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Chapter Sixteen

Gemma

Stop. I cannot deal. This is all too much.

I definitely have unfinished business with darling Fran – I mean, God, the level of bullshit Marcus has been pulling to string her along all this time, to the point where she’s so convinced he’s in love with her that he’d ditch his own wedding to run off with her instead …

She needs a reality check, yeah, but I think she also just needs someone to look her in the eye and tell her that she categorically deserves better.

Which, you know. Maybe she doesn’t? Admittedly, I don’t know her all that well, beyond the last couple of hours in this godforsaken airport halfway to Barcelona, and she has been going after a man who’s engaged.

But this is Marcus we’re talking about, and I reckon this girl is every last bit as doe-eyed and na?ve as she looks, and fell for it hook, line and sinker.

Either way, she needs someone to pull her out of that delusion.

But now, it turns out, she’s not the only one with a secret agenda.

Leon?

Quiet, unassuming Leon, the king of avoiding confrontation?

As if.

Obviously, also, there’s me and my agenda, but they don’t need to know about that. Shit, if they want to take care of this, more power to them. I’ll stand by and watch as Kayleigh has to pick up the pieces.

Francesca is gawping at Leon, looking just a bit self-righteous (deservedly so, in my humble opinion, after he kind of laid into her), and when I swivel to him, he’s grouchy and defensive. Shuffling around in his seat and scowling at the table, staying completely mute.

The pair of them are as bad as each other. Doesn’t anybody learn to regulate their emotions and think about what they’re showing to the world? Aren’t they the tiniest bit concerned about at least trying not to look so guilty?

‘You were, weren’t you?’ Fran presses – and would you look at that, she does have a backbone after all!

Somewhere in there. There is hope for her yet.

‘You wanted to talk to her so you could – could tell her all this rubbish,’ she says, waving a hand at his notebook full of Marcus slander, ‘and stop the wedding!’

I don’t want to be left out, so I say, ‘ That’s why you were so wound up about not making it there until the morning, isn’t it? Because you were worried you’d miss your chance to catch Kayleigh before the ceremony.’

Leon gives me a disgruntled look. ‘Hardly sounds like you’re his biggest fan, either. You can’t talk.’

‘ I wasn’t about to stand up and yell “I object!” and run in wielding my Burn Book.

’ I pick up the notebook and wave it around theatrically, if only for a moment to relish the ridiculousness and excellence of that mental image.

‘ You’re planning to tell her that her whole family hates the man she’s marrying. Respectfully, Leon, what the fuck?’

‘Me? What about her ?’

I am dealing with toddlers. God, give me strength.

Fran looks down, fidgeting with one of the enamel pins on her jacket.

‘ She ,’ I say, ‘is doing this because she thinks she’s the main character in a cheesy romance movie. Which I’m normally all for, but that’s beside the point. She’s doing it for love . You’re doing it to be spiteful.’

But when he shakes his head, his expression clears, his resolve hardening. I see it settling into his features like stone. Clean-cut and sure.

‘You’re wrong. I’m doing this because it’s what we should’ve done a long time ago.

There’s never a good time to say, “We don’t like your boyfriend”, especially when he’s always there and you’re engaged in the blink of an eye.

We all kept our mouths shut because we love Kay and want her to be happy, but this relationship can’t be making her happy.

It’s changed her. She’s not the same person. And if it comes from me …’

He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and it’s oddly vulnerable for someone who looks so set on their course. My heart bleeds for him a little.

‘If it comes from me, then the worst that happens is she cuts me out of her life. But she’ll still have Mum and Dad, and Myleene.

It’s not like she makes time to talk to me much these days, so I’m sure it won’t be difficult for her to stop altogether.

And they can blame me, too, say they didn’t know and it was all my idea, so they don’t have to lose Kay. But at least someone tried.’

‘Oh,’ Fran gasps, and she gets as far as reaching for Leon’s elbow to lay a hand on his arm in comfort before she thinks better of it. Her fingers barely graze his sleeve before she retracts her hand, but her eyes are misty.

She’s not the only one. The emotion is shining in Leon’s eyes, too, and while I wouldn’t be surprised to see him cry, I am surprised it’s over this.

I’m surprised that it got this far. That I never stopped and considered how it must feel on the other side of their relationship with Kayleigh, beyond the whinging and fed-up comments I constantly hear from her whenever the topic comes up. I guess …

I guess I sort of assumed the familial distancing was mutual.

Like it is for me, with my family.

And I knew they had this idea of who Kayleigh is – ever since we were in school, she’d always act differently around her parents, which I assumed was so normal I never thought twice about it till now – but I never thought they’d be clinging to it.

Reaching for her, even as she slaps their hands away.

My heart really does bleed for him now. For all of them. Kayleigh’s family are good people. Average, normal, ordinary, good people. It’s so sad to think they all feel that they’re losing her, that they have to fight for her.

