CHAPTER15
‘I guess I am a little exhausted,’ Becky said as she took out her earrings. ‘I think it’s the fresh air… or maybe the wine.’
Her heart sank a little as she heard everyone laughing downstairs. They sounded like they were having a blast. Was that Lily Allen? She loved Lily Allen.
‘Did you have a nice evening?’
‘I did,’ Christine replied. ‘Your friends are an interesting bunch, aren’t they? Alotgoing on there.’
Becky frowned.Interesting. There were a million other words that Christine could have used – nice, funny, amazing, welcoming – but no. She choseinteresting. She only chose interesting when she was about to verbally dissect something or someone.
‘They are,’ she agreed, rummaging through her case for a vest top to wear to bed. ‘Very interesting. And they are all just as wonderful as I remember.’
Christine slipped on a silk pyjama set and climbed into the right side of the bed. ‘They’re definitely not what I was expecting. They seem older than you in some ways – not physically. Mentally, perhaps.’
‘What do you mean?’
She paused, taking off her watch. ‘More grown-up, maybe. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Rebecca, darling, it’s really not that uncommon to still be finding your feet in your thirties.’
‘Finding my feet? What exactly are you trying to say?’
‘Just that perhaps they’ve been more selective with their career path. More driven.’
‘I have a career!’ Becky responded, pulling her vest over her head. ‘Yes, I’m not a lecturer or an actress or an author, but massage therapyisa career. It’s just not one you deem particularly worthy.’
Christine rolled her eyes. ‘Not this again. We’ve been over it before. If you were really happy with your job, you wouldn’t care what I thought either way, darling. Maybe it’s you who doesn’t deem it worthy.’
Becky’s career had always been a touchy one. Christine couldn’t understand why someone with aperfectly gooddegree in philosophy had chosen a job, which, in her words ‘takes very little training or brainpower’. Becky found that rather rude, but Christine had never been one to mince her words. She used to find that refreshing, now it was just irritating.
Not only was her ‘perfectly good’ degree a first-class honours with distinction, she was paid well, very well in fact, with regular clients from all over London and a successful training academy under her belt. Regardless, it didn’t sit well with Christine, whose ex-wife was a barrister and previous girlfriend before Becky, an architect.
Becky removed herself from the conversation and made her way to the bathroom, leaning against the sink. Her tiredness had now been replaced by frustration.
Stay calm, she told herself.As much as you want to fly back in there and tell her to fuck off, you don’t need anger issues being brought into question as well as your job and your friends.
As she looked at herself in the mirror, she wondered how it had come to this. how she would rather repress her feelings for fear of having them used against her. But deep down she couldn’t help thinking that this was her fault. She hadn’t exactly entered into this relationship being herself. She’d so desperately wanted to be taken seriously by someone that she’d stripped herself of everything she once held dear, to finally be in a proper grown-up relationship.
But she felt that Christine hadn’t exactly been honest either because this version, the one sitting in bed belittling her, wasn’t the one she fell in love with. She’d fallen in love with a woman who’d initially showered her with love and affection. A woman who couldn’t bear to be apart from her. A woman who made her feel like she mattered.
Becky couldn’t pinpoint exactly when that stopped; all she knew was she’d been chasing that feeling again, ever since. That, if they’d just work through things, they’d could get back to where there were in the beginning.
She turned off the bathroom light and got into bed. Christine was already asleep.
