
No. Max didn’t abandon me. I abandoned him. Didn’t I? But I can’t deny there’s some sense in what she’s saying.
“I remember him being a bit of a shit boyfriend, to be honest,” she goes on. “Unreliable. Uncommunicative. I kind of thought the only reason you made it work was because you practically lived together and worked together. But, even then, I remember it being . . . difficult.”
Difficult? Was Max difficult? We were so young. I do remember wanting to be told how he felt about me, more, but it didn’t matter because I always knew. He’s never been great at sticking to plans . . . but I don’t remember it bothering me too much. Did it?
“And I know you think that you got over it at the time because you were too distracted by life in the big city, you were a naive fool with the world at her feet, yada yada. But . . . I kind of always thought you got over it because it ended at the right time. Then when he came back and things weren’t going so great for you, I think you kind of rewrote history, to be honest.”
When she stops talking, I don’t know what to say.
I’m aware of my brain working overtime to contradict her words.
Max might be shit at expressing his feelings directly but he’s not “uncommunicative.” He communicates in lots of ways that aren’t verbal.
And he’s not “unreliable.” He might be difficult to pin down sometimes but he always shows up when I need him.
But a little voice in my head reminds me of him ditching me in Paris, and the fact we still haven’t spoken about anything properly since.
But he did break up with Fran, and he did say it was always me. What more needs to be said, really? I rationalize.
“Look,” Angie says, as I go over the past from this new perspective.
“We don’t need to discuss it. Maybe I’m wrong.
But if you or Dami had suggested Jacob was untrustworthy earlier on in our relationship, I might have done something sooner.
So there. Now I’ve said it. Let’s say no more about it, OK? ”
I nod. I’m skeptical. Her version of the past doesn’t match up with mine at all. I mentally shelve it; I’ll think more about it later, but for the moment I’m just pleased that Angie and I are friends again.
“Anyway, Becks,” Angie carries on. “I understand why things got blown out of proportion. I know I’ve been a hag too. I’ve been so focused on the things I want, I forgot to be considerate of your feelings.”
I don’t say anything. Now feels like the wrong moment to agree too emphatically with that statement.
“I also know that we love each other. And I just lost a boyfriend . . .
I can’t lose anyone else that I love.”
Hot tears start prickling the backs of my eyes. She still loves me. “So . . .”
“So. I guess . . . what I’m saying is . . . yes. I am in the market for a flatmate.” She looks up, smiling, and puts down her wine.
“Really?!” I feel like storm clouds I didn’t even know were hovering over me start clearing. Sunshine starts peeking through.
“Yes.” Angie nods.
I launch myself across the room and throw my arms around her. Angie’s thin frame seems so fragile in my arms and I feel an overwhelming sense of protectiveness.
Angie hugs me back. “But only because you promised me baked goods,” she says. “Renege on this and I’m out.”
“That’s fair,” I mumble into her blouse.
We hug for a minute longer. I breathe in her familiar perfume and think of how perfectly everything seems to be working out. Angie forgives me. We’re going to live together. I had a job interview today that actually went well. I am with Max. It feels almost too good to be true.