Chapter Thirteen Jade
Chapter Thirteen
Jade
The next day, I creep out of Zac’s house with the stealth of a cat burglar, my trainers making no sound on the stairs. Much as I was grateful for his arms last night, I’m not in the mood for conversation today.
Outside, the sky is as grey as a bruise, the air filled with the sound of birds who have urgent business.
I cut through streets that feel unfamiliar in this light, like the world’s been freshly shaken up and all the shops have moved an inch to the left.
I don’t want to go home, but there’s nowhere else to go.
At the flat, I hold my breath in the lobby and slide the key in slowly and carefully, imagining the sound waves radiating through Mum’s cheap-arse door.
She’ll be out for the count, I hope, shrouded in Primark sheets, breathing like a congested pug.
I tiptoe to the lounge, debating whether to make toast.
I settle for a cup of instant coffee and take it over to the sofa, remembering my phone’s nearly dead. I dig the charger out of my bag (it’s not even mine, it’s Zac’s, stolen with no shame), plug it in, and watch the screen flicker slowly to life.
And then I google her – like it’s an accident, like my fingers just kind of slide on to the keyboard and type ‘Bella Newbury’ out of muscle memory.
It’s not an ordinary name, so the first hit is her, capital-H Her.
A piece from a couple of years ago catches my eye – she’s on the front page of some local business rag, all teeth and ambition.
She’s the owner of Newbury New Forest Property Group – a bit of a tongue-twister, but it’s a sleek little empire of lettings and sales, with more than a few million-pound mansions on the books.
The kind of business my mum rails against when she’s had more than three vodka tonics.
Now I know why she has an aversion to estate agents.
The article calls Bella ‘a disruptor in the housing market’, which makes me want to gag, and there’s a whole spiel about how she took over her parents’ company and doubled its size within a year.
There’s a photo of her at some charity ball, arms linked with the local Tory MP, the kind of girl who stands in the centre of every photo.
I’m halfway down her Insta, scrolling through shots of her in velvet blazers and swanky offices, when I hear the death rattle of Mum’s bedroom door.
I freeze, thumb poised mid-scroll, listening to the familiar rhythm: the pause, the sigh, the shuffle of her slippers on the carpet.
She appears in the doorway, last night’s mascara smudged, her grey towelling dressing gown open over an ancient Sainsbury’s tee.
I cock an eyebrow and pretend I’m just watching TikTok videos.
Mum makes us both tea and then slumps on to the sofa next to me, clutching her mug like a talisman, and looks at me. Just looks, for a full thirty seconds, until my skin starts itching.
‘So . . .’ She speaks finally, her voice gone all soft. ‘Did you talk to her?’
I shake my head. ‘Went to Zac’s.’
She exhales. ‘Would have been nice if you’d let me know.’
I shrug, unable to form the word ‘sorry’.
‘You okay?’ she asks.
I shake my head again, but only a tiny bit, so she can pretend not to see.
Mum exhales hard. ‘I’m sorry, Jade. I should’ve told you. Should’ve told you years ago.’ Her eyes go all watery, and she makes this strangled noise like she’s trying to swallow a sob. ‘I just . . . I didn’t know how.’
I want to shout at her, to throw my phone at the wall like a reality TV star, but all I do is blink at her. ‘Yes, you should have,’ I say, but it comes out small.
She looks so wretched, I almost feel bad. Almost.
‘I found her online,’ I add, just to twist the knife.
She winces and nods. ‘Of course you did. You always were good at digging.’
I can’t stop myself. ‘She’s loaded.’
Mum’s mouth twitches at the corner. ‘Yeah, well. Some people have all the luck, eh?’
‘Would’ve been nice to have a twin,’ I say, hearing the acid in it.
She flinches, and I hate that I feel a flicker of guilt.
‘It was never that simple.’ Mum pauses, and then she launches into this monologue about how hard it was, how abandoned she felt by everyone, her twin with a new, better life, her parents, who she never knew, but found out later were both dead from overdoses, no one on her side except herself.
I hear it as if from a distance, like I’m underwater.
She says the other woman – my ‘Auntie’ Penni – was so desperate to have kids that she begged Mum to ‘consider her situation’.
I almost feel sorry for Mum, except I know she’s leaving out all the bits where she made her own choices.
‘What about the money they gave you?’ I ask, because I remember that part, and I want to see her squirm.
