Love You Better (18 page)

She dug around her drawer, searching for her woolly socks. It didn’t matter what time of year it was, when she needed
comfort
, she’d encase her feet in a pair of thick socks. Since Penny did the same, it was clearly a trait she’d inherited. She frowned at
the thoug
ht of having inherited anything from her mum and closed the drawer, unable to find them. Oliver’s would have to do.

Socks selected, she went to close the drawer until an envelope caught her eye. She recognised the logo; it was from the bank. Why would he be hiding post in his drawer? They had a box where that kind of stuff was kept – it made it easier for accounting, and Oliver was meticulous about paperwork being filed away properly.

Gingerly, she lifted out the letter, and her hands shook as she saw the card attached to it. She read the name embossed onto the shiny plastic: Mrs E. W. Barton-Cole.

‘Dinner’s ready,’ Oliver shouted from downstairs.

It was her debit card, the one Oliver had told her hadn’t turned up yet because of a mix-up with the bank.

‘Coming,’ she called back and sat on the bed, unease settling on her shoulders like a cloak. The date on the letter was over a
week ago
.

Nobody should ever have control over your finances but you.

Her mum had told her it wasn’t right, but she hadn’t wanted to believe it. He wouldn’t deliberately withhold her money from her, would he? But why else would he lie about the card?

‘Effie, what are you doing up there? Come on.’

She shook her head and slipped the card back, her hands still shaking. She closed the drawer and silently padded downstairs.
Oliver
had laid the table out with wine glasses and candles, but as she slipped into her chair, she couldn’t take her eyes from his back, as if it could tell her why he’d decided to hide her card.

‘For you,’ he said, turning from the cooker with a plate in
his h
and.

Effie fixed a small smile onto her face as he put it in front of her, but she couldn’t meet his eyes.

‘And one for me.’ He put his plate down and sat opposite. ‘Bon appétit.’

She looked at the steak on his plate, pink and dripping on a bed of green leaves, before looking at her own. It matched his exactly. She picked up her fork and prodded it, her stomach rolling over as the juices oozed from the points where the prongs had cut into it.

‘Izzy called earlier,’ Oliver said as he sliced into his lump of steak. ‘She was wondering if she’s done something to upset you?’

Effie put her fork down, repulsed by the prospect of rare meat. He knew she couldn’t eat undercooked food.

‘Why would she think that?’

‘You tell me. Did you not call her after your birthday?’

Effie swore quietly. Izzy had sent her a package of beauty products from the company she owned – a box full of creamy, honey-infused moisturiser, shampoo and conditioner enriched with Moroccan Argan oil, raw coconut body oil and more bath salts than she could shake a stick at. Effie had meant to call and say thank you, but then her mum had called, and she’d argued with Smith, not to mention the fallout from Lou and M
ickey’s spl
it.

‘I forgot,’ Effie said quietly. ‘I meant to, but –’

‘But you were too busy spending time with your friends.’

She looked up at him as he chewed his food. ‘I’ve been with my best friend, who’s heartbroken. It’s not like I’ve been out clubbing every night.’

‘Well you haven’t been here, and that’s my point. She’s split up with her boyfriend – so what? I don’t see why you need to be over there all the time.’

Effie screwed her eyebrows together. ‘It’s called moral support.’

She sighed and pushed her plate away. It wasn’t like she needed his permission to see her friends.

‘The thing about moral support is that you have to spend too much of your energy giving it. Lou’s nice enough, but she’s so dramatic all the time, and it rubs off on you in a bad way. You’ve always been so grateful whenever I’ve cooked for you before, but now you’re getting all argumentative.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not argumentative. I’m just not
hungry
.’

‘Effie. I’ve spent ages on this.’

She looked down at the plate again. It was a salad and a steak that couldn’t have touched the frying pan for more than t
wo minutes
at the most.

‘I’m really not hungry.’

Oliver stayed quiet for a moment before putting his knife and fork down. Effie looked at the smooth skin on his hands, his long fingers and perfectly rounded fingernails. He tapped his index
finger
on the tablecloth as he fixed his stare onto her.

‘Your card arrived today.’

