Chapter Twenty-Four
It felt very much like Groundhog Day when the doorbell rang.
I was experiencing a lot of the same sensations I’d felt when Charlie had left: grief, disbelief, anger, although the anger this time was even more potent than it had been then.
Because people broke up all the time and it hurt and it felt unfair at first, but this – this was different.
People didn’t generally get it on with their sister’s ex-boyfriend.
People’s ex-boyfriends didn’t generally shag their ex’s little sister mere weeks after they’d broken up.
I still couldn’t get my head around it all.
If you’d asked me about their relationship when Charlie and I had been together, I’d have said it was a brotherly/sisterly one – he teased her, she looked up to him.
I’d never seen one iota of sexual chemistry, but perhaps it had been simmering away the whole time, right under my nose.
In the hallway I could see Cassie’s silhouette through the glass panel of the door, and I hesitated for a few beats before opening it.
I was torn between not wanting to see her and wanting answers.
Wanting the whole story, the whole sordid truth.
I hadn’t been able to talk to anybody about it, not even Zoe, not even Marcus, not really.
He’d dropped me home, shocked when I’d told him briefly what had happened; he’d sent me messages to check on me and he’d asked me to come to his second-round match, which was this afternoon.
I still wasn’t sure whether to go, or how I felt about him after his apology.
In the space of a couple of days, it felt as though every single person I thought I could rely on had let me down.
Cassie was standing there looking withdrawn and tearful like I’d seen her many times before, but never because of something she’d done to hurt me.
I wondered how badly this had affected her – whether, if I was a kind person, I should forgive her on the spot, tell her it didn’t matter, that I was glad she was happy, and that now I’d had time to think it through, I wasn’t bothered about her being with Charlie.
That she could have him and that I’d learn to be fine with it.
I’d come to the conclusion that he’d probably chosen Cassie because she was clearly besotted by him and would do anything for him, just like his mother, which I had seemingly not done just by being me and having a modicum of career success that had sent him reeling into a spiral of self-doubt about his own life choices.
Since Cassie had a job she hated, no social network and still lived with her parents, there was no need for him to feel inadequate next to her – he could be the powerful, successful one in their relationship, which I suspected was what he’d craved all along.
‘Hi,’ said Cassie weakly. ‘Can I come in?’
I stood aside to let her through the door.
Her arm brushed mine as she walked past, kicked off her shoes and went into my lounge.
I was surprised she’d made the effort to come all this way – then again, she’d clearly been spending more time in London than I’d thought, since I doubted she and Charlie had been meeting up in Reading.
‘Tea?’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘No thanks.’
I sighed, and sat on the armchair, putting as much distance between us as you could in one small, rather poky living room.
‘I don’t know where to start,’ said Cassie.
I stayed silent. There was no way I was going to do the hard work for her by leading the conversation. She’d come to see me. She was here to explain it all to me.
‘I’d always liked him,’ said Cassie. ‘I was always a bit jealous, if you must know. He was so in love with you. Nobody had ever looked at me the way I saw him looking at you.’
‘Right,’ I said, struggling to think back to those early days.
‘When you broke up, it wasn’t like I suddenly thought: now’s my chance. I just couldn’t bear the thought of not speaking to him ever again. You might have wanted him out of your life, but I didn’t want him out of mine.’
‘But I hadn’t wanted him out of my life, Cassie,’ I said. ‘He ended it with me, remember?’
‘I know. I think I sort of glossed over that bit. And I decided it wouldn’t hurt to have him as a friend, that either I wouldn’t tell you, or you’d understand eventually,’ said Cassie.
Of course that was what she’d decided – Cassie did what Cassie wanted. And until now, I did what Cassie wanted too.
‘So what, you called him? Arranged to meet? When?’
‘When you were in Monte Carlo.’
I frowned. ‘But when I was there, I saw pictures of him in the Cotswolds with someone. I presume that was you?’
She floundered for a second. ‘Okay. Just before you went to Monte Carlo.’
‘How did this “friendship” you said you wanted turn into romantic weekends away so quickly, then?’ I asked.
Cassie tucked her hair behind her ears. We both did that when we were nervous.
‘Charlie was lonely. I was lonely.’
‘I was lonely, too, Cass! Did you even talk about me at all?’
‘Of course we talked about you! But you were fine, by then. Mum showed me pictures of you living it up in Monaco. You were already with Marcus and you looked really happy.’
I wanted to tell her that my relationship with Marcus had been nothing but fake at that point.
But I couldn’t go against our agreement – I’d already told Zoe, there was no way I wanted to admit how it had all started to anyone else, especially now our feelings had turned into something altogether different.
‘Things aren’t always what they seem, Cassie.
You see what other people have got, make assumptions about how they’re living their lives, but you have no idea what goes on behind closed doors.
We’d never even had a conversation about Marcus.
You shouldn’t have assumed anything, or taken me being photographed with the guy once as carte blanche to basically seduce my ex. ’
Cassie went to say something else but seemed to think better of it.
What could she say? I knew her default would be to turn it around on me, to make me the bad person, which in her mind would excuse everything she’d done.
But in this instance, there was nothing tangible for her to grasp hold of – it was probably killing her to realise she had absolutely no comeback.
‘Did Mum know?’ I asked her. ‘About you and Charlie?’
Cassie shook her head. ‘I told her last night.’
