Page 56 of The Ghost of Exes Past

Here we go.

‘Everyone is here. My family, people from work. Luckily, the Fork Yeah team left before the party kicked off but … You have to understand how this looks.’

‘How does it look?’ I want him to say whatever he’s thinking out loud.

He considers it carefully. Looks around, then back at me. ‘It looks like maybe you’re not all right.’

‘I am completely all right.’ The words come out steady, which surprises me, because I feel anything but.

The problem is that I’ve spent the past few hours watching every version of myself that I’ve tried to leave behind, and some of it is still stuck to me and I’m hoping to God that he can’t sense that. And if only he knew about my antics today – the ghost, the flashbacks, Seb’s face at that party – then he might not use the word ‘all right’ anywhere near me.

He might use ‘unwell’. He might think ‘not fit to get married tomorrow’.

He nods and then takes a step closer to me, whispering almost. ‘Are you getting cold feet?’

Cold feet? He thinks I’m unsure about us?

I tap the cigarette with my index finger, away from my dress. ‘Timothy, yes, my feet are cold. I’m wearing stilettos outside in mid-December. But I’m not getting cold feet for our wedding.’ Another lie.

He looks nervous, slightly panicked. ‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m excited. About tomorrow. You should want me to be excited! What would you prefer, that I sit quietly in the corner with your nanna Maude and her dodgy knee?’

I watch as his forehead creases. ‘I’d prefer—’ He stops again. He does that twitchy jaw thing. ‘I just want to know you’re okay. That’s all.’

‘I’m okay.’

‘Right.’ He nods, before leaning down and kissing me. It’s a flicker of a kiss. Our lips barely touch. It’s so polite, so managed, that I have to actively resist pulling back.

‘I’ll see you inside,’ he says and leaves. It’s only when he’s gone that I realise I wanted him to stay.

One final drag of the cigarette and I watch the tip glow. The waves carry on below. White noise, which feels soothing. One last look at the abbey, broken and all lit up. A magnificent wreckage on display against the black sky. It’s beautiful in the way that lonely things often are. I wonder if that’s why Timothy is attracted to me. And I wonder if that’s why Jake was attracted to me. I turn and go back inside.

I push the door open and Jake’s on the sofa, telly on, legs up. He’s got a pen between his teeth, tapping it against his bottom lip, staring at the ceiling.

I close the door behind me and lean back against the cool wood. Jake spots me, the pen disappearing as he straightens up.

‘There she is.’ He grins cheekily. I see he’s been working his way through a bottle of whisky he’s acquired from … somewhere. Impressively, he’s already made a bit of a dent. Recognising the look on my face, he stills. Raises the bottle.

‘Give me that,’ I say, collapsing into the cushion next to him, kicking off my heels. ‘We’re going to need that, I think.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Jake

I mute the TV as Belle slumps next to me. She kicks off her heels, curls her feet up under her like one of Arthur’s cats and pulls a cushion onto her lap. With her head resting back against the sofa, she holds out her hand. I pass her the whisky and look to the TV instead. I watch images of a movie I’ve already seen.

When I got up here, I spent ten minutes staring at her dress hung on the door of the wardrobe, without meaning to. Then I paced around until I noticed a half-drunk glass of water on the bedside table. Her side. The same side she slept on when we were together.

I also turned on all the lamps. I’m one of those lamp people. Aggressive in my confidence that they make a room cosier, more atmospheric. Romantic even. I look to the ceiling. What the hell am I doing? A ghost, trying to create a passionate vibe with my very much alive ex? Do I really think I’m gonna be the one to comfort her about her abusive exes? Pull it together, Jake.

Anyway, she seems off. Quieter. She doesn’t appear to be her new bouncy self. She’s flatter now. She takes a second swig as I push my heels into the carpet. It’s thick and scratchy beneath my feet. I pick up the remote, change the channel. Yet another film. One of my faves.

‘Don’t suppose you’ve got strong opinions on whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie or not?’ I ask, grinning as I nod to the TV. She smiles without looking at me and hands me back the bottle. I look into it, sitting awkwardly in the silence.

Then, to do something, I take a swig.

This film always reminded me of our first Christmas holidays together. We hadn’t spent the actual day together, to my dismay – she’d wanted to make the most of Grandma Juliet being down for Christmas – but we had spent all of New Year’s Eve at my house, watching Christmas films in between fumbling around under each other’s clothes. We’d pulled my bedroom mattress onto the floor and set up a fort with bedsheets hanging over an ironing board. I’d spent forty minutes trying to get the sheets to hang right, weighing them down with a stack of books, including a dictionary I’d never actually used.