Page 109 of Good at Being Alive
God. I’m such an idiot. I lay my palm over my heart as if applying pressure to a wound.
“So he’s with her now?” I whisper.
He frowns. “I believe they’re hammering some things out. Bex…I’m so sorry. I hope you weren’t developing feelings for him. You seemed like you had his number when we met in Paris.”
No. I was just pretending I had his number so no one would see I was falling. Maybe even soIwouldn’t see I was falling.
When I say nothing, he winces. “Bloody hell.”
I shake my head, forcing myself toward the door. “It’s fine. Really. I should go.”
“Bex, let me—” His hands tug at his hair. “Let me drive you to Heathrow. We can talk it out.”
I try to force a smile as I continue moving away. “All good,” I say, my voice cheerful and breaking in the same moment. “Nothing to talk out. I’m absolutely fine.”
I’ve been practicing for this moment my entire life.
Bex
I have sixteen missed calls fromTheo by the time I land in New Jersey. The first of them arrived at seven, UK time. Then there’s one at eight, one ten minutes later.
So he was with her for all those hours. And any logical person would assume she knew how he’d spent them, though I’m still struggling to believeit.
His texts simply repeat what he said in his voicemail, begging for a chance to explain, except…how? How could he possibly explain leaving me in Portugal to be with Wendy, the married woman he was sleeping with behind the back of her dying spouse? There’s no possibleexcusefor that.
The day is as gray as my heart, and I’m too upset to sleep, which is for the best since I agreed to meet a realtor, a meeting I forgot until she shows up at my doorstep, too perky and cheerful by half. She politely details the ass-load of work required before the house can be placed on the market, and I nod vacantly. None of it even matters anymore. I was ready to leave my home behind because I felt as if I was going somewhere, but where exactly am I going? If the show airs, I’m telling the whole world I’ve married a man who’s actually sleeping with a marriedwoman. If itdoesn’t,I’m co-owner of a company that’s going to file for bankruptcy, a company I co-own with a man who, best case, has been lying by omission for months.
By the time the realtor leaves, the skies have opened. The rain is torrential, and I’m so sick to my stomach that I can’t remain still. I can’t sit on the couch. I don’t want donut holes, I don’t wantReal Housewives.I don’t want anything except for the magic spell that will undo what has happened—which is how I find myself in the rain, running. It’s coming down so hard that I’m blinded by it, so hard that my shoes quickly grow waterlogged and squelch with each step I take and I don’t care. I’m going to run, and run, and keep right on running until I’m too exhausted to feel the way I currentlydo.
I don’t stop until I’m standing outside the gates of my old elementary school. I’ve failed at being a student, at being a daughter, at my first real relationship, and this is the place where my failures began. The place where I bombed one test after another trying to make Jessie love me and it was never enough.
She needed me to be the bad kid so I became one. She needed me to fail so that Bronwyn could triumph, and I did that too. I blew up my childhood and my future when I was still too young to understand the consequences. But I’ve continued destroying things long after it was necessary.
It’s only because of Theo that I see all this clearly. But seeing it clearly means I’ve got to see him clearly too. He never told me he cared. He never offered me a single reassurance.
And if what Peter said was true, he never deserved me in the first place.
• • •
The rain continues all night and into the next day.
It’s so loud that I almost miss the sound of the doorbell,followed by the pounding of the knocker. There’s only one person it could possibly be, and my heart is beating hard as I approach the door. There’s a weak girl inside me who wants to believe whatever lame excuse or apology Theo is about to offer just so that I don’t have to give himup.
Ihaveto give him up. The past few days have put a gouge somewhere deep in my chest, one that isn’t going to heal, one I’m always going to feel, no matter what he says.
I open the door, braced for Theo’s lovely, anxious face…and find Wendy’s instead.
This is supposed to be Theo’s grand gesture, his apology for the ages. OnlyIcould wind up faced with the girl he was fucking behind my back in his place.
“Can I come in?” she asks, her tone more fatigued than apologetic. She’s soaking wet but somehow still model perfect—her skin glows, and the wet hair only serves to highlight her regal bone structure. Even her makeup smears attractively. There is no one alive I want to let into my home less than her.
When I hesitate, she rolls her eyes. “I’ve come quite a long way to have this conversation. The least you could do is let me dry off.”
I step aside. “The least you could have done is not fuck my husband.”
She peels off her Burberry trench and hangs it on a hook. I’m not sure why she’s acting as if this will be a prolonged visit. I’m giving her five minutes at most.
She strolls in as if she owns the place, glancing around only briefly before she walks into the kitchen and helps herself to a paper towel from the counter, which she presses daintily to her forehead and beneath her eyes.