She thought back to the letter she’d seen in his drawer and knew it had arrived a lot sooner than today.

‘I’ll get it for you after you’ve eaten.’

Effie blinked and looked at him. Was he trying to bribe her? She shook her head again. She wanted to get up from the table, but his stare was keeping her rooted to the chair like a tractor beam.

‘You’ve hardly spent any time at home lately, and I’ve gone to the trouble of cooking you dinner. Do you know what it’s been like to feel like you don’t want to spend time with me? To always come second best to your friends? And now you’re saying you don’t want the dinner I’ve made.’

Effie shook her head, confused. He was laying on the guilt, making her feel as if she was rejecting him, but that wasn’t the case at all. He leaned across the table and nudged her fork towards her.

‘You know I don’t like it rare.’

‘And you know how many times I’ve told you it tastes better like that. I won’t cook something subpar,’ he replied. ‘Eat it. Please.’

The
please
was perfectly placed to make it sound like a request, but his monotone voice told her it was anything but. She looked down at the steak again.

‘Oh, I get it,’ she said, making herself smile to try to hide her unease. ‘This is you trying to make me a bit more refined, isn’t it?’

She’d hoped that the corners of Oliver’s mouth would lift into a smile, and he’d tell her he was simply joking, but instead a chill ran through her at the flash of anger behind his eyes. Effie looked down at the steak, glistening in its own juices amid a sea of
lettuce
. Maybe she’d only have to eat a mouthful. He couldn’t force it down her throat, and he wouldn’t, not when he knew how much she hated it.

She picked up the knife and fork. They were part of a set they’d received as a wedding gift, and despite using them countless times since, they now felt heavy in her hands as she sawed through the steak. She had to clamp her mouth shut to hold back the gag at
the si
ght of pale, pink flesh on her plate.

She looked up at him again, expecting him to tell her he was just joking, that she didn’t have to eat it, but instead he simply nodded. Her throat constricted as she put the chunk of steak in her mouth. As soon as it hit her tongue, her gag reflex almost made
her sp
it it straight back out again. It was almost cold, and its smooth texture, mixed with the flavour of the meat, made her stomach churn. She closed her eyes as she chewed, trying not to think about what
she was
doing.

Effie swallowed, holding her breath to keep it down. When she opened her eyes, Oliver was staring back at her.

‘Good girl. It wasn’t so bad, was it?’

She grimaced and drained her glass of wine, swilling it around her mouth to rid it of the taste of steak. It wasn’t bad. It was horrific.

‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Finish up.’

He couldn’t be serious? She’d managed a mouthful, but she couldn’t do any more than that. She shook her head.

‘I’m done, Olly. I can’t eat it.’

Why was he pressing this? He’d promised her a nice, romantic dinner, but his expression stayed the same. She didn’t want to argue. She was tired. All she wanted to do was throw the steak in the bin and go to bed, but Oliver crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

She could just get up and leave the table. He wasn’t forcing her. He was trying to persuade her. Surely that was different?
He’d alwa
ys insisted that rare was the best way to eat steak, just as he’d insisted that having her hair straightened looked much better than her wild curls. He thought the style suited her more and made her look more sophisticated. He’d grown up around elegance, money, good food. He knew what he was talking about. But she didn’t want to eat another mouthful.

Oliver poured himself another glass of wine and rearranged himself on the chair, as if he were settling down for a long wait, and tears pricked at Effie’s eyes as she picked up her fork.

Less than five minutes later, she was heaving over the toilet bowl. When she’d finished, she slumped against the side of the bath and wiped the slick of sweat from her upper lip. She’d managed another two mouthfuls under Oliver’s watchful stare, with tears streaming down her face. She’d felt like a child being told she couldn’t leave the table until her plate was clean, until she’d had no choice but to get up and run to the bathroom.

She looked up as Oliver came into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bath, holding her debit card in his hand. She looked at it, knowing that he’d withheld it on purpose, like a punishment for spending too much time at Lou’s and not enough at home, just like he’d punished her for changing her mind about trying for a baby by standing her up on Valentine’s Day. She’d always thought the romance and charm he’d shown her were unwavering, but it was starting to look like it was all on his terms.

