Page 18

Chapter Seventeen

Leon

‘No,’ Gemma snaps at me with a sudden vehemence, her eyes blazing, jaw set.

‘It’s true. Just because you’re all in denial, doesn’t mean it’s not true.

I’m telling you, the Kayleigh you all think you know and love – she’s not real.

She’s good at seeming good, and she’s good at presenting a bit of a front when it suits her.

Like how it suited her to be this precious, darling, golden child who had parents that doted on her and thought the world of her.

It was never her fault if she got in a bit of trouble at school, then, was it?

It was never her fault if a party got a bit out of hand and she was home late.

She’d have been helping tidy up, or looking after somebody – right?

I can tell you for a fact that’s a lie. She’s a liar , and she always has been. ’

I scoff. ‘Please, every kid tells a couple of little white lies to avoid getting into trouble with their parents. That doesn’t mean anything.’

But the words sound hollow, and it’s like they’re coming from somebody else.

My brain feels fuzzy, foggy, and Gemma’s words are a harsh static tearing through it. I hear what she’s saying, but none of the words connect, I can’t process them enough to make sense of it.

The only coherent thought I have is, Why is she saying this? Why does she look so upset?

I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve ever known Gemma to be upset. And most of those were when we were at school, when she was just a kid. She’s always so in control.

She’s Kayleigh’s best friend. They’ve been thick as thieves since they first met at twelve years old, and that’s never changed.

They’ve lived together, worked together.

Their lives are so entwined that you couldn’t separate them if you tried.

Isn’t Gemma supposed to go to bat for her, defend her, stand up for her?

Why is she tearing Kay apart now?

Gemma is barrelling on, though. Her voice shakes, but the look in her eyes is unyielding. I can’t look away.

‘You think Marcus is a piece of work? You think he’s the bad influence on her?

Let me tell you something – I have never known Kayleigh be more herself than when she’s with him.

Marcus is the first guy she’s dated that I’ve thought, Yup, that’s the real Kayleigh .

She doesn’t have to try to be someone else – someone better – when she’s with him. ’

‘N-no, that’s not … She isn’t …’

‘You don’t know her, Leon. I do . And I’m telling you, your sister is a stone-cold bitch. Which is great, sure, I love it about her—’

‘Doesn’t sound like it,’ I mutter, because there’s venom in the way she spits the words.

‘But that’s who she is. With her perfect life and perfect home and perfect job and perfect man and perfect fucking wedding —’

‘Careful,’ I warn. ‘You’re starting to sound jealous, Gem.’

The noise that rips out of her throat is a breathy laugh so incredulous and bitter, it only proves my point.

‘Yeah. Yeah , I’m jealous. She gets everything , all the time, and she doesn’t care who she hurts in the process.

If this wedding turned into a raging shitshow because Marcus jilts her at the altar and it comes out her family all disapprove of the whole thing, I would stand by with the popcorn, because it’s the least she deserves.

You know I’m the one who pitched for the promotion, but she caught wind and swanned in like she was entitled to it, and then she got it instead – and badmouthed me to our boss in the process.

And now she gets to piss off to Barcelona for three weeks while I’m stuck picking up the slack for her, so she can enjoy herself and not stress about work.

I found that flat for us to rent, but then she’s calling up the landlord and persuading him to sell so she can buy it – with Marcus , leaving me stuck in this shitty house-share with a girl who always steals the orange juice and someone who never pulls their weight with chores, and now it’s my fault she moved out and the three of us have to pitch in to cover her rent while we’re looking for someone else. ’

‘That’s not what happened.’

It’s not. This is a warped version of everything Kayleigh’s told us.

A role opened up at work, so she interviewed and Gemma did too, but at the end of the day, she got it.

She was just the right person for the position, but she was sure something else would come along for Gemma eventually.

And the flat was kismet, a lucky find at the right time, everything just working out suddenly and perfectly, falling into place so she and Marcus could take the next step.

Isn’t that how it happened?

‘You wanna bet?’ Gemma snaps. ‘You want to know who she really is, Leon? Huh? Do you?’

She rises halfway out of her seat. Her hands are bunched into white-knuckled fists on the table and she leans towards me – over me, looming and snarling, teeth bared and lips peeled back – and she’s trembling.

I’m not sure I do want to know.

Not if it’s coming from someone who looks as hateful and angry as Gemma does right now, I think, but that’s not quite true.

Not if the answer is someone who does this to her best friend .

But I don’t say anything; I just sit there, staring, waiting. Dreading.

‘When your nana took Kayleigh aside and said she wasn’t very keen on Marcus, and thought that her big, glamorous new life in London wasn’t doing her any good, told Kayleigh that she needed to sort out her priorities because she was pushing all her family away and hurting them and they’d raised her better than that – Kayleigh laughed in her face.

She told her she was an interfering busybody who couldn’t tell her what to do and just because Kayleigh had it all when the rest of you don’t, she didn’t have to sacrifice it to make the rest of you feel more comfortable about your own sad little lives.