What’s that like? I want to ask. Maybe Kayleigh, maybe Leon. What’s it like having a family who want to fight to be in your life?

How can you throw that away, like it means so little?

There’s a pang in my chest so sharp, so tight, it hurts . I rub absently at the top of my sternum like I can massage it away, but it doesn’t budge.

Quietly, Fran says, ‘I’m sorry, Leon. That’s … That must be really hard on all of you. That must’ve been a really hard thing to decide to do. It’s … I think it’s very brave of you.’

He laughs, but it’s a hollow, barking sound.

‘It was an impulsive, stupid thing, but … It’s the only thing I can do.

She wants me to stand up there and give a speech saying how happy we are about the wedding, how thrilled we are to have Marcus join the family, and …

Surely there’s part of her that knows? I mean, Dad – my dad doesn’t do crowds, he’d probably pass out if he tried to give a speech.

But he didn’t even want to try – not after she told him he couldn’t walk her down the aisle.

His eldest daughter’s getting married, and he doesn’t even want to try to stand up there and say so much as, “Congratulations, both.” Do you have any idea how sad that is to see? ’

I don’t.

I can’t imagine. I really can’t.

He looks at Fran for a long moment, and her pretty features bow with sorrow for him. Leon doesn’t bother to glance my way. He knows as well as I do that I won’t understand.

We were never a close-knit family, anyway, even before we fell apart.

‘It’s a more honourable bloody reason to call off a wedding than an affair,’ he mutters then, and I give him another kick under the table. This one might be a little harder than the last. I’m not sorry about it.

I mean, poor Fran. However dodgy her motives are, she’s not mean-spirited about it.

I mean, she actually said – honestly believed – it was for Kayleigh’s sake, too, because it’d be sad to be married to a man who had feelings for someone else.

I’m not saying it’s honourable, but he doesn’t need to be a prat about it.

I open my mouth to say something – about his plan, this little speech he’s going to give, if he’ll give his parents a heads-up.

But instead what comes out is a soft, ‘What makes you think that’s going to change anything?’

‘Huh?’

‘Marcus. If she doesn’t marry him. If the wedding doesn’t go ahead.

’ I lift my gaze to his. Leon’s eyes are the same colour as his sister’s.

They’re warmer, though. More … human. ‘What makes you think she’s going to be the person you all want her to be?

What happens if she’s not? If it’s not him?

What if she’s still that bitch, and the only difference is that you’re all finally starting to realise it? ’

Leon regards me for a long moment, letting my words sink in, turning them over in his mind to make sense of them.

My heart is racing under his steady scrutiny, and there’s an acrid taste in my mouth.

Did I just say that? Am I really doing this?

No, of course I’m not, I’m Kayleigh’s best friend, why would I be sat here saying any of these things, even suggesting it?

But I am .

The complete and absolute conviction Leon has that the reason his sister is acting out is because of Marcus , and not because she’s just that person at her core …

The fact he’s willing to lose any chance of a relationship with his sister to fight for her, the fact he’s planning to break up the wedding at the last second to ‘save’ her …

She doesn’t need saving.

She doesn’t deserve anybody fighting for her.

She’s a liar, a master manipulator, every bit the self-serving and self-centred, stuck-up, nasty piece of work her whole family think Marcus is.

If Fran can sit there and say that Kayleigh deserves to know if her fiancé has feelings for someone else, aren’t I entitled to say Kayleigh’s family deserve to know if they’re chasing a ghost?

And Leon – poor, lovely Leon who’s just trying to do the right thing for his family – is staring at me as if he can’t fathom a world in which his sister is that bitch.

‘What makes you think,’ I say, and I can barely hear my own voice over the roaring in my ears, ‘that if he’s not on the scene, she’ll come home to visit more, and be nicer to everyone, and stop acting entitled and too good for you all?

Do you think she’ll stop getting rid of the birthday presents you all give her, stop whinging about having to come visit when she’d literally rather be doing anything else, stop lying and making up excuses so she doesn’t have to waste her time on you all, unless it suits her?

She’s been taking you all for granted since long before Marcus was around. You just didn’t want to see it.’

‘That’s not—’

But the floodgates have opened, and I can’t stop.

Half a lifetime of resentment, of feeling less-than, of getting knocked down every time I think I can stand on my own two feet, of that horrible, bitter, black hole in my chest …

That fucking phone call before the flight out, letting me know she’d stolen the promotion I worked for, the one that wouldn’t even exist if not for me, just one more thing she’s taken from me and expected me to turn the other cheek over …

It all comes pouring out, to the last people on earth I should be telling.

I don’t know who I’d be without Kayleigh. I don’t know how not to be her best friend.

But I hate her. I hate her.

And I can’t – stop – talking .