Love You Better (17 page)

‘If she’s not returning your calls, then she probably doesn’t want to talk. It might be better to just give her some space.’

‘Yeah. Maybe you’re right.’ She picked up her bag from the floor and stood up to leave, and a puzzled frown settled on her face. ‘So you stayed on your own, after they left?’

‘Not exactly.’

He didn’t meet her eyes, but then, he didn’t have to. She knew him and she knew what he was like. He wouldn’t have stayed alone for long.

‘Of course not. You always make new friends.’

Especially the female kind.

‘It wasn’t like that. Claire came.’

‘Claire?’

Effie just about managed to stop her jaw from slacking. Every time she thought Smith couldn’t possibly do anything else to twist the knife, he always managed to stick it farther into her heart. And here he was, letting on that he’d invited the girl he was shagging to her birthday drinks.

‘Yeah. I wasn’t going to invite her, but then you said you weren’t coming out, so . . .’ He shrugged and every inch of her skin began to crawl with jealousy.

He’d tried to make it sound as if he’d been considerate, but she knew that wasn’t the case. He hadn’t been considerate at the Sketch launch, so why start now? She felt sick as she pictured them together, knowing how it would have played out. He’d have looked after Claire all night, just the way he used to with her. He’d have bought her drinks, danced with her and kissed her with wild
abandon
before taking her home. Supposing Effie
had
decided to go along? She’d have been confronted with the two of them, again. Just the idea of it made her stomach drop, especially when Claire knew far more about her than Effie was comfortable with, and what if Lou hadn’t been right? What if Claire had told him what she’d heard at the Sketch launch?

‘Whatever.’ Effie pushed her chair out of the way and went to leave the office.

‘You said you weren’t coming,’ he said again.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she replied, turning to look at him. ‘They were my birthday drinks, Smith. What if I
had
turned up?’

‘You mean, what if you’d decided to give up the fancy
dinner
you’d been flaunting in my face?’ Smith snorted. ‘It was hardly likely. And anyway, why should it bother you, now that you’re
living
happily ever after?’

Effie fought the urge to retort. Why was she wasting her time with him? He’d already proved that he hadn’t changed, that he didn’t care about how it felt to see him fawning over someone else. She shook her head again and walked out of the door, letting it slam behind her. She ran down the stairs and threw open the door to the street, letting out a long, shaky breath. Parked up by the curb was Smith’s pride and joy, his Royal Enfield Thunderbird. She looked at its curves and matt black chassis, picturing him sitting on it with Claire on the back, her hair blowing in the wind and her arms wrapped around his waist.

‘Don’t even think about it.’

She spun round at the sound of Smith’s voice to see him
standing
there as the door closed behind him.

‘Piss off, Smith.’

‘I mean it. If you kick her, I’ll never forgive you for it.’

‘How old do you think I am? Twelve?’

But he was right. She’d been half a second away from
kicking her
foot out and sending his stupid bike halfway across
the stree
t.

‘Why should it matter to you that I asked Claire to come? You weren’t even there, and we both know that nothing in the world would have made you come over dinner with
him
.’

‘It
doesn’t
matter, and I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m going home.’

She was about to turn and leave, but Smith skipped down the three stairs and stepped in front of her, blocking her path.

‘You don’t like her, do you?’

Effie sighed and briskly rubbed her forehead. ‘I don’t know her.’
And I don’t want to know her.

‘That’s not what I asked.’

‘Well, that’s irrelevant because that’s what I’ve told you.’

People walked past, skirting them as they stood in the middle of the pavement in a stare-down. His grey eyes were fixed right onto hers, and with every second that came and went, her anger turned into something else, something she couldn’t describe, even if she’d known every word in every language in the world. The muscles in Smith’s jaw twitched over and over again until he finally caved and dragged a hand through his hair.

‘Fuck. You can’t do this, Effie.’

‘Can’t do what?’

‘This!’ Smith shouted before shaking his head and looking around them. He looked at her again and lowered his voice. ‘You can’t make me feel bad for having other friends.’

Right down in the depths of her belly, the anger returned. She didn’t want to feel this mixture of feelings for him, and she didn’t want to feel animosity towards a woman she didn’t even know, who hadn’t done anything wrong except be collateral damage in the Smith vs Effie saga.

