‘Rach … Ryan.Please.’
Jack risked placing his hands on her shoulders, holding her still and staring into her eyes.
‘Do I want to work on this project? Yes, now the opportunity is there. But Isaac decides who leads on accounts, not me. And your … your first-hand knowledge of charities like Lighthouse didn’t even enter my head until I saw your face in there.’
‘ThatI can believe. God knows you’re not renowned for your sensitivity on the subject of my sister dying.’
He let his hands fall away from her and hid his face in them again, scrubbing at his eyes.
‘The way I reacted when you told me about losing your sister was … terrible,’ he said. ‘Truly. But I couldn’t understand how you’d kept it from me for three whole years. It was like you’d dropped a bomb – the prospect of meeting your parents was terrifying enough … and then you told me how much pressure was on you to make graduation special for them because your sister never got to do it. Because you lost her before she evenstartedat uni. So I freaked out, got drunk and ruined everything. I gave in and slept with someone who’d been pestering me for months because I was angry, because I felt like you’d been lying to me – if only by omission.’
‘I saw you the morning after, remember?’ Rachel scoffed. ‘You looked pretty happy beingpesteredfrom where I was standing – which was in a fuckinghedge, by the way. And I lied, as you put it, to everyone at uni except Anna. You were only the second person in the world I chose to tell about the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.’
Hot, angry tears made tracks down Rachel’s face. She wiped them away, not bothering to try to preserve the integrity of her eye make-up.
‘If I could take it all back and change it, I would,’ Jack said. ‘In a heartbeat.’
He reached for her hand and she tried to pull away, but his palm closed around her fingers like a vice. He refused to let go.
‘I’m devastated that you still think so badly of me. I swear to you, I didn’t engineer this. But I have to ask … If Isaac is oblivious to your family situation, I’m assuming nobody else here knows either?’
Rachel shook her head.
‘Not even Greg?’
‘No one. I mean, it’s not something you bring up by the coffee machine, is it? “My sister died when I was fifteen, my parents were destroyed and nothing was ever the same again.”’
She flipped her body 180 degrees so she was standing next to him, her back against the bin.
‘It’s not that I’m in denial,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘It’s not like I think refusing to talk about it means she’ll reappear, like I’ll wake up and find it was all a terrible dream. But I was almostdefinedby losing Lizzy from the second she was gone. At home I had to be careful, calm and sensible. The last thing my mum and dad needed was to worry aboutmegoing off the rails. At school people felt sorry for me, or uncomfortable around me, or they ignored me –orthey insisted I must want to talk about it. I wasn’t the ginger girl any more, I was the girl with the dead sister. And maybe this makes me an awful, selfish person, but I hated that. I didn’t want to be that girl at uni. I didn’t want to go back to being that person after graduation. And I don’t want to be her now either.’
Jack nodded. ‘I don’t think that makes you selfish. And you could never be awful.’
Rachel sighed, feeling like she was slowly deflating. ‘Maybe I should just tell Isaac I can’t do this – explain that he’ll need to break up his dream duo for this job.’
‘He won’t,’ Jack said. He was still holding on to Rachel’s hand. She realised that as her resistance to his grip had slackened, he’d laced his fingers through hers. ‘We’re a team,’ he told her. ‘If you feel like you can’t work on Lighthouse, I completely understand – but I don’t want to do it without you. If you want me to, I’ll talk to Isaac and ask him to put us on something else.’
‘You will?’
‘Just say the word.’
‘But … how would you justify that? What would you tell him?’
‘Some version of the truth, probably,’ Jack admitted. ‘I think I’d have to. Awful as it is, I think the only way to avoid talking about your own loss is to do the project: focus on other people’s situations instead.’
Rachel sighed again. She couldn’t deny there was a certain logic to this.
‘And what about you?’ she asked. ‘I mean, asking to switch assignments won’t do you any favours in terms of your position here. This is a huge account and we both know you can bring it in – it would cement your celebrity status for good.’
Jack ignored her sarcasm. ‘I’m good at what I do. There’ll be plenty more chances for me to get this agency coveted, lucrative clients.’
Rachel pulled her hand out of his and crossed her arms. He was infuriatingly confident.
‘On the other hand …’ Jack said,‘ifwe go ahead with Lighthouse, I’ll be with you, supporting you – and I’ll know the truth. And at least it sounds as if the content side of things won’t require too much soul-searching. It seems pretty clear Olivia Mason already knows what’s best when it comes to writing material for her new website.’
‘True.’
Rachel stood up straighter and pulled her shoulders back a little. Jack was right: refusing to work on this account was guaranteed to raise questions about her past, not to mention her emotional stability. What kind of person was stillthischurned up about a bereavement – even a close one – after almost sixteen years? A loss they never breathed a word about, even to good friends? She decided to put those questions away for examination at some future, unspecified time.
