AllFreeNovel
Share Us
There’s a split second where I think about standing up and waving; calling for them to come back and get me — to come and take me home. Then, as I squint through the evening light towards the boat, I see Jack has his back turned to me, his eyes firmly focused on his phone once more.
There’s no point in waving. He’s not going to see me.
And as the pedalo starts moving in the opposite direction, taking me even further away from him, I realize I didn’t even ask him when he’d be back.
Chapter 18
“So, the first thing you need to know,” Ben tells me, once we’re back on dry land and sitting at one of the little picnic tables dotted along the shore of the loch, “Is that I’m going to pay back all the money I took from you. Every single penny. I promise. Well, other than some of the credit card spending I think was yours. Here, I’ve made an itemized list.”
He hands me a sheet of paper, neatly divided into columns, and I stare down at it without really seeing it. There was a time, not long after he left me, when I’d have believed him when he said this; now, though, over two years later, I’m not sure I’d believe him if he told me his name.
“Why did you do it, though, Ben?” I ask, handing the list back to him. “That’s what I want to know. Also, that one wasn’t me: I don’t know what aSports Dominatoris, but I’ve definitely never bought one.”
“Sorry,” he mumbles, taking out a pen and crossing that line out. “For… well, for everything, you know. Not just the money.”
I blink, surprised. Ben and I were together for almost six years, and I’m pretty sure this is the first time he’s ever apologized to me for anything. I, on the other hand, used to apologize foreverything, all the time, and, as I think about that, I’m suddenly mad.
“That’s very big of you,” I say coolly. “But it doesn’t really help, does it? So, what happened? Why did you run out like that? I know you went to L.A. — the flight was the last thing on the credit card statement — but I want to knowwhy?”
“I didn’tplanto go to California,” Ben says, after a long pause. “I didn’t plan to go anywhere, in fact. It wasn’t premeditated, I mean.”
“Yeah, well, I guess it’s good to know you weren’t just with me for my money, I suppose.”
“No. No, it wasn’t like that at all,” he assures me. “I mean, you didn’t evenhavemuch money, really, did you?”
“Sorry I didn’t have as much money for you to steal as you’d have liked, Ben,” I snap, wondering if he’s actually being serious. “I had enough for your first-class ticket to the States, though, and whatever it was you did with the money you took from my bank account before you went there, so—”
“So I’m a complete shit,” he says, bluntly. “Don’t think I don’t know that, Emerald. Don’t think I haven’t thought it every single day since I left. Because, I promise you, however much you hate me right now, I’ve been hating myself more. I’m not here to make excuses, either; I know there are none. I’m just here to try to make amends.”
“And you thought sending me creepy anonymous messages was the way to do that? Thatwasyou, I assume? Or did you get Rose to do your dirty work for you?”
“They weren’t supposed to be creepy,” he says, looking uncomfortable. “And they weren’t supposed to be anonymous, either. Well, not at first. I thought you’d know it was me. I forgot I’d changed my number since I last saw you. I had to get a burner phone. That’s a—”
“I know what a burner phone is,” I interrupt. “I watch TV too, you know.”
“You must have known I hadn’t recognized the number as soon as I replied, though, right?” I point out. “And all the other times, when I kept messaging you asking who it was? And you just kept sending more messages without answering me? What was that about? Were you just getting off on the drama of it? Of frightening me? ”
“I wasn’t trying to frighten you,” he says earnestly. “But when I realized you didn’t know who I was, I thought it was maybe better to keep it that way for a bit. I was worried you’d just block me if you knew it was me.”
I wish I had.
“And Rose? How does she come into it?”
Ben’s brow furrows in concentration, as if I’ve given him a complicated maths equation to solve.
“She doesn’t really,” he says at last, with a sigh. “It’s not her fault, Emerald. She just gave me some… information. About you and Jack, mostly, and what you were up to.”
“She told you we were engaged before we’d even told my parents? Because I got that first message from youminutesafter Jack asked me to marry him. No one else knew. Just us.”
I pull Jack’s sweater around me for warmth, trying not to think about the whiff of his aftershave that comes wafting up off it. I’m trying not to think about Jackat all.
“I didn’t either,” Ben insists. “I didn’t know you were engaged when I sent that first message. I knew you were together, obviously. I’d known that for a while. From, well, Instagram, mostly. But the timing was just coincidence. I had no idea he’d just proposed.”
“Some coincidence,” I sniff, thinking about that day, and how happy I’d been… right up until Ben came along with his stupid message. “You completely ruined my engagement; did you know that?”
“No.” He has the grace to look sheepish at this. “But I can’t say I’m sorry about that, Emerald. What I said about Jack was true. I couldn’t let you stay with him, not knowing.”
He looks at me, his expression serious, and I’m struck again by how different this Ben is from the man whose last words to me when he walked out of our shared flat were a reminder to switch off the electricity when I left. This Ben doesn’t look like he color-codes his sock drawer, or spends Sundays neatly ironing his shirts. Even though he’s obviously on edge right now, he still seems a little more relaxed, and rough-around-the-edges than the guy who used to scold me for my messiness, and who once made a PowerPoint presentation demonstrating the correct way to load the dishwasher.
