Page 328 of The Long Way Home

Seventy-Five

Magnolia

I go back and forth about what BJ said to me for the next day and a half. A day and a half feels too long for us to not have spoken, all things considered, but I don’t want to be the first to buckle because everything he said was so mean. Even if it was true. If it’s true it makes it worse.

I hate the idea of betraying him, that he thinks that I did.

It’s strange to me, and I don’t know what it says about us as people, that he felt like me leaving him was a betrayal equal to him having sex with someone else. I feel like I’ve betrayed Beej before, by the way. I don’t think I’m perfect — I’ve felt that sticky, gluggy, quicksand feeling of me doing something wrong to the person I care about most every time I had sex with anyone but him. It might have gotten smaller and smaller every time I did it with that specific person. Julian was rather adept at quieting down my heart’s rhetoric that sex was a thing just for Beej and I — and I’d do it more and more often like he used to do, like me acting like him was a bridge back to him. Try to feel closer to BJ in that way, but it never worked. I’d just miss him.

I don’t know how many times over the course of our lives we’ve sworn to love each other forever, and to be fair we’ve both been true to our word.

I’ve never stopped loving him. I might be a runner but I have always loved him.

I can see the betrayal in the leaving, understand how he’s arrived there. How he’s learnt not to trust my word — my word is good though, I promise. I will love BJ Ballentine until I die, irreversibly — but he can’t promise he won’t hurt me so I don’t know how to promise I’ll stay.

“How bad is it?” Bridget asks me as I pull up outside of Bala Baya. Middle Eastern restaurant in Southwark.

I silence my phone as it starts to ring.

She was just here having lunch with friends from university and I wanted her to tell me everything was going to be okay because I might believe it if she tells me. I can’t really tell you why I’m picking her up from fucking Southwark, like I’m her own personal driver — bit annoying because she actually has her own personal driver, she just refuses to use him.

Me, on the other hand, I’m practically a pauper, what with Simon on annual leave. I’m schlepping myself around like a normal person in my white Aston Martin DBS Superleggera. How annoying is driving yourself?

I love being driven, I love BJ driving me places.

One of his hands on the wheel, the other on my knee. I love being in cars when I’m in cars with him. I should just sell my car so he has to drive me everywhere.

“Bad enough.” I tug feverishly at the brown GG-monogram leather-trim linen-blend dress I’m wearing from Gucci.

“His fault or yours?” she asks, silencing my phone again.

I purse my lips. “Both?”

I grip the steering wheel tightly, feeling nervous to tell her, like I’m about to walk into the principal’s office.

“He doesn’t trust me,” I tell her, flicking my eyes over quickly to assess her disappointment in me.

“Right.” She nods. “Because you leave him all the time.”

“What?” I frown. “How do you—?”

“Oh—” She swipes her hand through the air. “He’s been processing that one for a while. Glad it finally worked its way into an actual conversation.” She whacks my arm merrily. “Well done, you two.”

I frown at her more.

I stare over at her, annoyed. “Could you tone down the enthusiasm, please? My relationship is falling apart.” I give her a bleak look, eyes doing their best not to well up. “Again.”

She rolls her eyes. “Magnolia, it’s not that big a deal.”

“How’s that now?” I blink at her.

“So he doesn’t trust you.” She shrugs, dismissively.

“Sorry, I know.” I shake my head. “Call me old fashioned, I’m just one of those girls who likes their boyfriends to trust them.”

“Well,” Bridget tilts her head, “he’s not your boyfriend, so let’s not get carried away.”

I give her a look and she laughs, shaking her head as we pull onto the Westminster Bridge.