Chapter 3
Truce
I heave my worn suitcase onto our unmade bed with a sigh and throw myself down next it.
My body suddenly feels heavy and tired as the adrenaline starts to leave me and realisation sets in.
My husband has been cheating on me with younger, prettier women for God knows how long, and it’s my fault for not keeping up with his physical standards.
My eyes fill with tears as I wonder if things would have been different if I’d just tried harder.
But I refuse to let the tears fall where Rhys might catch me.
I’ve always been an ugly crier, and not being attractive enough is what got me into this mess in the first place.
I blink away my tears and take a calming breath, then reach for my phone and dial Ivy’s number. It only rings twice before she picks up.
“Tilly? What’s wrong? We’re millennials – we never make phone calls!”
“I didn’t think it would be appropriate to text about the end of my marriage. Felt more like a phone call kind of moment.” I don’t know how I manage to make light of the situation, but it feels better than real talk right now.
“The signal’s terrible up here, I thought you just said your marriage had ended!” She nervously chuckles.
“It has. I need a place to stay for a while, can I come to yours? I won’t get in the way,” I hurriedly add. Asking for help is difficult enough without the feeling of being a burden on your best friend.
“I’m so sorry, Tilly, I’m not at home! My boss has had to go up to Scotland to sort out some shit in the Edinburgh office and he insisted I go to help.”
My heart sinks to my stomach. I have nowhere to go, and my best friend isn’t around to drag me through this mess.
“Everything’s been such a rush, we only left this morning.”
“It’s okay, Ivy, I’ll just get a room in a hotel or something. I’ll sort it.”
“Don’t you dare! Take my room while I’m away, I’ll be here for at least a couple of weeks. Connor won’t mind, I’ll let him know to expect you.”
Ah, shit. Ivy’s older brother is the last person I want to be alone around right now, with the exception of Rhys, but I’m backed into a corner.
“Are you sure? I honestly don’t mind…”
“Don’t be so ridiculous, you’re not paying for a soulless hotel room when you could be at my house for free. I’ve already messaged Connor.”
“When did you do that?”
“When you were busy overthinking.”
Damn, the girl knows me well.
“Okay, fine, thank you.” I concede with a sigh.
“Look, I have to go, but I’ll videocall you once you’ve had time to settle into the house, okay? We’ll talk it all through.”
“Sounds great.” Sounds like torture, but I appreciate her trying.
I hang up the phone and turn my attention to the wardrobe.
I grab a pair of what Rhys calls my ‘ironic leggings’ – the irony lying in the fact that they’re gym leggings and I don’t go to the gym – and change into them, then pull an old hoodie over my head.
It only takes one whiff of Rhys’s overpowering aftershave to realise I’ve changed into one of his by mistake.
I tear it away from my body and hurl it across the bedroom.
For a second, I consider cutting it up, but I don’t have the energy to be petty right now.
Instead, I grab another from the pile, make sure it’s mine and pop it on.
I drag my hair back into a claw clip to keep it out of my face, and take a rare look in the mirror.
Look at yourself. This why Rhys cheated, you piece of shit.
Tears threaten again, but I shake them away.
The self-loathing can wait another hour until I’m settled at Ivy’s.
I quickly turn on an audiobook to drown out the noise of my intrusive thoughts, and start packing my bag.
I add a couple of pairs of leggings, some jeans, T-shirts and hoodies as well as some ‘granny pants’ – Rhys’s wording, not mine.
Maybe if you’d invested in some decent underwear this wouldn’t have happened. Then again, why put lipstick on a pig?
I turn up the audiobook a few notches. Toiletries get thrown in haphazardly, my phone charger after them, and a couple of books to keep my mind busy. I’ll come back over the weekend for everything else.
Suitcase zipped up, I turn to lug it off the bed, but my eye falls on the picture I keep on my bedside table.
The photo shows me and Rhys at a Halloween party in town.
Rhys is dressed as a rugby player, with shorts so tight he had girls eyeing him up all night.
I was dressed in what was advertised as a ‘sexy referee’, at Rhys’s insistence.
The short, tight dress was a stark contrast to my usual style of ‘clothes so baggy people don’t realise what shape you actually are’.
