Chapter Twenty-Five

Izzy

That evening, for the first time in a few weeks, I don’t go to Hal’s house. I go home, straight to my room, and get started on some paperwork.

My insides are knotted though, and it’s hard to concentrate. I know Hal must feel the same way; I heard the gigantic crash from his room before I left the surgery. A minute later Stefan stuck his head in and told me everything was all right and Hal just dropped something, but I knew it wasn’t that. Hal so rarely gets angry. I’ve made him like that. We’re supposed to be best friends. I feel incredibly sad.

Half an hour later, Nix knocks and sticks her head in and asks if I’m okay, and Albie tries to give me a hug. I yell at them both to leave me alone. Then I burst into tears.

I never cry, so they know something serious is up. Nix bullies me into coming into the living room, pulls me onto the sofa, and puts her arms around me, while Albie goes into the kitchen to pour us all a whisky. He comes back in and hands us each a glass, puts the bottle on the table, then perches on the chair opposite us.

I take a swallow of the whisky, cough, and then have another sip. “I’m going to get drunk tonight,” I tell them.

“Great.” Albie stretches out his long legs and props his feet on the glass coffee table. “I’ll join you. No fun in getting drunk alone.”

Nix smiles, but her gaze is shrewd. She knows something serious has happened. I don’t cry, and I don’t drink to excess.

Christ, I’m dull. The realization just makes me want to cry more.

“Come on then,” she says. “Tell us what happened.”

I stare into the amber liquid. “I think Hal and I are over.”

“Bullshit,” Albie says immediately.

“One fight doesn’t mean it’s over, sweetie,” Nix tells me.

“We didn’t fight,” I say. “Not really.”

They exchange a look.

“What did Hal say that makes you think it’s over?” Albie asks.

I get to my feet and pick up the bottle of whisky. “He asked me to marry him.” I walk off, back to my room, shut the door, and this time I lock it.

I can’t tell them what happened. I’m so embarrassed I’d die.

I keep picturing it; lying there in the summer meadow, the pohutukawa flowers bright red, the sea an amazing blue, Hal heavy on top of me, hard inside me, the two of us locked in the paroxysm of a climax, and then I look over and see Rosie standing there, watching…

My stomach clenches and I feel a wave of terrible emotional pain, so I pour myself another whisky and knock half of it back in one go.

I have a nice room. It’s more like a suite really, a bedroom big enough to fit a bed and a comfy sofa with a TV, a sort of kitchenette with a sink where I can make a cup of tea if I want one while I’m working, a table with my computer and files, and sliding glass windows leading onto the big deck that runs along the back of the house.

I lie on the sofa, my glass resting on my chest, and look up at the ceiling.

Why do I feel so bloody awful? I make myself analyze it, even though it makes my gut twist and I feel nauseous. I should have just laughed it off. So she saw us having sex, so fucking what? We’re dating; it’s not like two work colleagues sneaking off for a forbidden quickie. It’s nobody else’s business. Okay, so perhaps we could have been more discreet, but it wasn’t as if we lay in the square and got down to it. We went off the beaten track, where hardly anyone ever goes—anyone else out for a walk turns right at the fence because it’s a circular route back to the Ark. No, Rosie came to find us—she must have seen us leaving the Ark and been with us all the way.

And that’s the problem. Not that we were seen. It’s who saw us.

I never really liked Rosie that much, but I tolerated her because she was Hal’s girlfriend, and I love Hal. So I saw them socially together, and I had to put up with her fawning over him; sitting on his lap whenever we went out, draping herself over him, sticking her tongue down his throat whenever she could get away with it. To be fair to Hal, he used to push her away and scold her if she did that in front of me, but it never stopped her trying.

And when we were alone, or with other girlfriends, she was always recounting stories about the two of them. Things they’d done. How many times they’d had sex that week. She loved to pretend she was exhausted, and that he was wearing her out because he was so insatiable in his lust for her. I don’t know whether that’s true, but I suspect it was, certainly in the beginning.

That’s when I acknowledge the truth. I’m tied up in knots because I’m jealous of what they had. I can’t bear the thought that Hal used to have sex with her. He used to do all the things he now does to me to her, and more. He’s kissed her, gone down on her, fucked her five ways till Friday. Oh God. I think I’m going to be sick.

I close my eyes and force myself to calm down, and try to untie the knot in my stomach. Finishing off the whisky in my glass helps, and I pour myself another before I lie down again.

It’s irrational, I know that. He left her. He doesn’t love her. He loves me. He says he wants to marry me. But it doesn’t help. It’s not just Rosie. There have been a lot of other women. I thought I didn’t mind, and I didn’t at first; it’s only as I’ve fallen more in love with him that the green-eyed monster has reared its ugly head. I can’t help but compare myself to every other woman he’s been with and find myself wanting.

I’m not stupid, I know Rosie has engineered this with her emails and—starting today—her text messages. She wants to sabotage what I have with Hal, and I’m making it easier for her because I’m weak, and I’m flawed, and I’ve never believed I’m good enough for him.

God, I love him so much. For years I’ve done my best to look away when he’s with other women. I’ve told myself I don’t care, and then when they’ve told me stories about being intimate with him, it’s none of my business and it doesn’t affect me at all. But of course it has. Every time one of his girls has mentioned having a part of him that I haven’t been able to have, I’ve taken it and locked it away in a box and stamped it Do Not Touch. But it’s been like trying to keep a bunch of bees locked up in an enclosed space, and now they’re angry and buzzing around furiously in my head, trying to get out.

