Page 56 of The Best Friend
‘Not great.’
His face falls. ‘Why? What’s the matter?’
‘Give you three guesses.’
‘Not something to do with Darcy.’ He gives the slightest of eye rolls, and I guess I can’t blame him. Everything these days seems to be about that woman.
‘Sorry, yes it is,’ I reply.
‘I’m starving. Let me grab something to eat,’ he says, ‘and then you can tell me.’
With some difficulty, I peel myself off the sofa and follow him into the kitchen. ‘There are jacket potatoes in the oven,’ I say, ‘but they won’t be ready for another twenty minutes.’
‘I’ll just have a cheese cracker or something in the meantime,’ he says, his brow creased, his mouth a hard line. He’s obviously pissed off that he’s come home to another Darcy drama, but what am I supposed to do? It’s not my fault I have a psycho trying to hack apart my life.
I sit at the table as Jared pulls a beer from the fridge, and loads a plate with crackers, sliced cheese and salad. He pops the bottle cap and takes a long swig.
‘How was work today?’ I ask.
‘Good,’ he replies.
‘Everything going as planned? Are you getting the business in?’
He nods and leans back against the fridge for a moment, eyes closed. Then, he slides into the chair opposite me.
Okay, this isn’t going well. He’s not happy. What should I do? Should I not tell him what happened today? Ignore it and pretend everything’s fine.
‘So?’ he finally says, his eyes open again. ‘What’s happened?’
I tell him about the playground incident. About Darcy making out that I’m going after her husband, and about her accusing Joe of bullying Tyler when it’s clearly the other way around. I tell him about Darcy raising her voice so that all the other mums now hate me.
Jared shakes his head, and I can’t tell whether he’s annoyed with Darcy’s behaviour, or annoyed that I’m talking about her, yet again.
‘Are you pissed off or something?’ I ask. ‘I could really do with some support about now.’
‘Just tired, Lou.’
‘Sorry,’ I say, not sounding sorry at all. ‘I hate loading all this on you, but don’t you think she’s totally out of order?’
‘Yes,’ he says wearily. ‘Yes. It sounds like you had a horrible afternoon. What made her say those things, anyway? Did you say anything? Something that could have provoked her?’
‘No,’ I reply. ‘Well, I told her about bumping into Mike, and that he asked me to go over there—’
‘Well, there you go,’ he says. ‘She’s going through a breakup, Louisa. You telling her that you’re going to see her husband probably isn’t going to make her feel great.’
‘I was tactful and nice. I didn’t say anything to provoke her. And anyway, I’m pretty sure she lied about him leaving her. I told you on the phone, Mike saysshekickedhimout.’
‘Maybe she lashed out without thinking. I’m sure she’ll apologise.’
‘You weren’t there,’ I say, trying to keep my voice under control. ‘She’s not right in the head, Jared. She’s trying to wreck my life.’
He nods and takes another swig of beer. ‘So, what do you want to do about it? What can we do? Because this is getting beyond crazy. Every day there’s something else with Darcy. I don’t think I can deal with it for much longer.’
‘Me neither,’ I say.
‘No, Lou,’ he says through gritted teeth, ‘I mean, I don’t think I can deal with your obsession for much longer.’
‘My what!’