She was awful to your nana. And when she died, Kayleigh said, ‘Good riddance to the old bat.’ She said that .

Then she went and cried at the funeral and hugged you all and said how much she regretted that she hadn’t made time to visit.

You know why she didn’t visit? Because she – quote – wasn’t going to waste her time being lectured to by some jealous old cow.

Your nana held up a mirror, and Kayleigh didn’t like that, so she smashed it to pieces, and didn’t lose sleep over it. ’

I can’t say a word. I’m completely numb.

Because – it feels true. I can’t even try to deny that.

Kay kept promising to visit, kept sending her best over the phone with one of us, kept making excuses.

She cried on the phone to Dad one time about how it was just too hard, the idea of seeing Nana in that home, so frail and unwell, but it’s not like she ever acknowledged how hard it was for all the rest of us.

Myleene cried after every time she went to visit Nana, but she still went every couple of days.

Fuck, Myleene would plan to go in to visit whenever Kay was supposed to – because we all knew Kayleigh would never actually show up.

Our little sister would sack off plans with her friends and hockey sessions and have to do her homework late at night just so she could be there when Kayleigh let everyone else down.

She didn’t visit once .

We all blamed it on Marcus, on this new life she had with him , on her busy job. We believed whatever excuses she gave because the alternative was …

This. Exactly what Gemma is saying. Which is so cruel and unthinkable, none of us would have ever dared contemplate it.

I knew Nana had spoken to Kay about Marcus. I knew Kay didn’t exactly listen . But to hear she said those things – that she’d cut Nana out of her life without a second thought … That’s not the Kayleigh we all know.

Gemma must see that something she’s said has struck home, because she pauses to catch her breath.

She wipes her cheeks briskly, getting rid of the few tears that have fallen there.

I stammer something, a few half-formed words in half-hearted protests – she’s got it wrong, that’s not what happened, Kay would never, that isn’t her.

‘No,’ says a quiet voice on my other side, making me jump. ‘That sounds exactly like her.’

Christ, I’d all but forgotten Francesca was even there, never mind listening to this character assassination.

Instinct tells me that of course she’d say that, she’s trying to steal Marcus and is no peach herself, but when I look at Francesca, her expression is weirdly apologetic.

She looks sad , like all of this is hard to hear.

She looks like I feel.

Which makes no sense, but she carries on in a gentle voice, ‘I thought maybe it was all in my head. Or – I suppose, maybe, part of me realised that my friendship with Marcus was obviously a bit more than that, and she saw it and was jealous and quite right to be standoffish and annoyed. But she’s never struck me as a …

very warm person. She’s certainly never talked much about her family to make me think you were all particularly close.

Marcus says she’s quite … exacting,’ she says, in that way that’s obviously more diplomatic than whatever he actually said.

‘And she can be a bit difficult and abrasive.’

Gemma has sunk back into her seat now, and grabs her coffee. ‘What else has he said about her?’

Francesca shrugs. ‘It’s just been a few remarks here and there. I’ve probably read too much into them.’

‘Like what ?’ I demand.

‘Stuff like …’ Her eyes track to one side as she thinks. ‘If he’s working late, he’ll joke about how he’s got a girlfriend with expensive taste he’s got to look after, or if we all go for a drink after work sometimes he says he should get on home, but needs a break from her. It’s …’

Francesca frowns, squirming in her chair, then says quickly, ‘Actually, it’s all very nasty and misogynistic, and they all join in about it, but I’ve always told myself it’s just that he’s settled for her and it’d be different if he was with someone he really cared about.’

‘A fixer-upper,’ Gemma says, nodding, then spits, ‘Pig.’

I grunt in agreement, not quite trusting myself to form a coherent word.

Francesca’s comments about Marcus are hardly a revelation.

The problem wasn’t that he acted like Kay needed to be some stay-at-home wife with no life of her own, it was that she was suddenly doing things like hiring cleaners that she did nothing but complain about for ‘not doing their job well enough’, then scrunching up her nose when we’d ask why she and Marcus didn’t just tackle the housework themselves if it was causing such an issue.

That Kayleigh sounds more like the one Gemma’s been talking about.

The one that, apparently, Francesca has witnessed too.

I press my fingertips to my eyes, rubbing them hard.

There’s a headache throbbing at the front of my skull and suddenly the clamour of the airport comes pouring in.

Scraping trays and squeaky wheels and chaotic footfalls, dinging phones and beeping tills and voices placing orders and chattering blithely and complaining about delays.

How can the rest of the world be carrying on like normal, when everything has changed?

I drag my head back up, and my eyes go straight out to the concourse and high ceiling and billboards beyond the edge of the balcony where the food court is. A mirrored tower rotates slowly there. And somewhere past all of that, outside, there’s a storm raging on, keeping us all stuck here.

Fifteen hours until the ceremony suddenly doesn’t feel long enough.