Chapter Thirty-Four
Lady Phoebe
I wake up with a hand on my stomach.
It isn’t mine. It’s too cold and too big to be mine. Too possessive to be Digby’s.
I blink a couple times against the blearing sun that’s pouring through the open french doors.
It’s always so hot and bright here in the mornings.
My robe is stuck to my clammy skin, I sit up, see Arthur behind me, his head lolled to the side, eyes closed, his hand dipped inside the small opening in my robe.
I remember last night—or rather the early hours of this morning—well. Digby and I fought, Arthur went out and shagged Astrid even though I knew he was going to at some point.
It should make me feel like shit. What Arthur did. But it doesn’t. Makes me feel like we’re on the same page now. For the past seven months, Arthur’s been watching Digby and I together and I knew it would've hurt him because it would’ve hurt me if the roles were reversed.
I lift Arthur’s arm off me and go upstairs, into my room where the bed is empty. I’m sort of glad Digby didn’t sleep in here. I wouldn’t have wanted him too.
Have a quick body wash in the shower and then throw my bikini on because what else are you meant to wear on holiday?
Bit shaken up when I step out of my bathroom and see Spencer and Athena sitting on my bed with an assortment of breakfast pastries and coffee.
“It’s no Ladurée but the chefs tried their best,” Athena smiles, shuffles further up the bed.
I throw myself down in the middle, exhausted even though I did end up getting some sleep.
“Are you okay?” Spencer asks, reaches out, strokes my forehead.
Look up at her, smile—she doesn’t buy it—, she frowns at me. “What happened, eh?”
I shake my head. I don’t know how to explain it. I’m still not sure myself and I don’t think Digby is either. I’d like to say it’s the first time one of our arguments have escalated to that point but that isn’t true. Paris. That was a huge one that no one else knows about.
“Let’s do something today!” Athena lays on my stomach, looking up at us. “Something fun like shopping or the beach or jet skies!”
Spencer nods.
“Not in the mood,” I tell them, feel a bit bad.
“Oh, come on,” Athena sighs. “We can’t just spend all day mopping about. We’re on holiday.”
I say nothing.
Athena frowns then, looks at me funny. “Did he hurt you last night?”
Spencer stares at me, bit of a frown on her face too, waits for me to answer.
Sure, he did—they both did, him and Arthur—but not physically. More mentally, I guess, and they’re not really asking that so I shake my head.
“I don’t want to be this person,” Athena holds her hands up. “But I really think you need to break up with him.”
“Me too,” Spencer says quietly.
Rub my eyes, yawn. “I know.”
And before they can ask anything else, there’s a knock on my bedroom door. Digby pops his head round.
Looks sad when he sees me.
“Can we talk—”
I sit up, Athena gives him a once over and a dirty look.
“Sure,” I mutter, getting off the bed.
And of course, I don’t want to go with him or talk to him or be alone with him after last night but also I don’t want to be with him because he made me want to cut last night and that hurts me more than any hit he could throw at me.
It was the truth that I hadn’t cut since Arthur left but that’s only because three days after that fatal morning, my sister forcibly dragged me out of my bed, fed me, washed my hair and then took me over to Dr.Kane’s office where he immediately put me on antidepressants.
Turns out I had been depressed for a long time.
But depression is funny like that. You don’t really know that you are until someone tells you.
Arthur made me depressed, apparently, which I thought was wrong because why would I let him make me depressed?
That doesn’t make sense. Why would anyone let that happen?
At that point, I still didn’t really understand why I cut myself.
In some ways I thought it was okay? Like, I wasn’t harming myself to the point of hospitalisation or hurting anyone else—what was the big deal?
Dr.Kane then labelled me a ‘self harmer’ and wrote me a care plan which I didn’t like because I’m not mental and it seemed so overly dramatic.
I’m me, for crying out loud. I knew I was never going to cut too deep but then again, he didn’t know that.
Anyway, I took the antidepressants for three months.
The first few weeks were strange. I felt the lowest I had ever felt in my life but everyone told me it would get worse before it got better.
And it wasn’t a shame thing, either, I mean, I know at least a hundred people off the top of my head who are on some kind of medication but I stopped taking them.
I woke up covered in sweat, couldn’t cry, couldn’t feel anything.
I felt like a robot. It was horrendous. I thought if there was a time I needed them, it was back in school when Arthur was still around.
Some numbing would’ve done me good but not now.
