Page 61 of The Ghost of Exes Past

Belle, next to me, smiles softly. ‘I was headhunted and found out I got the job. Head of PR for an up-and-coming alcohol brand. It felt like everything was falling into place.’

‘So that’s what you do for work.’ I smile. Head of a division, of course – I wouldn’t expect anything else. She was always destined for greatness. I swallow, knowing that I tried to hold her back from that.

‘This moment: the fresh air, the good news, the start of a new year. It felt like a lightning bolt. My first hit of clarity. An opportunity for a fresh start. It made clear that I was still holding myself back in my dating life. Still punishing myself. Things needed to change. This new role gave me the confidence.’

Belle finishes her call and hangs up. She laughs, shimmies her shoulders, and places her head in her palms, elbows resting on her knees. After a few moments, she stands, takes a deep breath, and turns back towards the house.

We follow her as she walks up the front garden, turns the key in the lock, and enters, through the narrow hallway, lined with smart men’s shoes. A shoehorn hangs on a hook. A waft of bitter coffee hits me as we follow Belle into the kitchen. It’s a big room – there’s been a renovation, a wall knocked down – but apart from that, there’s absolutely no character.

No frames up, no personality, just white walls. A grey kitchen. Asylum vibes. Very much like the in-between I’ve been living in – a huge lump of ‘meh’.

Except, this guy seems to have purposefully built this for himself. It’s a huge contrast to Belle. Sure, her little trinkets looked like clutter, but they were proof of a life built, of her, showing care for a room lived in.

Joe is wearing a dressing gown and sitting at the kitchen island, empty apart from a sink, tapping away on a laptop. He doesn’t look up when Belle enters the room, and now I’m here, I make out his face clearly.

I was right. Bad vibes. A plain man, but smarmy, like a lizard … or a snake. His bald head is glistening. Skin so glassy, it looks like a snake right before it sheds its snake-y skin.

Belle packs up her laptop from the dining table behind the kitchen island and puts it in a tote bag. I don’t recognise the brand name printed in a bold font on the front, but I pay close attention – if this is her job, and therefore a part of her new life, there’s a part of me that wants to remember it.

It’s only as Belle pulls a scarf – a grey, long, woolly thing – from the back of a chair, that Joe actually looks up from his computer and to her.

‘What are you doing?’ he asks – no warmth, just questioning.

Her tone is similar to his. Blunt, direct, monotone. ‘I’m getting out of here. I won’t be coming back.’

He laughs, a snooty, awful sound. ‘You’re joking, right?’

‘I’m serious,’ she says, not looking at him, but at the scarf in her hand. ‘I don’t want to see you again.’ I notice that the top of her lip is curled up slightly in disgust.

‘Fine. Go then,’ he says, nasally.

Belle doesn’t respond; it’s like she’s in a trance. Like the scarf isn’t a scarf but a looking glass instead.

‘Doesn’t matter to me. Fuck off back to Clapham, love.’ He turns back to his laptop, muttering to himself. Nonsense I can’t hear and don’t want to.

Young Belle huffs out a small laugh, shakes her head. She blinks a few times, still focused on the scarf, then places it back on the chair. She pulls the tote bag on her arm, lands the handles in the crook of her shoulder and walks back out to the hallway. Belle and I follow her as she grabs her coat from the banister. Behind us, Joe’s stool squeaks as he pushes it back on the floor.

‘Think you’re better than me? You slag. You were a shit shag anyway.’

The words hit me before the moment does. Shit shag. I’ve said that too. I’ve said those exact words. I look at Belle beside me, and I can tell from her face she knows it too.

Something happens in that moment, something I haven’t felt since … who knows. I look back to the kitchen, see Joe standing there – his robe falling open at his chest, weedy legs, barefoot on the grey vinyl floor, gesturing in the air – and all of a sudden the colour drains out of everything. The bleak walls somehow go whiter, the grey kitchen goes greyer, and it all narrows down to this man.

My knuckles go white as I squeeze my fists, nails digging into my palms, and my heart races. The urge to walk back towards this guy has a specific tang to it. I can almost taste the satisfaction of a dressing gown collar grabbed from behind, taut in my hand. The feel of jaw, nose, against knuckle.

But I know I can’t make him pay. I’m a useless ghost.

So instead, I stand in the hallway and vibrate.

I know that the best that’ll happen, if I try, is that I’ll walk through him. What kind of torture is this, where I can’t stand up for someone, where the best I can do is make a man shiver. The full extent of what I’m able to offer is a mild drop in temperature, like I’m a draught under the door.

Young Belle is already pulling on her coat. She’s done. I force myself to watch her instead of him. I focus on the line of the shoulders under the padding of her waterproof. Head high. The Belle that has found the courage to stand up for herself. She doesn’t even shake until she’s outside, her fingers trembling as she pulls the door closed.

It slams. A dog starts barking somewhere down the road.

We follow her through the gate, which she leaves open, but she’s fast. We slow to a halt and watch her go. She’s not running, but something’s different. Like a gear shifting. She pulls her coat tighter around the neck and doesn’t look back. We stand there for a moment after she’s gone around the corner.

I look down and kick a bit of gravel off the kerb. I’d called her a robot – said it like it was a fact – and made her feel bad for acting so forced.