Page 36

He leans back, off balance. ‘Haven’t decided yet. I have the evidence.’ Again, he thrusts a finger at his cheek. ‘Are you going to tell me why you did it? Maybe I won’t go then.’

Blackmail? Or does he want something much simpler?

I put my hand back on the door handle, ready to shut it again.

‘Nick, I can’t be a girlfriend,’ I say. ‘Nous.I’m not…ready.’

His face hardens. ‘I wasn’t asking you.’

He jams the tip of his shoe between the door and the frame, leering at me. He wants something else. Something I can’t give. Answers. I’m trembling. I want to slam the door against him, break his bones. I could do it.

‘Don’t come any closer,’ I whisper.

‘Or what?’ He thrusts his face forward, all alcohol fumes. ‘What’re you hiding from? Why’re you hiding from me?’

I get it: I’m the itch he can’t scratch. The answers he doesn’t have. He’s not in control of me, and he hates it. Now I see who he is—with his perfect suit and expensive shoes and ordinary banker’s world—and I don’t fit him at all.

‘I can’t be with you,’ I say. And then, before I try to close the door, ‘Thank you for not saying anything.’

‘I haven’t decided yet.’

The door thumps against his shoe. He won’t let me close it, won’t let me return to the safety of my flat. He’s right in my face, with his sweet-sour breath, his swaying, his bulk.

‘There’s something wrong with you, Kate,’ he hisses. ‘Do you know that?’

I shuffle backwards. Of course there’s something wrong with me.

‘Just go,’ I say.

‘I’m giving you a chance. To get help. Not everyone would offer that.’

‘I don’t need your help.’

I shove the door. But again it hits his foot. Why can’t he just let go?

‘Why do you always have to be so nasty to me?’ he says. ‘I know you can be nice; you were before I saw the letter. What happened?’

Is that kindness in his face, or pity? I shake my head at the memory ofthat night,roleplaying you back, him fucking me from behind. When I wanted him to go harder, he pushed deeper, got rougher: he liked it when I wasn’t nice then.

‘You’ve been pretending with me.’

I shake my head. ‘No.’

It doesn’t feel like I’m completely here: I’m floating, looking down at him and me. I step back, blinking to make things clearer.

He knows.

When I don’t continue, he throws his hands up. ‘There’s something missing inside you,’ he says. ‘And you know what I think? You can’t love. You can’t do it. You’ve lost what it takes. There’s something wrong with you.’

He taps his temples in time with his slow words, like he means I’m crazy.

I blink at him. ‘I don’t love you, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Nice,’ he says, his mouth twisting. ‘I was just trying to help you, Kate. Nobody else seems to be doing that.’

‘I don’t need it.’ I keep pushing the door against his foot until, finally, he steps backwards, his hands up in a placating gesture. ‘Piss off, Nick!’

His expression turns hard immediately.

‘You’re a bitch,’ he says. ‘You’re so fucking weird.’

He stumbles away from me, still cursing. Breathing fast, I shut the door and feel my way down the wall to the carpet, my feet slipping on the shiny surfaces of the pile of junk mail. Tears are already on my cheeks. But why do I care about him? He doesn’t see me like you did; he doesn’t care about me. But he is right about one thing: there is something missing.

You took it.

I want it back.