‘Friends? How do you think it felt for me to see you with her at the launch, minutes after coming on to me? And now you’re trying to bring her into our group – worse, you invited her to my
birthday
drinks.’

‘Everyone else happens to like her, and so would you if you gave her a chance. You weren’t even there, so what’s the problem?’

‘You know, after you apologised in Ireland, I actually thought you’d changed, but then at the launch . . .’ Effie shook her head and spat out a humourless laugh. ‘You’re just as fucked up and selfish as you always were, playing games and messing with my head.’

Her heart rammed in her chest. She sounded pathetic and ugly. The jealousy she’d tried to keep hidden was leaping from her mouth, and she couldn’t do anything to control it.

‘Are you having a laugh? Did you care how it felt for me when I had to look at you in a fucking wedding dress?’

Her face flushed red. She hadn’t thought he even cared. He’d told her he didn’t want her.

‘It’s not the same thing.’ She shook her head, stuttering. It
wasn’t
the same. Smith had broken her heart, not the other way around.

‘No? You sure about that?’

She looked at him, his eyes blazing, his beautiful face set into an almighty scowl.

‘See, here’s the thing, Effie.’ He took a step towards her and held her gaze with an invisible force that she couldn’t break. ‘You’re the one who’s married, not me.’

Her eyes pricked at his words, but she was damned if she was going to let him see her cry. Instead, she swallowed them away.

‘
I’m
single. I can do what I want, see who I want and be friends with whoever I want. You don’t get to tell me what to do or try to make me feel bad for doing it. If I want to see Claire, or any other woman, I will.’

Effie clenched her jaw and threw him a look of indifference. ‘Good. You do that.’

She walked away as the tears spilled from her eyes, and
narrowly
dodged a man in a suit, pushing a stroller. She angrily wiped the tears away and headed towards the Tube station, refusing to
look back
.

15.

B
roken china crunched beneath Effie’s shoes as she walked through Lou’s front door. Two days after her showdown with Smith, Effie still hadn’t heard from her, despite leaving several voicemails and text messages. An intervention was needed, and after five minutes of ringing Lou’s door buzzer, she used the emergency spare key and let herself in.

Lou was ridiculously house-proud. Effie couldn’t ever
remember
visiting and seeing anything out of place. This wasn’t like her. The living room looked like it had been ransacked. Her cream sofa
cushions
were slashed open, the stuffing spilling out like fluffy innards. The wooden blinds at the windows were hanging
haphazardly
, and the pictures that had once hung on the walls were now scattered on the floor, with their frames smashed.

‘Jesus.’ Effie looked around the living room until she saw Lou, huddled on the floor between the radiator and the sofa.

Her eyes were puffed out and red, and her cheeks streaked with dried tears. As Effie rushed over to her broken friend, Lou let out a huge sob, and Effie had to resist the urge to cry herself.

After ten minutes, Lou sniffed. ‘I’m such a fucking idiot.’

‘Hey,’ Effie said, rubbing her back, ‘don’t talk like that.’ She wiped the tears from Lou’s cheek. ‘What happened?’

‘I slept with someone else. I’ve broken his heart.’ Lou started to cry again. ‘I’ve fucked it all up.’

‘It’s okay,’ Effie whispered, smoothing down her hair. ‘It’s going to be okay.’

She looked up at the big mirror above the mock fireplace with a crack right in the middle, spreading out like a spider’s web. The wall next to it was splattered with a red stain, and going by the broken wine glass on the floor, Effie reckoned Lou had flung it in a rage.

She kissed the top of Lou’s head. ‘When was the last time
you ate
?’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘You need to eat.’ Effie’s voice was tender but firm. In the few days they hadn’t seen each other, she looked like she’d lost a stone in weight. ‘You need a shower too. We’ll talk after, okay?’

Lou nodded, and Effie took her to the bathroom, where she stood motionless as Effie switched on the shower, sending swirls of steam into the air. Lou barely even flinched as Effie undressed her and helped her into the shower cubicle. Lou was slim as it was, but now she had nothing on her, Effie could almost see her ribs, and her skin was grey and waxy. The wine fumes seeping from her made it obvious that she’d been on one hell of a bender. Effie left her in the shower and went into the kitchen.

‘Christ, this is a mess.’ Effie stood in the middle of the kitchen, surveying the scene.

