Page 54 of The Ghost of Exes Past

And worst of all, I called her a fucking robot just moments ago. I said this to her face – told her she wasn’t acting human. I thought she was simply hollow now, rather than considering, even once, that maybe something might have made her that way.

I feel sick.

I decided what was real in her and what wasn’t, like I had any right. I know it’s not the same as what he did in that bedroom. But it’s not nothing either.

Timothy, though … Timothy, who is alive. The guy who will be there tomorrow and the day after that, and the day after that. I mean it when I think it: I’m glad she’s got him. That’s the truest thing I’ve felt since I died.

We have two more after this … So does this mean there’s another bad one to come?

‘Please tell me the next one isn’t as bad as this?’ I ask, my fingers crossed behind her back, her head against my chest.

‘It’s not great. Can we have another break?’

I reach down, my hands grazing her arm before finding her hands. ‘Of course,’ I say.

The fly buzzes back past.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Belle

I surface at the bar, and the music finds me before anything else does. I rub my eyes weakly as the bass vibrates in my chest. The lights are all wrong – they bounce around and strobe off someone’s sequins. They’re much too bright, or rather, I’ve just come from somewhere very dark.

The barman slides me a glass of water without me asking, and I take it, thanking him, so grateful I could cry. I take a long sip while I look around. Jake is gone, which means we’re done for now.

The rehearsal party is in full swing. It doesn’t need me to keep it going, which is both a relief and a small grief. When I lower the glass, I catch Timothy’s eye. Or rather, I catch him looking away. Quickly and deliberately.

He’s by the fireplace with his dad, the pair of them standing with that particular posture they share: shoulders slightly hunched, chins lifted, hands behind their backs – like they’re surveying a battlefield rather than a ballroom. He won’t look at me. So I wait. I stand at the bar and wait, and eventually, because I know him and I know he will, he looks back. And I didn’t get it wrong. Instead of smiling, he shakes his head. It’s a slight movement, barely noticeable. But I notice it. The way his mouth pulls to one side, slow and almost considerate, as if in thought. I know this face. I’ve seen it multiple times. It’s his face when he’s frustrated with me – for misplacing my keys for the twentieth time that week, for taking too long to get ready so we’re late to our dinner reservation. He had that look when I turned up to his colleague’s Christmas drinks last year in a dress he didn’t think was quite right. It’s disappointment written across his face, here, in this room.

I feel a heat rising through me, starting at my forehead and boiling its way down somewhere in my chest. Have I embarrassed him? I put the glass down. I need to get out of here … I need the bathroom.

The bathroom is empty. I lock the cubicle door, drop the lid, and sit down. I pull the paper from my bra. It’s soft at the folds now and slightly greying at the edges. I smooth it against my knee and look at what I’ve written so far.

We’ve had six visits so far and I’ve written six tidy little lessons. I put pencil the paper for visit seven.

Things I have learned, visit 7:

Some people will

I stare at the line for a long time. Then fold the paper back up. Tuck it away, wash my hands, and look at myself in the mirror. Bride Belle looks back at me and I’m not sure which one of us blinks first.

My hair is knotted at my shoulders, and my cheeks are the colour of the red wine I definitely wasn’t supposed to be drinking. We’d made a pact – had promised each other: fizz and wine over dinner, then sparkling water. Just sparkling water. In order to stay clearheaded and ready for the best day of our lives, he’d said, and I’d agreed, because it had seemed reasonable back in London, back when the wedding felt like a thing that was happening to a future, calmer version of me.

I ball up a tissue and blot my forehead.

This is not what I’d planned for this evening. Which is so obvious, it’s almost funny, except I’m too tired to laugh. It’s the night before my wedding. My husband-to-be is ignoring me in a room full of our nearest and dearest, and the person I currently feel the closest to in the world is a ghost. The ghost of Jake Marleigh, specifically. I’m also sweating in a bathroom, by myself. I need a minute to process all of this.

I breathe in through my nose. Hold it. Then out. Like I learned on Instagram.

Here’s the thing. Reliving what Seb did to me … I know that’s why I needed the wine, the noise, and why I wanted to let my hair down. I’m not unravelling – I am, instead, just releasing some pressure. There’s a difference.

And maybe, if I’m being honest, in the privacy of my own head at least … Maybe Jake’s voice is in there too. I don’t want to admit that he knows me more than I want him to. That after ten years, after everything, he can still land something without even trying.

The way he’s able to make such casual observations, without realising how I take them to heart. You’ve changed … More uptight. How he said it so matter-of-factly, like it wasn’t hurtful, like he was just stating the obvious.

I just … I don’t want to be the woman who nurses a sparkling water at my wedding rehearsal dinner because I’m worried about what people will think. I don’t want to have to change myself for others. I vowed not to let that happen again – and I meant it.

And Timothy knows what I’ve been through in my past, and what I never want to go back to, which includes letting someone’s disapproval dictate how I hold myself in a room.