The Night That Changed Everything (15 page)

Ibuprofen, hopefully.

Frank's is nothing special to look at. In fact, there is paint peeling off the window sill and most of the mugs are chipped, but the full English is up there with my Mum's, and Frank himself always greets you like family.

‘You look rough today, Ben,' he says, ushering me to a table with some napkins wedged underneath one of the legs. ‘Still, nothing one of my specials won't fix.'

Frank is Greek. The bottom half of his face is darkened by a shadow of stubble, while the top is permanently tanned, so that he resembles a
Crimewatch
photofit.

‘Make that two, please, Frank – Jamie's on his way.'

A few minutes later Jamie bounds in looking ready for a heptathlon.

‘When I said you needed to work out what to do with your life,' he says, sitting down opposite me, ‘I didn't mean that you should
do
one of my best mates.'

‘How did you—'

‘Rebecca told me.'

I bury my face in my hands. ‘It was just one night, mate.'

‘That's not what Rebecca seems to think.'

What the fuck?

‘What did she say exactly?'

‘That she liked you. Well, she never said it in so many words, but—'

‘Who likes me?'

‘Rebecca.' Jamie shakes his head. ‘Jeez, who do you think I was talking about?' Luckily his question seems to be rhetorical. ‘She gave me this.'

He holds out a napkin, and for a few seconds I look at it in his hand, puzzled.

‘Well, this isn't the reaction I was expecting,' he says. ‘I thought you'd be made up?'

‘I am, I just . . .'

I really thought she had blown me out. I would never have done anything with Danielle if I'd thought there was even a tiny chance . . . But I didn't, and so I did, and I know that means I can't . . . But then again, if we really are pretending like it never happened, then maybe . . .

I go to take the napkin, a strange guilt coming over me, but Jamie pulls it back.

‘Not until you make me a promise,' he says.

‘What do you mean?'

‘I'm only giving you this if you like her.'

I think about the question for a good eighth of a second.

‘I do, mate – I do.'

‘Really like her, I mean. You're not getting this unless you promise me you'll treat her right, and won't get carried away until you're sure it's not another flight of fancy.'

He is looking right into my eyes.

‘I promise, mate,' I say, locking everything that happened after I left the bar last night into a mental vault. ‘You've got nothing to worry about.'

Monday, 10 November

It's only when I'm cycling over the bridge that it hits me: I didn't leave the house this entire weekend. I didn't even get dressed. No exercise, no fresh air, no human contact. That's not healthy.

Still, these are the things I've managed not to do:

–  Talk to Ben. The only words I've uttered to him since he sat at our dining table, ripping up our How We Met story into teeny tiny pieces and sellotaping it back together again into something flawed, sticky and way less poetic, were to tell him to leave and never come back.

–  Talk
about
Ben. Come to think of it, I haven't talked at all since Friday. Telling Ben to go was the last time I used my voice. That's a weird thought.

–  Sit in bed sobbing while simultaneously eating ice cream and looking through old photos of the ‘good times'.

–  Throw away Ben's left shoes, smash his framed Manchester City shirt or wee in his shower gel.

–  Talk to Ben.

Anyway, contrary to post-break-up protocol, I'm doing all right.

Mostly.

Actually, if I'm being really honest, I should also add these to the list of things I've not done:

–  Cooked. At all. Meals this weekend consisted of an Indian takeaway, a Chinese and a pizza.

–  Tidied the flat. It's already starting to smell like the bin section at an international street food market. In fact, the only semi-productive thing I achieved this weekend was relenting and booking a weekly cleaner. She starts today.

–  Slept. I feel shattered – my limbs are bags of sand and my eyelids feel like they've got pound coins taped to them, yet my mind won't quit. Plus the newborn baby downstairs pipes up every time I come close to dozing off.

Which is why the first thing on my agenda as soon as I've chained up my bike is coffee.

‘Coo-ee! Rebecca!'

Jemma is at the front of the huge queue that greets me when I open the door of Starbucks. I slope forwards, painfully aware how much everyone – me included – hates a pusher-inner. Any other day, this would be enough to hold me back. But today . . .

