Seventeen

London, four hours later

The chugging taxi exited Henshaw Street, leaving Alex hunched protectively over her laptop bag, quivering in the whipping rain. She retreated into her parka’s hood and banged on the red-painted door of the south London terraced house, regretting it immediately. Maybe going there had been a mistake…what if Lucy was still in bed—or worse, her flatmate Charlie answered? Footsteps stomped down the stairs behind the door. Shoot. Too late to make a run for it now.

The lock clicked. The door opened three inches.

Two sleepy brown eyes squinted through the crack. “Lex?” Lucy croaked, her voice raspy and exhausted.

For the past few hours, Alex had held it together—barely, but with a single word from Lucy, her trembling chin gave way. The dam burst, hot tears pouring down her face, mixing with the icy January sleet. Her best friend became a watery, welcome blur.

“Honey!” Lucy flung open the door, her oversized Hufflepuff sweatshirt not quite long enough to cover her lacey knickers. “It’s pissing down. Get in here.” She tugged her friend into the dark flat.

Alex wiped her streaming nose with the edge of her hand. Her rain-splattered carry-on dragged along behind her, its squeaky wheels clogged with mushy leaves. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your lie-in—”

“What are you doing here?” Lucy peered behind Alex into the road and nudged the door closed. Her hands flew to her hair. No amount of flattening worked: her rebellious dark curls bounced back into bedhead mode, refusing to play nice. She gave up. “Where’s Mark?”

Alex gulped for air and shook, her body wracked with uncontrollable tremors. Tears slid down her splotchy cheeks, muting her usually vibrant freckles, and her eyes itched. Was it from the constant crying or the dusty flat? Lucy wasn’t fussy about vacuuming every week like Alex had been when she lived there.

“Lucy?” A tired male voice whispered in the darkness atop the narrow stairwell.

“Oh, God.” Charlie. Alex’s swollen eyelids blinked at the shadowy figure upstairs. “I should go—”

“No, don’t be daft.” Lucy’s gaze flitted up the stairs as her hand stretched the hem of her sweatshirt.

Pale feet jogged down the stairs, revealing equally pasty white legs, a flapping dark blue bathrobe, and—was that pubic hair? No underwear alert! Alex blushed, her watery eyes flying to the grey carpet. In her peripheral vision, she caught the guy’s hands fumbling with the belt of Lucy’s plush TARDIS robe. He reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Wait…what…?” Alex hiccupped through her tears. “What are you doing here?”

Harry’s eyes widened. “Oh, jeez, Lex. You’re trembling. What’s happened?”

“Holy crap!” Alex straightened up. “Harry’s your hot water bottle?”

With a wry smile, Lucy bit her lip. “Busted.”

“But…you? Charlie?”

Harry gave Alex a double take. “What’s going on?”

“I bet Charlie’s asking the same thing.” Alex blinked her puffy lids.

“Stop dodging our questions.” Lucy pulled her bestie into the lounge and flicked the light switch.

Alex flinched under the bright light. “Our questions?” She looked back at Harry.

“Where the hell is Mark?” Lucy tugged the hem of her sweatshirt again. It sprung back up, her undies playing peek-a-boo.

Alex drooped, her shoulders rising to meet her ears. Fresh tears raced down her face to her chin. Drop by drop, they leapt from her jaw onto her rain-splattered laptop bag. She dug in her pocket for tissues, but her hands resurfaced with her phone.

Harry glanced at Alex and then Lucy. “Want me to leave, yeah…?”

Lucy nodded.

“I’ll go put the kettle on.” He tightened the robe and disappeared behind the wall separating the pokey lounge from the kitchenette.

“Let me take that.” Lucy winced as she helped Alex remove her laptop bag and her dripping coat, the fake fur trim on its hood all matted and stuck to her friend’s messy hair. She stuffed the parka on top of the room’s old radiator and leaned the bag against the TV table. “Aw, babe. What’s happened?” Returning to Alex, she hugged her tightly and pulled her down beside her on the loveseat.

The faucet ran hard and stopped abruptly. Mugs and spoons clinked on the kitchenette’s counter. Harry was making just enough noise so he couldn’t be accused of listening in.

“You weren’t supposed to be back for another week.”

Another wave of tears tumbled through Alex’s eyelashes. “I…walked…out.” She trembled and gasped between words, dragging the cuff of Mark’s sweatshirt under her nose.

“I can see that.” Lucy stretched towards the tiny coffee table and grabbed a handful of tissues, placing them in Alex’s lap.