I could never be to him what these other women have been. How could I ever have thought I’d be able to keep him? I’m quiet, I’m dull, I’m like his work aftershave, reeking of vanilla. That’s what Rosie’s text said to me yesterday. You think you can keep him, bitch? You’re so bland! Hal likes it spicy, darling. He’s cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves, and you’re fucking vanilla. Good luck with that!

I blocked her number, but today she’d obviously bought another SIM card because she texted me again from another number. Just two words and a symbol.

Izzy=yawn.

And the terrible thing is, I know she’s right.

If she’d been nasty about my scars, I could have coped with that, because Hal’s seen them and he doesn’t care—I’d read it in his face if he did. But I can’t argue with her criticism of my character. And I know it will be a problem with Hal one day.

I swallow the whisky and pour myself another glass.

Things are getting hazy at last. The pain in my head is lessening, and the knot in my stomach is unfurling. The jealousy is fading slowly. Now, I just feel sad.

He wants to marry me. But I couldn’t bear to watch our relationship disintegrate. It might take months or years. But one day his love will turn to impatience, his adoration to frustration. He’ll find excuses not to be with me. I’ve seen it happen before, with other girls. I’m just one of a long line of women, of comets passing through his solar system, shooting stars that have flared brightly before being burned up by the sun. I’d never last. Better to end it now, before I’m in too deep.

And then I cry, because I’m already in the middle of the ocean, and I’m drowning, and without Hal, there’s no life raft, and I’m never going to be able to swim to the shore.

“Izzy?” There’s a knock on the door—Albie. “I’ve just spoken to Leon. Hal told him what happened.”

I cover my face with a hand.

“Honey?” It’s Nix. “Come on. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Go away.”

“Izz, let us in,” Albie says. “I don’t want to have to break down the door, but I will.”

“I just want to be alone!” I yell.

“Izzy!” Nix yells back. “If you throw away this relationship with Hal because of Rosie-fucking-Jensen I’m seriously going to murder you. Get your arse over here and unlock the door.”

I stare up at the ceiling. I know they won’t leave me alone.

Slowly, I get up, go over to the door, and unlock it. Then I return to the sofa and lie there with a pillow over my face.

I hear the two of them come in and stand next to the sofa. Nix drops to her knees and lifts the pillow.

“That fucking bitch,” she says vehemently. “And to think I lent her my best jacket and didn’t say a peep when she spilled red wine all over it.”

A tear runs down my cheek. “I hate her,” I whisper. “I know that’s terrible, and I don’t want to be that sort of person, but she’s making my life a misery, Nix. She’s like a cockroach that’s crawled in my ear, and all I can hear is her whispering those terrible things, and I can’t get rid of them. I think she’s actually burrowing into my brain.”

“What things?” Albie says.

“Awful things. About her and Hal, and me and Hal. She won’t leave me alone.” I have another swallow of whisky. “I don’t want to know. I’ve deleted everything, but you can’t help reading it, can you?”

“Jesus Christ.” Albie strides over to my work desk. I lift my head and watch him open the laptop. “What’s your password?” he demands.

“I deleted them all, Albie.”

“I can retrieve them. What’s your password?”

“I don’t want you reading them.” I lie back down.

“I’m not asking your permission—I’ll hack in if I have to, but it’ll take me longer and be a waste of my time when you can just tell me the fucking password.”

I know he can hack in easily, so I tell him, and I hear him typing. Nix rises and goes to stand with him. They won’t find the emails, I think dazedly. I should have saved them so I could prove what she’s done, but ultimately what does it matter? Even if the police came and got her and locked her away, the things she’s said are like insects that have eaten into my hippocampus, and I don’t have the right type of Raid spray to get rid of them.

“Click on there,” Nix says off in the distance.

“I have a Master’s degree in stuff,” Albie tells her, “I know what I’m doing.”

“Stuff?”

“I don’t want to get too technical for you.” There are clicking sounds, and Albie’s fingers typing at a ridiculous speed. Then silence, presumably as they’re reading.

“I don’t believe it,” Nix says eventually. “I’m going to kill her.”

“You’re gonna have to arm wrestle Hal for that prize,” Albie says. He stands and walks past me out of the room, and I see him taking out his phone and dialing with his thumb.

“Is he ringing Hal?” I ask, as Nix comes to kneel by me again.

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

“I don’t want to make a fuss,” I mumble.

“You’re not, sweetie. But this has gone far enough. You should have told me about the emails.”

“And texts.”

“Jesus. Give me your phone.” She takes it from me, dials in my passcode—how does she know that? How come I don’t have any privacy anymore?—rises, and walks out, I’m guessing to show Albie.

I have another mouthful of whisky, and think of earlier that day, before Rosie saw us, of lying there in the warm sunshine, with Hal looking down at me, his eyes soft with love.

I’m prepared to stand in front of God and my friends and family and swear to love you for the rest of my life.

I could have married him. Even if it didn’t last, I could have called myself Mrs. King, and worn his ring on my finger. What a beautiful fantasy.

My eyelids close. I’m too tired to wipe my wet cheeks.

Slowly, I drift off to sleep.