Had she really been so wrong to spend time with Lou? It was instinctive to be there for her best friend, but Oliver had made it seem as if she was being overdramatic. Had she really made him feel so rejected that he’d had to resort to this?

She looked at him holding the bank card. Maybe she
hadn’t
been considerate of him over the last few days. Maybe he really did feel rejected by her absence. It wasn’t an excuse, but she had to believe there was something to make him do what he’d done,
something
she could fix to make him go back to the Oliver she
married –
the Oliver who was kind, considerate and loving.
Gingerly
, she took
the car
d from him.

‘Why don’t you get yourself cleaned up, and we’ll watch a film. You need to learn to try new things, Effie. I just want you to be the best you can be.’

Effie closed her eyes and tried not to shrink away from him as he leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

16.

E
ffie looked at the bags piled in the corner of Smith’s tiny living room, and a pang of sadness hit her chest. Eighteen months of a relationship and a life together, condensed into three sports bags. If Lou had looked heartbroken, she had nothing on Mickey.

Effie sat on the sofa and looked at him. Like Lou, he looked dishevelled and utterly broken. She’d already popped round to Lou’s after work and decided to make the small detour on the way home to look in on Mickey. Instead of the hysterics she’d seen at Lou’s half an hour earlier, Mickey gave off an air of detachment, and with the hood of his jumper pulled low over his face, it didn’t seem like he was ready to give it up any time soon.

‘How is she?’ Mickey asked.

Effie grimaced and put her bag on the floor – a surprisingly clean floor, she noticed – and shrugged. It looked like they were getting straight down to the nitty-gritty.

‘Honestly? She’s been better.’

‘I take it you know what happened?’

She nodded but didn’t say anything. What
could
she say? They both sat in silence, watching Smith make tea in the kitchen on the other side of the room. He must have only just got home because he was still wearing his football kit with his socks pulled down,
exposing
his muddy calves.

Smith’s flat wasn’t what she’d expected. She’d only ever seen his room at his parents’ house and it had been cluttered with stuff: DJ decks, stacks of vinyl records and CDs, a spare wheel for his pushbike, a spare helmet for his motorbike and clothes bundled into corners. She’d expected his flat to be the same, but she was surprised when she’d walked in and found it tidy and clean. She looked up and saw him staring back at her, but she quickly looked away. She hadn’t come here for him, and she didn’t have time to get distracted. She’d taken to working through lunch
so sh
e could leave an hour early and quickly check in on Lou, so she wouldn’t get home late. The only reason she had time to pop in and see Mickey at all was because she knew Oliver would be working late.

‘And how are
you
doing?’ she asked. ‘I’m worried about you.’

Mickey shrugged. ‘Don’t be. I’m fine.’

From the corner of her vision, she saw Smith shake his head as he deposited a teabag into the bin.

‘You don’t look it,’ Effie replied.

‘My girlfriend just cheated on me. Excuse me if I don’t go star jumping around the room.’

His tone was bitter, but she could hardly blame him. She
nodded
. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘Look,’ – Mickey sighed – ‘if you’re here to try and talk me into taking her back, you’re wasting your time. We’re over.’

‘No, I’m not. Like I said, I’m here to see you. I know she’s one of my best friends, but so are you.’ She looked up as Smith walked over with the cups, and took one from him. ‘Has she contac
ted you
?’

‘Every day.’ His voice broke, and he cleared his throat before taking a sip of his tea. ‘Whatever. It doesn’t matter.’

Smith sat on the armchair, propped his feet up and flicked through the TV channels with the remote. Now he was back in the room, she could smell him – the mixture of sweat and grass. His hair was still damp from the rain outside. By rights, it should have smelled horrific, but it didn’t. It was intoxicating. Couldn’t he go take a shower or something?

She squeezed her fingers around the hot cup and looked at Mickey. ‘Have you actually spoken to her?’

He shook his head and took his phone from his pocket to show her his screen. Today alone, he had twenty-two missed calls, all from Lou. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. You know the saying that if you have nothing nice to say, then you shouldn’t say anything at all? Well, I don’t think she wants to hear the words I’ve got to say to her.’