‘Get a black coffee and whatever you're having,' I whisper, sneaking a tenner into her hand and then loitering by the condiment table.

‘Anything to eat with that?' Jemma yells over, while others glare. I shake my head. They're so on to me.

‘My diet starts tomorrow,' Jemma says once we're outside, holding up her latte with a double shot, hazelnut syrup and extra cream. ‘Then I'll be on the skinny flat whites.'

‘You don't need to lose weight, Jemma.'

She has a great figure. It's curvy and feminine, unlike my own tall, boyish frame. Hers isn't dissimilar to Danielle's. A size bigger, maybe, but no less sexy. The difference is that Jemma doesn't seem to know she's sexy. Danielle does. She'd never say it, but it's there in the little actions, like dancing rather than walking towards the loo in a bar, or eye-fucking the camera when posing for photos.

The thought takes me to a dark place.

‘How was your weekend?' Jemma asks, slurping her drink as we cross the road.

It was lonely and depressing. Even worse than the weekend I found out about Ben and Danielle. Because now it was about me. It didn't happen before we met. I could have got over
that
, I realize now. That hurt, but at least it wasn't personal. Knowing it happened on the night we met changes everything. For ever.

‘Good, thanks,' I tell Jemma.

It's just gone eight o'clock when I get to my desk – less than an hour to devise a more detailed proposal for East House Pictures. I need to be on top of my game.

‘Keeping you up, are we, Rebecca?' Eddie Riley yells across the office.

I had nearly nodded off, my eyes fluttering shut and my head dropping towards my chest.

Shit. ‘If anyone's keeping me up, Riley, it sure ain't you,' I yell back without looking, and the other guys snigger, which shuts Eddie up.

I grind my fists into my eye sockets, grateful I forwent mascara this morning.

Nine o'clock rolls around, yet when I peer down to reception, there's no sign of Adam. I sit upstairs, but the wall facing Jemma downstairs is Perspex, so I can see the entrance from my desk.

At five past, there's still no sign. Same at ten past. At just before a quarter past he finally strolls in, and Jemma sends him up before calling my extension.

‘Sexy vampire has entered the building,' she squeals.

‘Yep, seen him – thanks, Jem. Fifteen bloody minutes late – he might have called.'

Silence.

‘Jemma?'

‘Um, while I've got you on the phone, I have a message for you. Adam Larsson called and said he'd be fifteen minutes late.'

‘OK, no sweat.' At least I found out before I made a dig at Adam. ‘He's here now.'

‘Giamboni.' He grins as he strides towards me. ‘Good to see you.'

‘Good to see you too,' I lie, taking the hand he's offering and shaking it firmly. I lead him to a meeting room, spread out my plans on a table and start talking.

‘We just need to bear in mind it has a grade-two listed interior,' I say finally. ‘So we need to maintain what we can of its art deco features, but the exterior is pretty run down and not structurally sound.'

He isn't saying much, just the odd grunt, but when I'm done he picks up the page. While he studies the drawing, I study him. I'd be lying if I said he wasn't handsome – not that I'd admit it to Jemma. Lean, blond and blue eyed with a mass of stubble to make him look devilishly handsome rather than angelically cute. Yet, he leaves me cold.

It occurs to me that I can't imagine ever having sex with anyone other than Ben. But Ben and I will probably never have sex again. Sadness washes over me as I picture him on top of me, his hair messy as he closes his eyes and bites his lip. Then suddenly, in my head, it's Danielle underneath him instead of me, on the night we met, while I'm climbing into my own bed with a stupid grin on my face, wondering if Ben is thinking about me too. I despise myself as much as I despise them.

‘It looks great,' Adam says, letting the page fall back on to the table.

‘Thank you. What I'll do next is play around with—'

‘As I said, it looks great,' he interrupts. ‘But what am I doing in a fire?'

‘Getting out and calling the fire brigade?' I quip, but even as I say it, I realize my mistake.