“It was the worst…”

“No ring?” asked Lucy

Alex shook her head.

“Aw, Lex. We talked about this. You can’t—”

“He slept with his ex.” Alex ran her fingers over her necklace. The skin underneath felt cold and clammy, and yet vulnerable, like a layer had been pulled back, exposing her nerves. Even the slightest scratch would tear her open.

The whistle from the kettle jumped into a high-pitched squeal.

“What?”

“Fallon…”

“Who?” Lucy squinted.

“Fallon Delaney.” Alex abandoned her phone in her lap and clasped a tissue. “From the film, his love interest…”

“Wait, the new actress? They just hired her.”

“Turns out, she’s not new…not to Mark.” She blew her nose hard, her ears popping. They hurt. Her nose hurt. Bright red blood speckled the tissue. She balled it up, hiding it from Lucy. Any pain that distracted from the crushing ache in her heart was welcome.

“You’re fucking joking.” Lucy seethed.

“I thought she was nice. I thought I made a new friend.” Alex’s lips quivered. “Happy anniversary to me.”

“But when—?”

“After I left the party last night. I don’t know if it was a one-off or…”

“Fuck.” Lucy wrapped her arm around Alex’s shoulder.

Harry returned and solemnly set down two steaming mugs on the table. Lucy mouthed, “Thank you.”

He picked at the robe’s belt and shifted from foot to foot, unable to stay still. He cleared his throat. “Lex, if there’s anything you need…”

She shook her head, releasing him from any obligation. Lucy looked up at him with a tight smile.

“Is it okay if I maybe have a shower?” he asked.

“‘Course, just don’t use up all my body wash again.”

Harry nodded, reached over and softy touched Alex’s shoulder, and left the room.

Alex’s tearful eyes widened. “Again?”

Lucy shook her head. “Never mind that. How did you find out?”

Alex told Lucy about her sloppy party exit, the morning’s conversation with Fallon, the intimate Instagram photos, and confronting Mark. She used the entire box of tissues in the process.

“The wanker! I could fucking kill him. He gives a whole new skanky meaning to taking a trip down memory lane.” Lucy gritted her teeth and picked up her phone. “I need to see this minger. Can I look at her Instagram?”

“Oh, she’s a lot of things, but a minger isn’t one of them…” Alex leaned onto her knees, burying her face in her hands.

“Fallon…Delaney, right?” Lucy searched the name on her app.

“It’s under Sinéad Delaney. She posted three photos with Mark.”

Lucy’s thumbs flew over the phone’s screen at lightning speed. “No, she’s made her account private.” She held her phone up for Alex. “See? Someone’s got a guilty conscience…”

Alex frowned. “They might be in the Mark Keegan hashtag. One of the kissing shots was there earlier.”

Lucy searched #MarkKeegan, her eyebrows raised. “Bitch…”

The midnight kiss photo, clearly showing Mark and Fallon attached at the lips, was now the top post in #MarkKeegan with 3,279 likes, the tight embrace by the wall at a close second with 2,980 likes. Both photos were screen captures of the actress’s Instagram, posted into the hashtag by a Keeganite. The back seat SUV photo wasn’t there. Alex guessed most fans wouldn’t realize that the guy with the watch holding Fallon’s hand was Mark.

She raised a hand to soothe her throbbing temples. “I keep replaying everything. Was it me? Maybe none of this would have happened if…He wanted to leave with me, Lucy. I made him stay, and I definitely shouldn’t have been drinking.”

“Bullshit, Lex. It was New Year’s Eve—it’s all about drinking.”

“Not when you’ve been on anxiety meds. I screwed up.”

“I thought you stopped taking them. Dizziness or something?”

“I did stop. Three days ago. I thought they would be out of my system…”

“Shit.”

Alex nodded. “I got wrecked on half a vodka and orange, and two mojitos. One minute I felt fine, the next I could barely stand.”

“Mojitos?” Lucy half-smiled. “That’s one step up from a mocktail. It’s like getting drunk on tap water.”

Alex tugged the cuffs of Mark’s sweatshirt over her hands.

“Well, they are. Did Mark know about the meds?”

Alex shook her head, avoiding eye contact.

“So, he thinks you deliberately got rat-arsed in front of his castmates?”

“I guess so. I don’t know…”

“Jeez, Lex, you two have to stop with all these secrets. You’re as bad as each other—”

“I didn’t sleep with my ex!”

Lucy held Alex’s hand. “Did he admit it? What did he say, exactly?”

