Page 72 of The Ghost of Exes Past

At the top of the page, a sentence is crossed out:

She got with him to hurt me. She chose him because she was already hurting, I get that now.

Written upside down to the left-hand side:

She built all of this without me. Worse – she built it all because I wasn’t there to hold her back.

The paper shakes in my hands, as a tear hits the page and blots the sentence:

She has no idea. No fucking idea how perfect she is.

And then in the smallest handwriting on the page, so small it looks almost like a mistake, and tucked into one bottom corner, like he almost didn’t want to write it:

T—

Nothing after it.

I read what I can, once, twice. Then sink down to the sofa cushions.

A knock at the door then. My heart drops.

Timothy?

I fold the list in my palm and close my first around it.

I stand, wipe away the tears with the back of my hand, and shout, ‘Hello?’

The door opens slowly.

In he steps.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Jake

The door closes heavily behind me and I walk, then run across the room to her, grabbing her hands as she stands, searching her face. I can feel my cheeks are red, bitten by the cold, but her palms are warm in mine.

‘I’m sorry, Belle. So sorry.’

Her eyes wide, tears glistening on her freckles.

‘For tonight, for the past. For lying, for holding you back, for ruining your day. And for laughing, Belle, I’m so sorry I laughed. Both times. I wasn’t laughing at you. I never once thought any of this was funny. My face does something stupid when I’m scared and I hate it and …’

I grip her hands tighter.

‘I lied and laughed because I’m a coward. I’ve always been a coward and I’ve been hiding from it for ten years because I couldn’t – genuinely couldn’t – admit to myself that I’d hurt you. That I, the person who loved you more than anyone, anything, had caused you pain, so I just – didn’t. Didn’t look at it. Didn’t do the mission. I did everything else instead for a decade because that was easier than sitting with the fact that …’

I stop. Start again. ‘I couldn’t let anything in without trying to hold on to it so tightly that it stopped being the thing I loved. I did it with you. Every time you tried to grow, every time you searched for something – London, a career, just more, I heard it as you reaching away from me and I made you feel guilty for wanting it. I couldn’t hear it any other way. Because if I let you go, if I loosened my grip just slightly, I thought you’d realise you didn’t need me. I couldn’t survive that. So I held on tighter, I called it love, but it wasn’t – it was fear dressed up as love, and you knew it before I did and you were right to end things …’

I’m panting, my breath short, but I can’t stop.

‘I’ve spent ten years in the in-between being miserable, and I told myself it was because I was dead, because of the crash, because of bad luck, because I’d lost the one true love, but it wasn’t any of that – it was me. It’s always been me. And tonight …’ I stop, look at her. ‘Tonight was the first time in as long as I can remember that I let something in. Let you know. And the colour is coming back.’

I swallow, stuff the pain down.

‘The worst thing is I’m still hurting you. Even now. Showing up here, lying to you, putting you through all of this on the night before your wedding, still making things about me, still laughing and still unable to let you have what you’ve chosen without …’

I stop, gasp for air, and my voice cracks, ‘Timothy wouldn’t do this. That’s the difference. He loves you in ways I couldn’t.’