‘Right. It's the getting-out part I'm worried about. What if I'm upstairs and the stairs are on fire? How am I getting out? Toilet window or . . . ?'

I grab back the page and study it, trying to see if I can invent a way out of this. Did I really forget the frickin' fire escape?

‘Don't beat yourself up about it,' he smirks.

I'm not. I'm beating Ben up about it. For taking up my headspace and leaving me off my game.

‘Well done,' I say, tossing the page back on the table. ‘That was a test, and you passed. You can stay on my team.'

He chuckles, sliding the plan back over to his side of the table with his fingertips, while I pray to God I'm not blushing.

I gaze out of the window, watching a dark black cloud change the colour of the sky as Adam takes his pencil and decorates my drawing with some suggestions to make the concept more structurally sound. Is that what was wrong with mine and Ben's relationship? It looked pretty good on the surface, but was it structurally flawed? Instead of changing gradually over time, its strength keeping it standing, becoming even more beautiful with age, it just crumbles with the weight of his secret, because it was never made of strong-enough bricks. Still, at least it happened now. We might share a bed, a sofa and a dining table but what would have been the next step? Getting engaged? Probably, I realize. Christ, if he'd asked, I would have said yes. Then this would be even harder.

‘Sorry, am I boring you?' snaps Adam, as I yawn.

‘A little,' I say, intending it as a joke but worrying instantly that I sounded vindictive.

Just then my phone starts buzzing and Ben's name pops up with his stupid smiley face – a selfie he once took when I was in another room and added to his contact details to surprise me.

‘Boyfriend?' Adam mutters.

‘Not any more,' I mutter back, rejecting the call. I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth, and I wait for Adam to whack me with the stick I've just handed him, but when I raise my eyes he looks embarrassed.

‘Sorry, I didn't—'

‘Don't be. It's fine. Anyway, are we finished here? Clearly I've got work to do on these sketches.'

‘Sure. Um, see you soon.' He gets up to leave, turning back when he's in the doorway – a safe distance so I can't cry on his shoulder, I expect – then adds, ‘Hope you're all right.'

I stay rooted to my seat in the meeting room as he leaves. I don't know what's worse – the sexist structural engineer thinking I'm not on my game because I'm having man troubles, proving women are too emotional to be in charge, or him thinking I'm always that sloppy, proving women are too incompetent to do a good job.

I let my head drop into my hands. You twat, Giamboni.

I watch an apocalyptic cloud drift in front of the midmorning sun, casting London into grey, and from my position at the window it suddenly feels like the entire city, the Thames and all the buildings across the water, and even me standing here, were drawn from a blunt pencil.

‘What are you still doing here?' asks Jamie, fastening his dressing gown as he strides from his room.

‘I called in sick.'

I was supposed to have a meeting with Richardson this morning but I feel as though I can barely move. People think heartache is an emotional pain and it is, but it's a physical pain too. It's an omnipresent ache in my stomach, a tightness in my throat, a numbness in my head and a tiredness in every limb.

Maybe it'd be different if I had a job I loved, that I could throw myself into as a distraction, but I don't, and the prospect of a round of
How was your weekend?
made me feel sick.

‘I wish I had cigarettes.'

‘Want me to go buy you some?'

I return to the couch, tucking myself back into the sleeping bag. ‘I thought you said every cigarette takes seven minutes off your life?'

‘They do,' he says, depositing bread into the toaster. ‘Want me to go buy you some?'

I can tell from his strangled tone he's only half joking. He's been pretty cheesed off all weekend, but what was I supposed to do? Once I lied to Rebecca about the timing I couldn't exactly tell him, because he's
her
friend as much as he is mine. It would have put him in an impossible position. But now he keeps saying stuff like,
That's why you acted weird when I handed you the napkin
and,
I wouldn't have given you it if I'd known
.

I switch on my laptop while he makes breakfast, neither of us speaking, and I must be in a world of my own because I jump out of my skin when he plonks himself down next to me on the couch.

‘Want some toast?' he says, holding the plate out to me.