Page 73 of The Spare

aristobrat_ - 4 days ago: I fukin new something was up. Xavier totally called it off. Do we think Benedict took one 4 the team?

It’s speculation. Pure speculation. They can’t know anything.

aristobrat_ - 4 days ago: I mean theirs taking one for the team and theirs marrying someone with a cricket bat up her arse lmao

That familiar punch of emotion hits me right in the heart. It’s shame and outrage and actual sickness. And even while I’m plummeting, there’s a voice in my head judging me for giving the remotest shit what some trashy little wannabe with no perceivable grasp of spelling or grammar thinks of me.

spare_me_the_details - 4 days ago: The tabloids would pay excellent money for these. I wd take the pics down and make them pay up or theyll just take em anyway

receipts_or_it_didnt_happen - 4 days ago: The Daily Mail editor: hold my beer

I keep scrolling. I can’t help it. It’s some twisted, toxic addiction, where I’m doing the exact thing I don’t actually want.

When things like this happen—when people come for me online, in any context—it feels physical. It feels like they’re standing outside my front door with pitchforks and there’s a huge red flashing light going off continuously in my head while a sound like an air raid siren blares.

DANGER, DANGER, DANGER!

As far as I can tell, there are only two feasible courses of action: hide under my desk right this moment or jump into action. Because I am a lifelong over-functioner, I choose the latter, the impulse to act, to do, to undo. The catalysts: that sense of injustice, the jet fuel that is this isn’t fair, no one was supposed to find out, and, even more potent, primal fucking fear.

This is the monster under the bed, the beast I’ve been so terrified of, in its purest, basest form. It’s stretching those claws out from beneath the bed, and I’d better sprint for the door before I get a look at its teeth.

Feeling shaky and lightheaded, I fire off a WhatsApp to my group chat with Ben, Xav, and Ivy (yes, we have one mainly for practical, estate-related purposes—don’t judge me). This is a problem for all of us, even if it feels like it’s mainly for me. I had the most to lose if this wedding didn’t go through, the furthest to fall. Besides, it feels as though I’m the one who gives the most shits about stuff like this: I’m the most image-obsessed, the most ridiculously oversensitive. I paste in the link.

Read this. Someone has outed you and Ivy on Reddit

Even as I’m writing that sentence, it sounds ridiculous, so overly Gen Z of me. I wait impatiently for them to read and respond. I’m wondering whether to just call Ben or whether it’s uncool to bother him with this when he’s at work, when Ivy responds.

Holy shit. Feel violated

That makes sense. Unlike me or the boys, she’s never been in the public eye before, having carried out her entire relationship with Xavier—I mean Xav—to date behind closed doors.

You and me both. But mainly I feel busted.

That sounds better, more casual, than I feel as though I’m going to die. Less hysterical.

Isn’t that a massive violation by the care home tho?

It certainly fucking is, and I’ll ensure Xav unleashes the full wrath of the De Vere Estate upon them. Attack is the best form of defence. I’m a cornered animal, desperate to lash out even when I know it won’t help. If some loose-lipped employee found that thread and felt the need to spill confidential information, then I’m sure he or she is on far too low a wage to give a shit. And no matter how loudly we call for justice, the horse has well and truly bolted.

There’s no reply from Ben in the next five minutes, so I give him a call.

‘Hey, sweetheart.’ His chipper tone makes me feel marginally better.

‘Did you see my message?’ I ask, aware that I sound breathless.

‘Nope. What message?’

‘Someone on Reddit has photos of Ivy and Xav in Venice, and it’s launched this entire crazy thread about the wedding—like, they’re questioning whether you really instigated the switch when he was already in love with someone else, and someone from the nursing home even shared that he had visited her stepmother, and⁠—’

‘Whoa. What the fuck?’

‘I know, right?’

‘That’s a massive betrayal of patient confidentiality.’

‘Thank you. And I’m worried that…’ I trail off. My worries are big and vague and cascading off in all directions, and I’m not sure how to sum them up to Ben. ‘That it’ll become a whole thing,’ I finish lamely.

‘Hang on. Putting my earbuds in.’ There’s a pause and some scrabbling sounds. ‘Okay. Reading it now. The de Vere groom switch was a cover-up—blah, blah—my boyfriend said I should share them. Nosy bastard.’ He mutters bits and pieces of the post aloud. ‘I work at the care home—fuck’s sake.’