Bait

She shrugs. “If that’s what it takes. You and Jake will have to sort the rest out for yourselves. I’m done.”

“He’s not Jake’s boy,” I say again. “I know it.”

“We’re talking about Mariana, Leo. None of us know anything.”

That makes me smile. “Ain’t that the fucking truth of it.”

She closes the distance between us. I’m tense as she wraps her arms around my waist. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry the truth was so brutal.”

“I’m sorry you felt you had to.”

She nods.

I kiss the top of her head.

I watch her head upstairs to bed, back where she belongs.

And then I message my fucking brother.AbigailSomething has lifted inside. Even as I wince, walking wounded, through my Sunday, I feel it.

My pain is all external, my outlook sunnier than I’ve known it in months.

I feel… good.

Excited.

Hopeful.

Even a little optimistic.

Optimistic enough to log into my social media accounts for the first time in months and not feel a crippling sense of loss.

I browse my newsfeed, smiling at posts by my friends back home. I even comment.

I laugh. I smile.

I’m human again.

Human enough to realise that the new contacts I’ve been making at work, the people I’ve been spending my time with, are becoming more than just empty connections.

I add them, one by one. I add Lauren and Kayleigh and even pink-shirted Jack.

I catch sight of a glorious sunset over the cathedral from my living window and capture it on camera.

I save it as my phone backdrop.

I smile at life – at the life a stranger in the night gave me back.

A stranger who watches me.

Who wants me.

Who’ll be lurking around some shadowy corner when I least expect it. The thought gives me shivers.

I walk to work on Monday with a smile on my face and my head held high. I walk with a thrum of excitement in my belly, as if his eyes are on me. Always on me.

I make a round of coffees first up, as though I really belong in the office.

Maybe I do.

Lauren seeks me out at my desk. She fans her face and leans in close, and my heart does a little burst at the thought of juicy gossip.

Sandra and Frank from the Worcester accounts team. Both at Diva’s, hitting up the dancefloor and snogging each other’s faces off at 2 a.m.

I haven’t met them, so I pull a face.

“Summer barbeque, you’ll meet them all there,” she tells me, and I grin. Summer barbeque is bigger than Christmas here, so they tell me. “You missed a great night,” she continues, and I actually believe her. “Say you’re coming along to George’s leaving party on Thursday! You have to be there, it wouldn’t be the same if you weren’t. We’re all dressing up as vicars and tarts. Wear your sluttiest.”

“I think I’m washing my hair,” I reply, and she rolls her eyes. I laugh. “I’ll be there. Sounds too entertaining to miss.”

And it does.

Sarah from next door is struggling to open the communal door on Tuesday evening when I arrive back home. She’s loaded up with enough shopping to feed the five thousand for a week.

I pull the door open for her and she grins.

“Lifesaver. Got a bit carried away with the special offers.”

I take a couple of bags from the floor. “No shit. Those buy one get one frees are fatal, right?”

I help her upstairs with her haul, and when she invites me in for coffee, I accept with a smile.

Her place is so different to mine. The mirror image in layout, but so much warmer. So much more lived in.

She tells me she only moved in a few months earlier than I did. I find that hard to believe as I look around.

“It gets lonely sometimes,” she says as she sits down at her kitchen table. “My family are all up north, I got relocated down here for work. New branch. They’re all old where I work. I haven’t made it out once yet.” She takes a breath. “So, what’s your story?”

“I had a break up,” I tell her with surprisingly little hesitation. “I left everything behind. Even my nail varnish.”

It makes her laugh. “Must have been pretty dire to leave without beauty essentials.”

I look at my chewed-up nails and find myself laughing back. “It was pretty dire, yeah.”

Was.

I said was.

“Where are you from?” she asks.

“Hampshire. Fleet.”

She nods. “Was he worth it? All the shit? Worth running across the country for?”

I’ve never been asked that question before. Never even contemplated it.

The answer comes easily. “No. Had a nice dick, though.”

She splutters her coffee. “Did he know how to use it? That’s the clincher.”

The memory of Stephen is hazy. Distant.

Sore feet and soil and barbells are the only things that feel real.

My definition of knowing how to use it has changed somewhat in my frame of reference.

“He was okay.”