Chapter One

By the time my phone rings, my mental to-do list is almost complete.

The pasta on the stove is cooked to a perfect al dente, and there’s a bottle of hearty red Chianti uncorked, breathing and ready to be poured. (Check.) The bridesmaid’s dress, picked up fresh from a last-minute alteration on my way home from work, is currently hanging over my closet door in a garment bag. (Check.) Rocky is at my mother’s apartment across the city, no doubt already fat with treats and slobbering affectionately on every item of furniture she owns, revelling in the attention of being her substitute grandchild for the week. (Check, check, check.)

It’s a good feeling, being on top of things.

I’m plating up the pasta when I hear the vibration against the marble countertop, buzzing away like an angry little wasp as I carefully ladle out the Bolognese sauce into the pan of tagliatelle, savouring the smell. I turn a little too quickly at the noise, and a thin line of red sauce splashes its way onto my dress.

Fuck.

With one hand, I grasp for my phone before it goes to my voicemail, and with the other I reach for a strip of paper towel to wipe off the spill. Oil and tomatoes, I think. Well, there’s no way that’s going to be difficult to get out.

‘Hey, honey,’ I say.

It can go to the dry cleaner in the morning. Carter can take it in for me on the way back from the airport. Sure, he’ll complain, but…

‘Hey.’

… but I’ll make it up to him tonight.

His voice is clipped, restless. ‘Everything OK?’ I ask. ‘You sound tired.’

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Tired.’

‘Rough day at work?’

‘Something like that. Look, El…’

The stain looks a lot worse now I’ve wiped it than it did before. ‘Could you give me a second?’ I say as I head over to the tap and run the water cold. ‘I just spilt something.’

‘This is important, El.’

I smile, even though I know he can’t see me. ‘So’s this. You don’t know how much I paid for this dress.’

It’s a joke, at least partially – my attempt to get some lilt into his voice again, to cheer him up after a bad day – but it doesn’t seem to have any effect. ‘Did you get the packing list I emailed you this morning, by the way?’ I ask. ‘I know you’re not flying down until Thursday, but I figured getting a little bit of a head start couldn’t hurt, right?’

I know it’s maybe not the best time to be nagging him, but that’s Carter through and through. He’s not really a head start kind of guy. He’s also not a checklist kind of guy either, which means it’s sometimes a little bit of a surprise when he manages to make it where he’s supposed to be on time.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I haven’t checked my email all day.’ There’s a clicking noise in the background, like a metronome: a car blinker.

‘Are you still driving? How far away are you?’ I’m a little surprised. His office is only fifteen minutes from my apartment, even in traffic.

‘That’s why I’m calling.’

‘Oh?’

The cold water seems to have done the trick a little, but there’s still a rich orange stain on the fabric that I’m not happy with. What else works? Vinegar? Baking soda? One of those, surely?

‘I’m not coming, Ella.’

I feel my nose crinkling up. ‘Oh, Carter,’ I say. ‘You could have warned me before I made this much food. It’s not going to keep for a week in my refrigerator.’

There’s a pause, and then a slow, weary sigh, drawn out for what feels like minutes. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I mean I’m not coming to the wedding.’

And suddenly, just like that, I couldn’t give less of a fuck about a stain on a dress.

I blink once, twice, straighten my neck and press the phone against my ear to make sure I can hear him clearly. ‘What? Why? Is this a work thing? Because if they’re trying to make you work at such short notice–’

‘It’s not a work thing.’

‘Then what is it? What do you mean, you’re not coming?’

‘I just…’ He pauses, and for an awful moment there’s nothing but dead air on the line as he cuts a breath short; he’s not the only one not breathing. ‘This just isn’t working, OK? I mean… come on, Ella. I can’t be the only one who sees it.’

I look down at my hands, catch the glint of the overhead light in the diamond of my engagement ring and immediately wish I hadn’t. I force my eyes up, staring at something – anything – else. ‘Carter, honey,’ I say as calmly as I can. ‘Of course we’re working. Where’s all this coming from?’ I don’t like the sudden rasp in my voice, the slight choke as I try and keep back tears. ‘Everything’s working perfectly. It’s all going like we planned, right? Remember?’

‘Like you planned, Ella.’ There’s just a little too much force behind the words, a little too much spit and bile.

He keeps using my name; why the hell does he keep using my name? He never used to before. With Carter I was always baby, or honey, or God-only-knows what else; never El or Ella or Eleanor, not when he could help it. He said it made me sound old and fuddy-duddy, like using the phrase fuddy-duddy showed that he was really down with the way the kids were speaking these days. Then he’d got into a sulk and I’d kissed him, called him my old man, led him upstairs and… and, well, I’d shown him just how young and vibrant I really was.

That feels like a world away now.

Because this just isn’t working, apparently.

‘What did I miss?’ I ask, weakly. ‘Everything was fine. I booked your flight already. You’re staying in the hotel with me.’

‘That’s not happening, Ella. Not anymore. I’m sorry. I just…’

‘What?’

‘I just can’t do this anymore.’

‘You can’t do what?’

I hate the question, because I know what it means. I know what I’m really saying: tell me how to change, and I’ll change for you. Whatever it takes. I’ve warned my girlfriends off from that kind of thing a thousand times, but here I am falling into the same old trap, frolicking gleefully over the edge of that same old cliff. I understand it now. When you’ve got something worth keeping, you’ll do anything to make sure it doesn’t get away.

He sighs. ‘Everything, Ella. I can’t keep living my life according to a list. I’m twenty-eight, not fifty. It’s just… it’s too much. You’re too much.’

A feel a white-hot flush cross my face. ‘Then why the hell did you propose to me?’ I ask. ‘Hmm?’

‘Don’t do this. Don’t be like this.’

‘Like what? Upset? ‘Cause I think that’s pretty much the only way I’m supposed to be feeling, considered.’

‘I’m sorry, Ella. I hope you enjoy the wedding.’

‘No. We’re not done, Carter. We need to talk about this, in person. I’m coming over.’ Screw the timings; screw the plan, just this once. I can sleep on the plane tomorrow. If I can’t convince him overnight, well then I can just catch a plane the next day, or the day after that. As long as I’m there for the wedding, Lauren will understand. She’ll get it. She knows how important Carter is to me.

It’ll be fine, I think. I can fix this. I can always fix it. I just need some time. That’s all. Just a little bit of time.

He hasn’t replied. That’s not a great sign.

‘Please, Carter,’ I say. I hate the whine that’s entered my voice, hate myself for being so weak. ‘I need this. I need you.’

‘I won’t be home.’

‘Then where will you be?’

Carter pauses. ‘I… I just don’t want to see you right now, OK?’

He waits for a second, maybe giving me the opportunity to get the last word in one last time, but I can’t bring myself to take it. Mercifully, I hear the line go dead, and that’s that.

Five years of our life together, gone in an instant like it was never there at all.