Alex scowled. “He didn’t go into the smutty details. He admitted they woke up in bed together, and they were both naked. Doesn’t take a frickin’ genius, does it?”

Lucy widened her eyes. “So, how did you leave it? Did you text on the way here?”

“No…it took all my willpower not to burst into tears again. He left a ton of messages and texts. I put it in airplane mode.”

“Want me to see if he sent any more?”

“You can’t. Battery died.”

Lucy leapt up to the small dining table and dug underneath a pile of comic drawings, rescuing a phone charger. “You might want to look later…” She plugged in Alex’s dead phone.

Alex chipped the glitter polish off her nails and rocked back and forth on the edge of the loveseat. “What do I do now? I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. All I thought about was our future, waiting for it to happen…but it’s been shattered. Was it all a big lie? I trusted him. I thought he was different. He wouldn’t cheat on me. He wouldn’t hurt me…Lucy, tell me what I should do?”

“I don’t know, honey. I mean, on Boxing Day you said—”

“I know what I said.”

“But now…are things clearer?”

“You think I should end it?”

“I’m not saying that…”

“I love him, Lucy, and the thought of losing him, really losing him—” A sob broke out from her lips.

“I could fucking strangle him.” Lucy sat down beside her friend, swallowing her anger for Alex’s sake. She pulled her friend into a gentle hug. “Remember what you said about Devin?”

“I know. I know! Cheating is a deal breaker—end of relationship. But it’s Mark, Lucy. It’s Mark.”

• • •

The creaky stairs alerted Lucy. She looked up from the dining table, covered in comic sketches, pencils, and markers, hinting that no meals had been eaten there recently. “How you feeling, sleepy head?”

“Numb. I can’t warm up.” Alex shuffled into the lounge, pulling Mark’s sweatshirt’s sleeves over her pale hands.

Lucy shot to her feet. “Hot sugary tea coming right up—”

“No. I feel pukey.” Alex sniffed. Non-stop crying had left her eyelids swollen as if she had gone ten rounds in the boxing ring. “Thanks, though. What time is it?”

“Just gone quarter to six.” Lucy sat back down. “At least you got a few hours kip in.”

“I didn’t really sleep…” Alex hovered over the table, taking in the scattered drawings. “These new?”

“I wasn’t going to show you yet, but you’re here, so…” She held up a few sketches. Most panels were in pencil, but a few had been inked.

“Lucy.” Alex squinted her plump eyelids. “Fuck.”

“I know, they’re shit. I’ll bin the lot and start over—”

“They’re stunning.” A smile brightened Alex’s grey complexion.

“You’re just saying that.”

“I’m not. Why are you so critical?”

“I’m preparing myself for the inevitable.”

Alex scrunched up her face.

“I don’t mind people hating me, but my drawings…I don’t know how you do it. How do you put your heart and soul out there like that?”

“I just figure that if I feel something, someone out there must feel it, too. It’s the hope that you’re not alone. When someone says they love my play or a character, it’s the best feeling in the world. It makes it all worth it, even the risk of rejection.”

“I think that kind of rejection would kill me…”

“Yeah, depending on the day and the project. Sometimes I’ll shrug it off, sometimes I’ll spiral into a weepy I can’t do this anymore puddle.” Alex smiled, revisiting the drawing in her hand. “Lucy, you’ve outdone yourself. She’s fucking awesome!”

Lucy pointed at the black female superhero confronting a hulk of a politician. “But it’s so…me.”

“That’s the best kind of art. It’s authentic.”

“It’s edgy. I don’t do safe. It might make it a tougher sell.”

“She is so you, but that’s a good thing. She’s raw, real. You can tell what she’s feeling at a glance—her personality leaps off the page. I love that her superpower is her mind, Yoda-style persuasion, thought control. I wouldn’t change a thing—”

Alex’s muted phone, tethered to the wall by Lucy’s charger, lit up with a text. She froze, staring at the glowing screen on the arm of the loveseat.

“I turned it on…just in case.” Lucy raised her eyebrows.

Alex set Lucy’s drawings on the table and peered at the screen. “It’s…Dad. I-I can’t. He’ll want me to put Mark on the phone, wish him a happy anniversary…” She swallowed hard, unmuted the volume, and yanked the phone from the charger. The screen lit up: sixteen texts from Mark.

“You don’t have to answer that—you don’t have to do anything. Just stay here and chill.”

“Won’t Charlie be home soon?”

“He’s not back until the third, and even then, he can kip on the loveseat if you want to stay—” Lucy’s phone buzzed. She shoved it aside.

