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‘I am so sorry, Sophie.’ Mark holds my gaze. And I find my confidence slipping. Was I wrong? Was he maybe not entirely awful after all? Did all the time apart, all the challenges of our split, make me remember him in an exaggeratedly bad light? I study his face, a mix of hope and contrition.
‘Look, I can’t make any decisions right now,’ I say, rubbing my aching head. ‘This has been a lot.’
‘I completely understand. I appreciate you coming today,’ he says. ‘I’ll be back and forth from Bristol for the next few weeks now in case you want to chat things through. Can I ask one last thing?’
I raise my eyebrow.
‘What’s her name?’
I don’t want to say it. I know I can’t deny him this, but it’s like I’m giving a piece of myself away.
I inhale slowly.
‘Lila.’
‘Lila,’ he repeats with a smile. ‘And how is she?’
‘She’s the best thing in my world,’ I reply, a lump forming in my throat.
I stand up to leave and Mark stands too.
‘Thank you, Sophie.’
I hurry out, compelled to wrap Lila in my arms as soon as physically possible. As I walk, I repeat to myself: “I can deal with this. I can deal with this.”
Chapter 23
I can’t deal with this.
I go to empty the washing machine only to discover that I forgot to turn it on. Shoving the dirty clothes back in and stabbing at the control panel, I sit down on the cold kitchen floor and stare as the machine chugs into life. What’s happened to my efficiency?
Mark. Mark is what’s happened.
Usually, when a problem comes along, I fix it. But this feels somehow too big, too much, for me to tackle on my own. I could talk to Poppy but she gets het up whenever Mark comes up in conversation, so I imagine her immediate reaction to his reappearance would be graffitiing the words ‘Mark’s a tosser’ on Bristol’s new Mylk It pop-up. And I’m not sure a criminal record for petty crime and a fledging career as a wedding photographer go hand in hand?
Then there’s Frankie but I don’t want to interrupt the family time she so craved when we left Tally’s birthday weekend last night. Actually, the person I yearn to talk to is Joe. But things with Joe and I are all a bit confusing right now. HA HA UNDERSTATEMENT. Although … He did say he was here for me, didn’t he? Would it be okay to burden him with my problems even when we’ve got problems on our own? I sigh heavily. My life feels like a Jay Z song.
Before I completely overthink it, I dial Joe’s number.
‘Hey,’ he answers.
‘Hello!’
‘I’ve been thinking about you. How’d it go?’
I make a garbled noise by way of reply.
‘That bad, huh?’
‘Do you mind me talking to you about this?’
‘Of course I don’t mind. We’re mates, right?’
‘Right,’ I agree, and push aside the way it stings when he uses the word mates. ‘So, Mark wants to meet Lila.’
There’s silence down the line.
‘How d’you feel about that?’ Joe asks eventually.