‘It’ll pass, mate,’ Smith said. ‘A broken heart stinks, but you’ll come out of it.’

He’d looked at Mickey as he said it, but Effie could tell he’d directed it at her, which was ridiculous considering she’d never broken his heart. She’d wounded his pride, but his heart had remained intact, unlike hers.

‘I know it doesn’t excuse it, but she was hurt about what you’d said in Ireland. She thought you didn’t want to commit,’ Effie said.

Mickey sighed. ‘I’m twenty-five years old, why would I be thinking about marriage? You don’t have to get married to commit to someone. I was with her for a year and a half – surely that was enough?’

‘I know.’ Effie frowned. ‘I think she just wanted more. She was convinced you didn’t want a future with her anymore.’

‘So she went and ruined any notion of us having one – makes perfect sense.’ He put his cup down on the floor. ‘Of course we had a future, but there’s no way I could’ve stayed with her after she
told me.’

‘She messed up, I know. And she knows it too.’

‘Yeah, she has. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at her the same way again. Once you’ve cheated on someone, there’s no going back.’

This time, it was Smith’s turn to look embarrassed as Mickey stood and excused himself to go to the bathroom. When did being unfaithful become so common anyway? Smith had cheated on her, Lou had cheated on Mickey, and Effie had come within a whisper of doing the same to Oliver. An awkward silence settled in the living room, punctuated only by the television. It simply wasn’t worth it in the end.

She sighed, thumbing the handle of her mug, and looked at Smith. ‘How is he really?’

‘How do you think? She’s completely blindsided him.’

Effie nodded. ‘I know. It was the last thing anyone expected.’

‘Least of all him. And all because of a stupid misunderst
anding
.’

‘Do you think he means what he said? About there being no going back?’

Smith shrugged. ‘I dunno. Nothing’s ever black and white, is it? Couples get through that stuff all the time.’

‘Yeah, I suppose.’ Effie swallowed a gulp of her sweet tea.

‘But then again, some don’t. And you have to live with the fact that you fucked up the best thing to ever happen to you.’

She slowly took the cup away from her mouth and looked at him, slouched in the armchair with his long legs stretched out as his feet rested on a leather footstool. Why did life have to be so complicated? It didn’t seem so long ago that their group was a happy one, but now it was falling apart at the seams.

‘Must be hard. Having to live with that,’ she said.

He turned the remote over in his hand. ‘I’d like to say you have no idea, but we both know that’s not true.’

‘How’s Claire?’ She sniffed. ‘Still being mile high?’

Smith rolled his eyes and looked back at the TV. ‘Let’s not go there, yeah?’

‘Fine.’

Her cheeks burned as she waited for Mickey to come back from the toilet. She’d say her goodbyes and get out of there. How dare Smith make her feel like that, like she’d overstepped the mark, simply for asking how his girlfriend was? She
tried t
o ignore the way that acknowledging Claire as his girlfriend had almost choked her. When Mickey came back into the
living
room, she stood up and pulled him into the hallway, brushing straight past Smith and trying her best not to breathe in his sweaty, gr
assy sc
ent.

‘I can’t stay here much longer. I’m sorry.’ She looked at Mickey and pushed his hood down. His rust-brown hair was scruffy and clearly hadn’t seen fingers, let alone a brush for days. His normally bright blue eyes were dull and red-rimmed. She was willing to bet he’d just shed a few tears in the bathroom. ‘I just had to see that you were okay.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ll survive. It fucking hurts, but I’ll survive.’

‘I know you don’t want to hear it, but she does love you. She knows what she did was wrong and she’s sorry.’

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he clenched his jaw. ‘I know she is, but I meant what I said. You can’t go back when something like that’s happened. Look at you two.’ He nodded towards the living room. ‘It fucks everything up.’

She wished she could say that it didn’t, that Mickey and Lou could put it behind them, but she couldn’t lie. The truth was, it did ruin everything, regardless of how great the relationship was beforehand.

‘I know you’ll tell her what I’ve said.’ He put his hands on her shoulders as she began to protest. ‘It’s fine. She’s your best friend. It’d be weird if you didn’t.’

Effie pulled him into a hug and squeezed him as hard as she could. ‘I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to.’