I had to move on and being on Sertraline made me feel almost glued to the same spot.
I went to uni, met Digby and then things felt a bit greener so I came off them.
Cold turkey. Worst decision of my life. My brain felt funny for weeks.
I haven’t taken a single one since—in fact, I went right off them. I think people can tell—I mean, they probably can—but they wouldn’t say anything anyway.
But last night knocked me for six. I mean the urge to hurt myself was so strong that I almost understood why people had addictions.
Dr.Kane said I cut because feeling something when you feel nothing makes sense.
Maybe last night that was how I felt. Digby had hurt me so much and so had Arthur that I wanted to be in control of something—just one thing.
And cutting was the thing I was in control of.
I didn’t, though, so I guess that’s the take away.
I’m a bit better, stronger, before I would’ve just gone and done it.
I’m not sure why I didn’t do it, though.
I wanted to.
Badly. Probably more than I’ve ever wanted to do it.
“Phoebe!” Digby snaps.
I blink a few times. “Sorry.”
“Did you hear what I just said?”
He looks pissed off.
I shake my head a bit sheepishly.
He rolls his eyes airily, playfully. “I said I was sorry, alright? Hate myself for last night. Should’ve never lost my shit with you like that but I saw you kiss Arthur and it just took me by surprise, you know? You’re mine.”
I pull back. “Am I?”
He reaches for my hand, laughs. “Course you are.”
“I don’t know, I mean, I feel like I’m my own person,” I say quietly.
Please, Digby, for the love of god, let me be my own person—you can have everything else.
“I know that,” he nods. “But you’re my girlfriend and I get possessive. I don’t wanna see another bloke’s lips all over you, do I?”
“Yeah.”
Why isn’t he leaving? Any other lad would be running for the hills. He saw his girlfriend kissing her ex-boyfriend? What will it take? A live sex show from Arthur and I? My goodness. I honestly don't feel bad about cheating on him now.
Or is he just me in school?
Is this what I was like?
Fuck.
I feel sick now.
Let me go, Digby, please. I love you enough to not want you to end up like how I am now.
Well, shit. Now I just feel sorry for him.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “We’re okay.”
He frowns. “Yeah?”
Put myself in his lap, kiss him. “Yeah.”
“I do really love you, Phoebs. Like a lot. Never felt this way about anyone before,” he tells me, his voice low and husky, his breath warm against the shell of my ear.
I lean back, cup his face. “I know.”
He tugs the back of my bikini top, lifts it over my head and then we have sex in the spare bedroom he slept in last night and it feels like the early days and I’m reminded of those times as he comes down on top of me.
I don’t think of Arthur once.
But the bubble is popped when I go downstairs later that afternoon and see everyone sitting around on the sofas. All their heads turn to look at me as I go down the stairs and I know it must be something bad.
You know when you can feel it. Almost as though it’s in the air that your entire world is about to come crashing down?
Yeah.
“Where’s Dicky?” George asks.
“In the shower,” I say slowly. “Are you hosting an intervention I know nothing about?”
I lock eyes with Arthur because of course I do. It doesn’t matter where we are or what the situation is, our eyes are like magnets.
“Sit down,” George tells me in his serious voice.
I do as he says and wait. Spencer looks fine, Athena looks a little shaken, the boys appear to be okay?
George leans forward, elbows on his knees and looks at me, straight faced, deadly serious. I feel my heart start to speed up.
“You been on your phone today?”
I shake my head.
He nods slowly, slides his phone out from the pocket of his trunks. “I don’t wanna be the one to—”
I snatch his phone out of his hand before he can finish and there it is.
Me. Showering. Outside. Naked. With Arthur watching me.
I didn’t tell you about it because it seemed insignificant but it was the other morning, when no one else was awake and it was my favourite time of day.
I could tell it was going to be a nice sunrise so I got up early, went down to my private beach and had a shower while I watched the ocean turn pink.
Arthur came down a few minutes later—couldn’t sleep, too hot—and I thought about turning away, covering up, but I didn’t so I let him stand there and watch me shower naked.
The paparazzi must’ve been in the boats that I thought were fishermen or in the helicopters I thought belonged to billionaires.
I stare at the picture for a while. The headline is disgusting. Our Favourite Lady Wet and Waiting. The whole article—from what I skim read—is degrading and sleazy and cheap.
I hand George’s phone back to him, my eyes unblinking, unmoving. My whole body feels frozen because I’ve never been publicly outed in this way before.