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Mic-drop.
It’s amazing how far a voice can carry in a silent auditorium.
In the midst of my anger, I’d failed to realize how much mine had started to rise… or that the compere had finished his speech at almost exactly the moment I let loose at Charles Carter.
There’s a delighted gasp from the people around us, who instantly understand that this could be the most interesting thing to happen at one of these events since Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars.
I didn’tslapCharles Carter, of course; but I may as well have, for all the furore it causes.
Later, I’ll wonder what on earth came over me; why that particular combination of words chose to burst out of me, at that precise volume. I don’t think I’ve ever uttered the word “bawbag” in my life, for instance: not before or since. I’m not sure I even realized it was part of my vocabulary.
But that’s a question for another time. (Or, as it turns out, for every 3 a.m. wake-up from now until the day I die, most likely…) For now, Jett’s standing up, his face a carefully controlled mask of politeness — which means he’s absolutely furious.
“Jett—” I begin, intensely aware of the way every camera in the room is trained on us.
“Not now, Lexie,” he says, out of the corner of his mouth. “You’re making a scene. Sit down, please.”
But I don’t sit down. Because I can see Charles Carter smirking opposite me, while Violet smiles evilly next to him in a way that makes me grudgingly think that she probablywillbe a pretty good Lady Macbeth, really.
I’m not going to wait around for her daggers, though; and, as Jett sits back down, his face turned deliberately away from me, I realize I’m never going to win against her, either.
Around the room, conversations resume: most of them blatantly about me, and the little scene I just made.
It’s too much.
All of it’s too much.
The whispers and the judgment, and the never-ending pressure to be something I’m not. The endless comparisons between me and every other woman Jett’s ever dated — and even some he hasn’t. The photographers. The gossip sites. The name-calling. Above all, the constant, nagging suspicion that all of them are right about me when they say I’m never going to be good enough.
I’m so tired of it all. I’m tired of always having to put on this act; never being able to really be myself, and always worrying that if I let the mask slip for even a second, I’ll be exposed as the fraud I am.
Which I think might just have happened.
Suddenly, all I want is to be home; to be back in my little pink-painted cottage in Heather Bay, wearing my snuggly old dressing gown, and not worrying about what anyone might think of me. I want it more than anything. I want it so much, in fact, that before I even know I’m going to do it, I’m plucking my little sequined evening bag off the table and turning to make my way through the tables to the door.
I’m going home.
Twenty-Eight
Back at Jett’s place, I scrawled a quick note on the back of a script he’d left lying by the bed:
I’m sorry. I love you. I know I shouldn’t have said what I did, but I promise, I can explain. Call me if you want to work this out.
Then I opened the drawer of the bedside cabinet, pulled out all of the envelopes stuffed with cash he’d given me, and placed them beside it on the kitchen counter, before getting the same car that had brought me home from the Gala to take me to the airport.
Of course, Jett never did call to ‘work things out’. Not then, and not in the six months since.
He just let me go.
When the news broke, everyone assumed he was the one who’d left me; which made sense, of course, because whywouldn’t he? And anyway, I kind of felt like hedid. He might not have technicallyleftme, but he sure didn’t fight for me either — which amounts to the same thing, as far as I’m concerned.
And the fact is, Charles was right. What makes Jett happy isn’t me — or even Violet. It’s his work. It’s making movies. He loves it, not for the fame, or the fortune it brings him, but because it allows him to be someone else for a while; to step into a different life to the one he’s used to, and forget about everything else — from the pressure his dad puts on him to follow in his footsteps, to the anxiety that still has him in its grip even though you’d never know it to look at him.
Jett loves all of that. And if he’d stayed with me, I’d have ruined it for him, with my paranoia, and my insecurity. I would never have asked him not to make this movie with Violet. But I’d also never have been able to get over the fear that she’d get her claws back into him during all those long hours they’d be forced to spend together. It would have eaten away at me; and, in turn, at him.
And then there was Mum.
Mum, who was just starting to get back on her feet again after losing the distillery. Mum, who, when the payment from Jack Buchanan finally cleared, revealed that it would only just allow her to buy back the house she’d re-mortgaged to cover the debts, with nothing left over. Mum, who might not be perfect, but who’s still the only parent I have, and who absolutely would not have coped with the kind of media coverage that would have come raining down on her if Charles Carter had done what he said he would. And he would have. I know it.