And? I wanted to say. And what was her response? Surely, surely, she couldn’t think Cassie was blameless this time. I wanted to believe she was capable of sticking up for me, just this once.
‘So where do we go from here?’ I asked.
I wondered what I wanted her to say, what would make any of this better, but I didn’t think there was anything because they’d done what they’d done and there was no going back.
I had total closure with Charlie now, at least – he hadn’t been the man I’d thought he was, and I should have known that when he walked out on me in such a callous way without helping me understand why.
But it was different with Cassie – I still loved her, of course.
But if Marcus had taught me anything, it was that it was okay to put yourself first sometimes.
And look what had happened – I’d put Cassie first my entire life and this was how she’d repaid me.
‘I want to carry on seeing him, Ava. Would that be okay?’ she asked, looking young, still the vulnerable teenager I’d sat with in her room while I did my homework and tried to pretend that I was struggling at school as much as she was.
‘Well, I’d be careful if I were you,’ I told her, thinking of Charlie’s tearful phone call when I was in Paris – he would have been with Cassie then, so what was he playing at?
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked Cassie.
‘You’d better ask him.’
Cassie sighed. ‘So you’re not okay with it, then.’
‘Not really, no. And if it’s my blessing you want, I can’t give it to you. That’s not to say that I never will, but I can’t give it now. And you’re going to have to sit with that feeling, Cass. It’s not something I can make better for you.’
‘You hate me,’ she said, a tear rolling down her cheek.
‘I don’t hate you.’
‘I really am sorry,’ she said.
I shrugged. ‘I know.’
Cassie stood up.
‘Maybe we can talk again sometime, if you’re open to it,’ she said. ‘I just can’t seem to find the words today.’
There was one thing I still wasn’t clear on, something I wanted her to explain before she left.
‘I still don’t get why you decided to reach out to him, to go for it despite knowing how much it would hurt me, and please don’t say you thought it wouldn’t,’ I said.
For a second, I thought she wasn’t going to answer my question because she didn’t have an answer. But then she turned back around and looked me right in the eye.
‘Because your life is just so perfect, Ava. Everything comes so easily to you. You’ve got a thriving career, men falling in love with you left, right and centre, and you get to travel the world all expenses paid.
You’ve always looked down on me and my sad, shitty life, and for once – just once – I didn’t want to be the reject sister, the less successful one, the useless one. ’
‘I’ve never looked down on you, Cassie,’ I said to her.
And it only seemed perfect because I never told her all the bad stuff.
I realised then that by trying to protect her, by trying to be the good girl for Mum and Dad, I’d made Cassie think that my life was easy, smooth, a walk in the park.
Perhaps it was better to be honest, then, to show people who you really were and how you really felt, instead of trying to pretend you were okay when you weren’t.
I decided to go to Marcus’s game that afternoon, mainly because I needed to document his journey through Wimbledon for my article.
He was playing on No.1 Court, which was just as well because it looked set to rain all day and it had a retractable roof, meaning play would be able to go ahead no matter what the weather.
I sat in the players’ box with Dean, Patrick and Nick, jotting down notes about the venue, the atmosphere, the fans, the snippets of conversation I heard from his team.
At twenty-three minutes past three, Marcus entered the court, followed by his opponent, Dominic Griffiths, the Australian guy he’d played in Monte Carlo the very first time I’d ever seen him play in real life.
‘We’ve had some good news,’ said Dean, leaning in to talk to me. ‘Marcus has secured several sponsorship deals for next season. Winning at Queen’s, plus the campaign we designed for the two of you . . . well, it’s worked.’
‘That’s great,’ I said, squeezing his arm. I’d become quite fond of Dean and secretly wished he was my agent, too. I could only dream of the kind of kick-ass writing assignments he’d have no trouble securing for me. ‘Good work.’
Dean turned to me again, dropping his voice to a whisper.
‘Ava, I hope I’m not out of line saying this, but I think you and Marcus actually make a cool couple. Like, for real. I’d never have suggested any of this if I hadn’t seen a spark between the two of you in the first place, you know that, don’t you?’
I wasn’t sure how much to say, but I trusted his judgement and his opinion was about as neutral as I could hope for, given he worked for Marcus.
‘I think things have become more real for us over time,’ I said.
It was strange to say the words out loud.
Not even Zoe knew the back and forth I’d been doing in my head: the longing, the recriminations, the embarrassment, the excitement – Marcus had got me feeling all kinds of things I’d never experienced before, at least not at the same time.
‘With his career taking off, and me in London while he travels the world . . . I don’t know.
Maybe the timing’s not right. Maybe it might not ever be. ’
‘You could make it work,’ said Dean. ‘He’s really into you, I’m telling you. You’ve changed him and he’s not an easy guy to be around sometimes, but when I see him with you, you make it look easy.’
‘Has he said anything?’
Dean shook his head. ‘He doesn’t need to. The guy is easier to read than he thinks he is.’
I smiled to myself. Maybe he was. Honesty was his thing, he’d told me himself. So what if I should believe him when he said he liked me and had never felt like this about anyone before?
The match went smoothly, other than Marcus being about to serve for a game at one point and somebody deciding that was the perfect time to pop a champagne cork.
Marcus had looked angrily over at them and the umpire had told everyone to please avoid opening champagne when a player was about to serve.
At least Marcus didn’t start shouting, and he went on to execute the best second serve I’d ever seen him do, so no harm done.
He beat Dominic again, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 and was into round three.