It looked like someone had gone through every cupboard and swept the contents out onto the floor. It was littered with broken cups, plates, glasses and food. She picked her way over to the sink, opened the cupboard underneath it and pulled out a black bin bag. By the time Lou shuffled in, the dishwasher was whirring quietly, a bag had been filled with debris, the floor had been swept and an omelette and pot of tea had been made. Lou slid into a chair at
the tiny
table tucked into the corner and sighed as Effie handed her the omelette. They didn’t speak as she ate, but colour slowly began to return to Lou’s cheeks.

‘Thanks,’ Lou said, putting her fork on the plate and pushing it away once she’d finished.

She’d scrubbed herself clean and tied her hair back. Dressed in an oversized jumper and leggings, she looked more vulnerable than Effie had ever seen her before. Lou looked around the kitchen, and her eyes settled on the fridge door. Stuck to it was a picture of her and Mickey in fancy dress, grinning at the camera. She exhaled loudly and put her head in her hands.

‘So,’ Effie said softly. ‘What happened?’

Lou shook her head but didn’t look up. ‘I’ve royally messed things up – that’s what’s happened.’

Effie reached across the table and stroked her arm until Lou looked up again.

‘We had a huge fight on Friday night at Purl. I was drunk and I snapped. We’d been arguing all week anyway.’

‘About what he said in Ireland?’

‘More than that. The stuff he said in Ireland, what he said about how I should take our relationship as it is or leave it, the fact that he has no ambition at all.’ Lou shook her head. ‘The alcohol just made me lose control. I was nasty to him. And I mean really nasty.’

Effie didn’t doubt it. Lou had a tongue that could spit words like acid when she put her mind to it.

‘What did you say?’

‘That he was a layabout waste of space who’d never amount to anything, and maybe I should go and find someone who would.
I sa
id that maybe I should go and find a real man.’ Lou grimaced. ‘And that’s the polite version.’

‘Ouch.’ Effie winced. She knew Mickey. He was exactly like Smith, only without the tendency to cheat and lie. Lou taking a dig at his manhood would have stung.

‘And what did he say?’ Effie asked.

‘That I was drunk and I needed to sober up, which only made me even angrier. I remember screaming at him that it was over in front of everyone. He told Smith to make sure I got home alright and left.’

Effie poured tea into their cups from the polka-dotted teapot. ‘But you didn’t go home?’

Lou shook her head. ‘I went to meet up with some of the guys from work. There were leaving drinks in Soho that I’d turned down, but I thought, fuck it, why not? What did I have to go home to? Nothing. Except a guy who basically didn’t want to be with me
anymore
. So, I went and got even more hammered with the work guys, and then it all went wrong.’ She tipped her head back and looked up at the ceiling. ‘It’s not even like I can excuse it by saying I was drunk because I knew what I was doing. It was like I wanted to test myself to see if I could really do it to Mickey. I wanted to get back at him for hurting me. How fucked up is that?’

Effie didn’t say anything as she heaped a teaspoon of sugar into Lou’s cup.

‘I went back to the guy’s flat, and even though everything about it felt wrong – his hands, his mouth, his smell – I went ahead and did it anyway. I waited until he fell asleep, and then I left. It was just some random guy. I don’t even remember his name.’

Lou leaned forward, put her elbows on the table and looked back at the photo on the fridge. Effie would never judge her, but what made it all worse was that it was so out of character. Lou had a very hard line when it came to infidelity and had dumped previous boyfriends for less than even talking to another woman. It seemed like only a minute ago that Lou was busy giving Effie a stern
talking
to after her near miss with Smith, yet here she was, having slept with another man.

‘So how did Mickey find out?’

‘I told him. I had to. It was five thirty in the morning, and I’d just stumbled in, reeking of alcohol and another man. He was still awake, probably to make sure I got home alright. I couldn’t lie to him.’ Lou swallowed. ‘He cried. I’d never seen him cry before.’

Neither had Effie. Mickey was like Smith in that respect. They both thought of themselves as alpha males, and though they could show their sensitive sides, they didn’t
do
crying.

‘I’m a horrible person. I cheated on the man I love. I feel like the biggest slut on the planet.’

‘You are
not
a slut,’ Effie said as Lou started to cry again. ‘You were upset and drunk, and you messed up, but you are not a slut. And the most important thing is that you know it felt wrong.’

‘I do. It was.’ Lou hiccupped. ‘God, I’ve been so stupid.’