Alex sat down on the chair beside Lucy. “Harry didn’t have to leave.”

“Nah, he did. He’s expected at his parents’ annual New Year’s Day supper.”

“And who made you Harry’s social secretary?”

“Yeah, well, it’s just sex. I’m sure it won’t last. Let’s face it: he’s destined to be with an Olivia, not a Lucy.”

“Oh, shut up. You’re talented, funny, and gorgeous. I’d kill for your boobs, and you’re the most caring person I’ve ever met.” A soft smile fought Alex’s cheeks, still tight from crying. “I’d choose a Lucy over an Olivia any day.”

“Aw, babe, thanks. Sorry I didn’t tell you. Me and Harry…is uncharted territory, and you’re so protective of him. It’s felt a bit…weird, you know? Almost too close to home?”

“Like dating my brother?” Alex smirked.

“Argh! I knew that comment would come back to bite me.”

“Wow, you’re dating my Harry. I love seeing friends fall for each other…no awkwardness—”

“Yeah, until we break up…”

Alex’s face fell.

“Oh, fuck. My big mouth.”

Alex swallowed and set her phone on the table. “So…when did you go off Charlie?”

“After I shagged him.”

“What?!”

“Yeah. It was only once, in October. Turns out he’s a typical City boy, all mouth and no trousers. He went at me like a jackhammer, rolled off after two minutes, and fell asleep. Talk about rubbish. I have thongs that are more stimulating.”

“Well, good. You two together made me think of some pervy Peanuts comic, ‘Charlie and Lucy’—” The Sherlock theme erupted from Alex’s phone.

“Mark?”

“No, Dad again.” She smiled at Lucy. “So, all Charlie left you with was a broken headboard and a hickey to wear to Tom and Naomi’s wedding?”

Lucy furrowed her brows, glancing at her friend’s phone. “Lex, maybe you should call your Dad back.”

Alex crossed her arms. “Well?”

“You mean my straightener burn?” Lucy smirked. “Nope, Harry’s work.”

“What…?” Alex’s finger poked her phone’s calendar, counting weeks. “That means you two have been at it…” Her eyes bulged. “…for eight weeks?”

Lucy winced. “Try ten.”

“And you’ve been mad at me for hiding things. I thought you just hooked up over Christmas or something!”

“Don’t rub it in. I already feel like a shit friend. Harry wanted to tell you straight away, but I thought it best to stay mum for a bit. Plus, I must admit, sneaking around was fucking hot.”

“If you’ve been dating for ten weeks, it’s not just sex, Lucy. Why aren’t you at his parents’ dinner? Surely he asked you?”

Lucy shuffled her drawings. “It’s a family thing.”

“Sausages in the garden, a post-meal stroll around the Berkshire estate, Scrabble in the library—Harry’s family are rich, sure, but they’re really nice.”

“Sausages in the garden? Is that a euphemism?”

Alex laughed. “Maybe that can be your code for sex from now on.”

Lucy’s phone lit up. “Bloody hell, that’s number seven.”

“Mark again?” Alex caught a flicker of a frown on Lucy’s face. “You shouldn’t be in the middle. I’ll text him—”

“No.” Lucy smacked her hand on top of Alex’s. “You want time, I’ll buy you time.” Lucy’s phone buzzed again. “For fuck’s sake, Mark.” She snatched it from the drawings. “Oh, it’s Naomi. What…? Oh…Mark’s been texting her, too. Want me to text her back?”

“Why is he bothering Naomi? I can understand Freddie—”

“I spoke to Freds while you were napping. Mark called him first thing.”

“So, everyone knows?”

“Lex, Freddie and I debated telling you…”

“What have you guys done?”

“We haven’t done anything. Mark’s flying back. He’s landing in two hours.”

“I don’t want to see him.”

“I figured as much. I told Freddie to tell Mark to do one.”

“I’m serious, Lucy.”

Lucy’s shoulders deflated. “We argued about something else, too.” She tapped her phone and turned the screen around, exhaling forcefully. “I found this.”

NationalMail.com boasted a New Year’s Eve exclusive: an article with photo after grainy photo of Mark and Fallon pressed against a wall at the Stag’s Head. Each image was credited to a name Alex didn’t recognize, a fan most likely cashing in on her heartbreak.

Alex’s phone lit up with yet another text.

Honey, we saw the photos. Worried about you. Call me. Dad x

“Well, that’s it then. If Dad knows, everyone does.”

Alex closed her eyes and laid her head on the table.