I felt as if everyone’s eyes were also on me that night, but for a totally different reason to why they were looking at Rhys.
I didn’t keep that picture by the side of my bed because I thought I looked good in it, or even because I was particularly happy in it, but more that I felt that my relationship had been in a really strong place at that point.
I slip it into my suitcase as a reminder of our previous strength before it all turned to shit.
As I reach the doorway, I take one last look at the room Rhys and I have shared for six years, having moved in together a year into our relationship.
“Bye, bedroom.” I turn and wheel my case down the stairs and towards the front door. I breathe a sigh of relief when I hear the sound of the TV blaring from the living room and know that I’ll be able to escape without anymore drama.
With my hand on the doorknob, I mumble, “Bye, Rhys.”
“Hi, Connor.” I try to put on a brave face when he answers the door, to avoid any uncomfortable conversations.
“What’s wrong with your face?” So much for that theory.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, this is just how my face is.” I scowl, all pretence of being on friendly terms with Connor out the window.
“You were baring your teeth at me,” he says flatly.
“I was smiling.” My response comes with a free eye-roll. I call it the ‘Connor Special’, as only he can elicit this response from me, considering my usually placid demeanour.
“Is that what that was? I thought you had something stuck up your—”
“Did you get Ivy’s message?” I’m growing annoyed with him already. Maybe a soulless hotel would have been the better option?
Connor hides a smile. “About you and Rhys getting a divorce? Yeah, I got the message. It’s the only reason I agreed to open the door to you, actually.”
“Who said anything about a divorce?” I haven’t really thought through the consequences of leaving Rhys yet; everything’s happened too quickly. Connor’s brows knit together in confusion, but I speak before he has chance to. “Anyway, can I come in or what? It’s freezing out here.”
“It’s June.”
I practically growl at him and shoulder my way into the beautiful two-bedroom detached house.
With Connor’s athletic build, he could easily block the shove, even one backed by my weight, but he moves aside and closes the door behind me, then leans against it and crosses his arms, pushing his biceps out in a practised pose.
To any unsuspecting woman, Connor would probably be considered attractive.
Hot, even. But to me, Connor has always been Ivy’s brother, two years older than us, who relentlessly torments me whenever he sees me.
The wavy brown hair (that he intentionally lets fall into his face, by the way, so that women are tempted to reach out and brush it back for him) does nothing for me.
His deep brown eyes, which I’m sure look like warm pools of molten chocolate that other women would want to swim in, don’t affect me at all.
And the dark stubble on his tanned face?
Who cares. *Eye-roll*. I certainly wouldn’t ever be interested in knowing how it would feel brushing against my…
Okay, so maybe I find him a little bit attractive physically.
But that doesn’t change the fact that Connor is a Dick with a capital D.
Unfortunately, I’ve been staring at aforementioned Dick for longer than is socially acceptable without speaking, so it looks like I’ve been checking him out.
And the smirk on the bastard’s face tells me he’s noticed.
“Put your tongue back in, Tilly, you’re drooling on the new carpet.”
“Don’t be disgusting, I just zoned out for a minute. It’s been a pretty long day.”
He nods. “Mm-hmm. Seriously, though, are you okay?”
Connor’s concern actually seems genuine: colour me shocked. Unsure how to respond, having never seen this side of him before, I do what any sane person would do. I stand and stare at him with my mouth hanging open like a goldfish.
“What?” he asks, uncharacteristically bashful.
“You sounded sincere,” I say, letting my surprise shine through.
“Yeah, well… Ivy made me promise to check in on you.” And just like that, the sincerity has gone, and his usual cocky expression is back.
I should have known it was too good to be true.
“You know where her room is. I’ll be in my room if you need me.
” Connor winks at me, just because he knows it makes me uncomfortable, and walks off towards the stairs.
Once I get to Ivy’s room I collapse onto the bed and take a deep breath.
This morning when I woke up and went to work, it was just another ordinary day.
I’d made it to school in time to make a cuppa in my ‘World’s Best Teacher’ cup, made it through my lessons (with the now expected additions of photocopier jams, playground fallouts and parent emails), nipped to the supermarket for Rhys’s organic British grass-fed steak before heading home. And that’s when it went to shit.