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His arm tightens around me, as if he tries to hold me together as my body shakes, until the steady rise and fall of his chest against my back calms me.
My arms wrap around him. I don’t say anything as I hold him, as he sobs into my shoulder. And after a moment, his arms slide around my waist, tight and crushing, as if I’m the only thing keeping him upright.
Our differences can wait. Every snarled word and raised hand can wait.
Archer was there when I needed him, and I’ll be damned if I’m not there for him too.
I don’t look back at Chase, but I hear his car recede into the distance, and I know I’ll never see him again, and suddenly I’m not sure if I hold Archer up or if we hold each other.
PART TWO
Chapter Twenty-Four
Don’t Lie to Me
EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER
Iswirl the wine in my glass and touch my phone’s screen again.
00:34 am.
Two hours later than he said he’d be.
Instead of buying a fancy meal for myself with the last dregs of my wages, I thought I’d do something romantic and cook us tea so he’d have something nice to come home to. Something to be thankful for. Something that would put him in a good mood. Maybe he’d even ignore his gaming tonight and pay some attention to me instead.
I used to enjoy cooking, especially when I first started substituting meat products for plant-based ones and I could experiment with spices and add different things to make it taste good, but now it’s just stressful. It’s exhausting when things have to be just right, when I have to brew a tea five minutes before he returns so it’s ready for when he walks through the door, when I have to wash up and sweep up any stray vegetables and ensure the entire apartment is clean.
But the tea is the first thing he notices. If I don’t get that right, then it doesn’t matter about anything else I get wrong.
I tip back the wine and refill my glass. I’ve gone through half a bottle, but I don’t realise how tipsy I am until I stand to heat my tea in the microwave.
I should be worried. Panicking. And maybe it’s just the drink, but I actually don’t give a shit where he is. He’s been late from work for the past three weeks, and each night he’s stumbled in absolutely hammered, reeking of tequila and smoke from nightclubs, sometimes with a random guy on his shoulder—where they game and continue to drink until they pass out, making the apartment I’ve spent hours wiping and dusting a shithole and pissing all over the toilet seat; sometimes alone with neon paint smeared on his face and glow sticks around his wrists and neck.
Each time he’s completely ignored me and waved off the cup of tea I extend to him, unaware that I’ve stayed up to brew it for him. To make it just right. Or maybe he is aware of it but he chooses not to care, even though I have work early morning.
I’m not doing this tonight. By estimate he’ll stagger through that door in three hours and I would have fret for nothing.
My food is rubbery and tasteless. I force it down anyway, but I can’t manage more than a few bites—
I start as my phone rings.
It’s him. And every thought of loathe I felt for him diminishes, because his call is the only one that truly matters, his name on my screen the only one that makes me beeline for my phone.
But when I glance at it, I deflate.
I answer and I am greeted by blaring music and laughter.
‘…excuse me, no, I’ve been waiting to order for the last fifteen minutes and if I have to wait anotherfuckingminute, I swear I’ll find your G-spot with my heel.’ Amelia Bennet’s voice cuts above the tumult, followed byoooooo’s and whistles. Does she even know she’s called me? ‘No, you can’t just line jump, you oxymoron!’
I snort. ‘You do know oxymoron is a self-contradicting word, right?’ But she doesn’t answer. My work colleague has this thing where she learns a new word each weekand makes it her duty to incorporate it into as many sentences as she can, but most of the time they’re so misplaced or used out of context that the sentences don’t even make sense.
She’s discovered almost anything can be wielded as an insult, though. Sometimes she even combines words from the week before—one time she called her girlfriend’s mum a ‘sanguivorous ragamuffin’ when the wretched hag made a snide comment about her daughter’s taste in partners.
I stick my phone on speaker as I scrape my plate and wash it, listening to Ameliawhoop!as she finally gets her drink. She curses under her breath, and then the music dims slightly, and I hear the dull drone of conversation and cars zipping past and I know she’s outside.
‘Yes, hello, hello,’ she says into the phone. ‘God, did you hear all that?’
‘Every word.’ I wipe my hands on the tea towel.
