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‘Did you cheat on Chloe?’
‘No. No, why, what has she said?’ Owen stares at me across the darkness. ‘Seriously, Millie, why are you asking me this right now? Jesus, my head isspinning—’
‘Yes, or no.’
Owen looks at me, his jaw tense. ‘No.’
‘I think you’re a liar,’ I say, and Owen’s eyes are suddenly wide circles, unblinking, but I feel like something has burst. Something is coming out of me, a concealed box, broken open. ‘I think you are a cheat and a liar and someone who breaks people’s hearts and shits all over them and doesn’t think twice about it. So long as you have a supply chain of other people, stoking your fire.’ The women lighting up his phone. The unsuspecting women on his phone, like I was once. Like Chloe.
‘Millie, are you fucking kidding me?’
‘Did you send my emails?’
Owen laughs then. Deeply and scoffingly. ‘Why the fuck would I do that?’
‘I don’t know, but – you’re out here, playing the broken jilted fiancé, and yet your phone’s blowing up with girl’s names and .?.?. this is what you did to me. Played this anguished, sad, “I don’t want to do long distance” boyfriend, all the while setting up some sort of new life without me. New job, new girlfriend.’
‘She’s got into your head, hasn’t she?’ Owen says, angrily. ‘She’s got into your head, like she’s trying to get intoeveryone else’s.?.?.’
A car sloshes along the wet ground and pulls up on the cobbles.
‘Nobody is in my head,’ I say to Owen. ‘I can just see clearly.’
The window of the car slides down.
‘Uber?’ says the driver.
‘Him,’ I say.
And as I walk away, Owen calls, ‘None of this is my fault, Millie. Millie?’
I don’t turn around. I just keep walking, across the cobbles, until I’m on the path home.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
From: Gail Fryer (PA)
To: All LEIGH office
Subject: Cardigan found
Dear all,
The Peterboat have been in touch to say an olive green cardigan was found on a chair in the marquee after our get-together there last night. If it belongs to one of you, you’re free to pick it up from their lost property box at your convenience.
Thanks,
Gail
*
From: Vince Gudgeon
To: All LEIGH office
Subject: Cardigan found
Whoever it was must have been v cold or v drunk (or stupid) to leave without it, ha ha ha. Also, ur looking v pretty today xx