She sighs, the sound full of ancient exhaustion. ‘There was a bit. Not a fortune, but enough for this place. Could’ve got more for my money up north, but . . .’ She shrugs. ‘Even with the flat paid for, I was still skint. Still am.’ She emits the bleakest laugh I’ve ever heard.
‘I thought you rented this place.’ I suddenly realise I’ve never seen her fill out any paperwork for the flat, never seen a landlord’s letter.
She looks away, sheepish. ‘I didn’t want to have to explain how I got the money to buy it. So I let you believe I rented,’ she says, the words heavy as wet socks.
‘So you own it outright?’ I stare at her, genuinely gobsmacked.
Mum’s cheeks go pink. ‘It’s not The Ritz, love.’
‘But you make me pay rent.’ I fight the urge to laugh or cry, I can’t tell which.
‘I still have bills, Jade – water, leccy, gas, council tax, insurance . . . shall I go on? They don’t pay themselves.’
‘Fair enough.’ I raise my hands in surrender. ‘So, was it worth it? Losing a kid for a grotty flat?’
Her face freezes, and for a second I think she’s going to scream at me, or hit me, or dissolve into snotty tears. Instead, she just whispers, ‘God, Jade. You think I don’t regret it every day?’
I shrug. ‘I dunno. You never said. Why didn’t you tell Perfect Penni to piss off? You were just kids, and it was an accident. She had no right to ask you to give up a child.’
Mum’s lips twist. ‘I felt guilty. Course I did. I knew the tree thing was an accident, but that didn’t stop me feeling terrible about it.
I ruined her chance to have a family. And there was me able to have two beautiful daughters.
’ She takes a breath, and some old wound in her seems to close over.
‘You weren’t supposed to know,’ she says.
‘None of it. I tried to do my best for you.’
I roll my eyes. ‘By lying to me?’
She shakes her head. ‘By giving you a clean slate. A proper life. Less mess than I ever had.’
I want to argue, but what’s the point? She’s not strong enough to accept the truth of what she did, and I’m too tired to force it on her.
That night, at the pub, I pull pints like a robot and watch the regulars drift in, all of them oblivious to what’s boiling inside me.
My head spins with possible futures, none of which seem plausible.
I try to imagine meeting Bella – the real Bella, not the goddess-tier version I’ve built up in my head from her online presence – but it makes my stomach flip.
She’ll be smarter, richer, prettier. I hate that I’m already rehearsing the way she’ll look down on me. I need to get my life together.
Maybe she’ll pity me, maybe she’ll ignore me altogether, and which would I prefer?
Neither, if I’m honest. What could I do that might turn my life around?
I don’t have a family that’ll gift me a business; I need to find a way to make something of myself on my own.
I want her to envy me, just for a second, but I can’t think of a single thing she would want from my life.
Aside from maybe – the thought comes unbidden – to meet her birth mother.
My mother. Or maybe she won’t. Maybe she’s perfectly happy as she is.
It’s quieter behind the bar now, the screens glowing with football scores, and I lose myself in the rhythm: pour, wipe, pour, wipe.
Underneath it all, my mind starts running through options, a desperate little algorithm of self-improvement.
I could go to college, but I don’t have the money for tuition, and besides, I was shit at school.
Maybe I could get a grant, or one of those hardship funds, but they’d probably want to see some actual ‘promise’.
I could join a gym, be a personal trainer – there are loads of them on Instagram, and they all seem to be mega-successful.
I could reinvent myself as the fitness twin, but considering my smoking habit, I’d probably die of emphysema before I made it to the taster session.
The idea of bettering myself freaks me out, but also .
. . it kind of excites me. For the first time since I can remember, I actually want to achieve something.
Not a lottery win or a scratchcard miracle, but something earned.
It’s pathetic, but I cling to it – the fantasy of turning up at Bella’s fancy office, with a life, a version of myself she can’t ignore.
It’s the most awake I’ve felt in months, maybe years.
I start jotting notes on a bar receipt, all the ways I could remake myself – night classes, online diplomas, fake it till I make it.
Maybe I could get a job in property, work my way up from junior to top negotiator, or whatever they call themselves.
I know I could do it. I’m smart. I’ve just been lazy.
I could start calling myself Jade Newbury, just to see how it feels.
I’m so lost in the daydream that I don’t even hear the bell for last orders.