‘Have you spoken to him?’

‘He won’t answer my calls or texts. When he came back for his stuff on Sunday, I tried to tell him that I don’t care about marriage and kids. I don’t care about him being happy to work for someone else his whole life instead of setting up on his own. I don’t
care abo
ut any of that stuff if it means losing him, but he wouldn’t even look at me, let alone talk to me.’

‘Did he wreck everything?’ Effie asked, looking around the kitchen.

‘No, that was me. After he left, I just fell apart.’ Fresh tears ran down Lou’s cheeks as her chin wobbled. ‘What am I going to do, Eff? He hates me.’

‘He doesn’t hate you,’ Effie said. ‘He’s just hurt and angry.’

‘He won’t ever take me back.’

‘You don’t know that. Couples work their way through things like this all the time. You’re just going to have to give him some space to calm down and process everything, so he can decide what he wants to do next. He loves you – you know he does.’

‘And I love him, but that didn’t stop me.’

Lou laid her head on the table, and Effie smoothed down her hair. She didn’t know what else to say, because Lou was right. She loved Mickey, but she’d slept with someone else anyway. And that was the problem. Love on its own wasn’t enough.

Even though it was barely ten when Effie got home, Oliver was already fast asleep. She stood in the doorway looking at him and felt a pang of guilt in her stomach. She’d been cheated on herself by Smith, but seeing Lou so distraught had rammed it home. She needed to let Smith go. She didn’t want to lose her husband. He might not be perfect, but she didn’t want to end up alone, like Lou. She carefully took the book he’d fallen asleep reading from his hand and put it on his bedside table. He looked so peaceful, with his long eyelashes resting on his cheekbones and his mouth pulled into a slight pout. Effie undressed and climbed into bed next to him, snuggling into him as much as she could.

‘How was she?’ Oliver mumbled sleepily.

‘Bad.’

Effie closed her eyes as Oliver fell back asleep, and she tried to take her mind off Smith. She had to accept the facts. She was
married
, Smith was single and like he’d said, he could do whatever he wanted.

It was the first time he’d ever been clear with her. No
ambiguity
, no messing around. His words had stung and replayed in her head. Until tonight. Until she’d seen her best friend, heartbroken because she’d been unfaithful and lost the one thing in the world she’d always wanted to keep. Harsh as it sounded, seeing Lou reeling from what she’d done had given Effie the shock she needed.

She didn’t want to end up the same way.

A few days later, Effie shut the front door and dropped her keys into the bowl on the sideboard.

‘That you, baby?’ Oliver’s voice carried down the hallway, and Effie followed it to the kitchen. ‘You’re on time.’

Effie smiled. ‘I said I would be.’

‘I know, but you’ve been going over to Lou’s every day. I thought you’d change your mind.’

‘And miss out on you cooking dinner?’ Effie kissed his cheek. ‘No way.’

When he’d called her earlier, Oliver had been so pleased that she’d be coming straight home from work, instead of detouring to Lou’s, that he’d offered to cook. She hadn’t really believed him, since more often than not, he was the one who came home late from work, but there he was, pulling at lettuce leaves and dropping them into a shallow bowl.

‘You know, you never said what happened between those two.’

Effie hesitated for a second. She hadn’t told him because she knew he wouldn’t approve.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘They grew apart, I suppose. Miscommunication, that kind of thing.’

‘Miscommunication,’ he echoed. ‘That’s not a reason to split up. It’s pretty immature, if you ask me. It’s the kind of thing you work through, not throw in the towel over.’

She held back the need to defend her friends. After all, he didn’t know the real reason behind their break-up. Instead, she brushed the comment aside and looked over his shoulder.

‘How long till dinner’s ready?’

‘Few minutes,’ he replied and kissed her on the lips.

‘Sounds good. Let me just get changed out of my work clothes.’

Upstairs, she fought the urge to yawn as she changed out of her clothes. Heartbreak was a heavy business, and Lou was cracking under the strain of it. Effie opened her drawer for a pair of socks and grimaced. She’d been the same when Smith had ended up in hospital, and she’d finally faced up to the truth about their
relationship
, or the lack of it. She’d walked around for ages
feeling
like her world had come to an end, especially when he’d told her he’d booked a flight to Cambodia. She’d barely had time to catch her breath before he’d hopped on a plane and flown out of her life.