‘I still love her, Eff,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I don’t know how to not love her.’

Just hearing his voice, so small and lost, just as Lou’s was, formed a lump in her throat.

‘I know.’

She squeezed him again, trying to give him as much love and warmth as possible. It looked like it really was the end of Mickey and Lou, the couple everyone said was the perfect match.

She let him go, pulled his hood back up and left the flat.

‘Have you spoken to Lou lately? You haven’t been round there for a while.’

Effie looked over at Oliver as he kept his eyes focused on the television. As far as he knew, she hadn’t been back to Lou’s since the night he’d practically forced Effie to eat that rare steak. Things hadn’t been the same between them since, and Effie felt that soon, she wouldn’t be able to hide the tension she felt towards him. To make things worse, there was nobody she could speak to about it. She could hardly tell her friends that he’d forced her to eat until she’d thrown up, and even if she could, they all had their own problems. Her usual go-to was Lou, and she was still in the midst of heartbreak.

‘I spoke to her earlier. She’s still in a mess. I’d really like to see her this weekend.’

Even though he’d said he’d felt rejected, she didn’t even feel remotely bad for lying to him, not when it came to being there for Lou.

‘Why?’ he asked, flicking through the channels on the TV. ‘It’s not like the world’s ended. They’ve split up. Maybe you shouldn’t be getting so involved.’

‘They’re my best friends.’

‘People break up all the time. She was too headstrong for him anyway.’

Effie looked away, keeping her thoughts to herself. Lou was headstrong, but Mickey could match it. And it wasn’t for Oliver to cast judgement.

‘It’s late,’ she said. ‘I should go to bed.’

She left him on the sofa to go upstairs, and after her shower, she stood in front of the basin. Effie wiped the steam from the mirror, peering into the blurry reflection in front of her. She looked exhausted. The skin under her eyes was thin and dark. Maybe
Oliver
was right. Maybe involving herself in Mickey and Lou’s problems wasn’t good for her. And tonight, having seen Mickey like that . . . it had pulled at her heartstrings. She padded back to the bedroom with the towel wrapped tightly around her. She so badly wished she could fix things, even though she knew there was nothing she could do.

‘I thought you said you hadn’t seen Lou?’

Her eyes flicked to Oliver’s face as he stood in the middle of the bedroom, and her heart leapt to her throat. ‘I haven’t.’

‘So why do you have a text from her saying thanks for going round?’

She shook her head and frowned until she looked down and saw her phone in his hand. ‘What are you doing with my phone?’

‘You lied to me.’

Effie looked around the room, trying to put together a response. Yes, she’d lied, but he couldn’t really expect her to just dump her best friend.

‘Shall we see what else you’ve been hiding?’

He looked down at the screen, and Effie swallowed, trying to remember the texts she had stored. She knew she didn’t have any from Smith, but she had some from Lou, and since she hadn’t told Oliver the real reason why Lou and Mickey had split, panic started to set in.

‘Olly, don’t.’

She took a step forward, but he held his hand up to stop her and looked at the screen. ‘Let’s see:
Why did I do it? He’ll never forgive me.’

A shiver ran through her as she realised he was reading through her text conversation with Lou.

‘Never forgive what?’ He looked up at her, but Effie stayed silent. There was nothing she could say because she knew what was coming next. His face darkened as he read the rest of her messages.
‘Let’s face it, I’ve never forgiven cheaters, so why should he?’

Effie pulled at her fingers. ‘Olly . . .’

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. These things happen. He knows you love him.’
He looked back up at her with disgust etched onto his face. ‘Wow. Nice advice, Effie.’

She flinched. It was one she’d sent when Lou had been in the grip of self-loathing.

‘It’s not what it sounds like,’ she replied, thumbing the edge of her towel.

Oliver looked straight back at her and raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? So Lou didn’t cheat on Mickey and you didn’t say, “These things happen”?’

‘No. Well, yes. I mean . . .’

‘No? Yes? It can’t be both, so which one is it?’

She took a deep breath. ‘Yes, Lou cheated, and yes, I said that, but I wasn’t condoning it. I was just trying to make her feel better.’