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“Let me in before I fucking bash this door down!”
I buzz him up because sure enough, I’m ready for a fight and I think we should have this out, once and for all. Gulping down my wine, I’m refilling my glass again by the time he’s hurtling up the stairs. He enters without encumbrance since I already opened the door, and while he stands there flailing his arms around, I peer out between the blinds and spot Wally sitting in a Range Rover down on the street.
“You’re a fool, Albie. A fucking fool,” I begin.
“I know it was you who dobbed me in tonight,” he complains.
“Yeah, because just as I’m getting to know a great guy, you had to fucking pop your head above the parapet, didn’t you?” He growls and I ignore him. “Besides, dickhead, you’re playing with fire. Have you forgotten about the death threats? The stalkers? The women who think they married you in a previous life. The weirdos who want your babies and the psychos out to kidnap you, huh?”
He’s swinging his arms around, pacing, stinking of rain. I can’t tell if he’s drunk, high, both, or just angry.
“Don’t talk as if you know what my life is like, Mira. You knownothingof what I’m dealing with right now.”
“No, I don’t. You’re very punctilious in that, Albie. And guess why I know fucking nothing? Because you dropped me like a stone. After you’d just told me you loved me and wanted me for your wife. You dropped me. Like. A. Stone.”
I push past him for the kitchen and top myself up again. I’m boiling with hurt, pain, regret, frustration… all of it. It’s like no time has passed at all. Like I’m right back working for them, prostituting my soul to keep them afloat. Giving and never receiving, slowly sinking beneath an existence that wasn’t a life at all. I’m well shot of him. Leaving was the best thing for me, full stop.
He takes a seat in my god damn armchair, puts his head in his hands and demands, “Who was that guy? What’s his name?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“If you only knew, Mira. If I could only tell you, woman!” He punches the air and gnashes his teeth. “You are the only woman I think about, day in, day out. But I can’t have you. I’m trapped, stuck in this nightmare. I’m in an impossible situation. We all are. We all want out and we’re getting out. We found a loophole and we’re shedding Sharon like the virulent stain she is, getting rid of her, once and for all.”
I drink my wine, my hand shaking, and can’t help but spill a little down my black Metallica t-shirt that I often wear for bed. The only other thing I’m wearing is a pair of grey jogging shorts.
He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “That woman I saw in Oblix tonight, I don’t know who she was, but that’s not you.”
“You don’t know who I really am, Albie. You don’t have a clue!”
“That dress, the makeup… that bloke! Tell me his fucking name!” he demands.
“I will not, but I will tell you this. He’s even richer than you. Way richer. And when he takes me out, he’s not constantly looking around, searching for paps or stalkers who might jump him at any moment. He doesn’t make a living by getting his cock out at every turn. He hasn’t allowed some sour old bitch to rule his life. He never left me so broken I could barely get out of bed some days. So how do you like that?”
Albie shudders with his back to me and I wonder if he’s crying. He does that for a while without making any noise and I hold my breath, waiting for what comes next.
“If you only knew, Mira. If you only knew.”
“Why couldn’t you tell me? Why can’t you tell me, right now? You know you can trust me! Or at least I thought you knew that. Together, we could’ve got through anything. ANYTHING. But you took the coward’s way out.”
He sighs and says sadly, “I can’t tell you. I wish I could, but I can’t. It’s not to protect myself, I swear. I’m protecting other people. I wish I could tell you… but I can’t.”
“I woke up and then… that woman… it felt like you chose her. That’s how it felt, that’s what it looked like…”
I bring the bottle over and keep pouring, and sipping, and pouring, and sipping as I take the armchair opposite his.
“I did not choose her and would never, ever choose anyone else over you… that’s not what happened.” He throws his arms around dramatically. “I was put in a predicament that I can’t escape, Mirabelle. You saw me tonight… it took months of planning for me and Kev to be able to speak in private like that. You don’t know, you just don’t know!”
“You’re right, I don’t know,” I begin, in a haunted, hollow voice that doesn’t sound like me. “The same as you don’t know what I’ve got going on right now. The same as you don’t know that I don’t regret leaving Flawless. It was the best fucking thing I ever did! And you might think I was just another groupie-type happy to tag along and fix all your messes, mop up all of your tears and blood and sweat… but over the past few months, I’ve realised that I’m so much more than any of that. And I won’t hide anymore. What you saw tonight was the real me, the one who’d been fighting to break out, for so long. So don’t come here and try to make me small again, just to fit your fucking little world, Albie. Because there’s no way on earth I’m ever going back to the way you all made me feel.”
He makes a pained noise and gulps. “I never knew you felt like that.”
“I stayed, for you, Albie. That’s the only reason. I packaged myself up and made myself one of you to fit that mould. But that’s not me.”
No, in fact, working for Chrissy was the first time I ever really knew what I was capable of—and I miss it.
“I knew you deserved better, but I couldn’t help myself,” he cries, running his hands through his hair. “I knew I should’ve pushed you out a long, long time ago… to save you. I’m sorry I handled it so badly. If I could take it all back, I would.”
“You literally broke my heart.”
