Page 45 of The Long Way Home

Eleven

Magnolia

I cried the first couple of days.

Didn’t leave the hotel room.

Terrible company for Gus.

According to Bridget, we should each have our own, which is something she declares loudly at breakfast every morning of the trip when she comes to eat breakfast on my bed.

(“You two are not economical people,” she told us with a convicting finger. “Magnolia, I’ve literally seen you blow your nose on a £20 note.” I frowned over at her. “Well, I didn’t have a tissue—” But the truth is, we’re sharing rooms because I don’t like to be alone.)

We’re staying at Hôtel de Crillon. Poor choice on Taura’s behalf — Beej and I used to come here all the time.

She wouldn’t know that though, because I was too busy shunning her at the time for being the girl he cheated on me with — which she never was — and none of that matters now anyway, not in light of everything.

They’re all worried about me, I can see it in the way they move around me. How they frown when they watch me, how my sister picks at her nail mindlessly while she’s next to me.

I’m not speaking, not really. Not eating, not shopping. Just sleeping and drinking.

Taura’s wish came true though. With me down for the count, she got to take Bridget shopping for that whole new wardrobe like she was her very own snarky, reluctant, noncompliant little Barbie doll.

The fact that I didn’t jump at the chance to give my sister a makeover doesn’t placate anyone’s concerns either.

But I can’t help it.

My mind’s poring over the last ten years, trying to see any clues I might have missed, any ways he might have tried to tell me without telling me that I was too selfish or too stupid to see.

I think about the night he cheated on me constantly, and for the first time since it happened, it hurts me. Not for myself, but for him.

To have seen the girl? I’d kill her. If I ever see her, I’ll slit her fucking throat.

But if I knew — that night — if he’d told me…

I think I would have understood? I hope so. I understand now, so I don’t know why I wouldn’t have then. I would have been sad and it still would have hurt me, but I think I would have understood it — maybe?

Or maybe it’s just that now I’d understand it in retrospect, after years of not understanding, not knowing all the facts. Like I’d been trying to do a puzzle in the dark.

I’m mourning, absolutely. For him. For me. For us.

I don’t want to make it about myself because it’s not about me — not at all — and I guess that’s a bit the point. Because I thought it was…

He told me he slept with someone else because he wanted to — do you know how that feels? Thinking for years that the person you loved more than anything, trusted more than anyone, did a thing to hurt you — even though they’d knew it would hurt you — for no other reason than because they wanted to do it.

Do you know what that does to you?

It strips you away, makes you feel unsafe in the world, makes the edges of love feel sharp and dangerous. It poisons all the good that might come next and paints over all the things that used to make you happy before, because it’s a different sort of betrayal when it’s a conscious, coherent decision. It was him choosing him over me because he wanted to.

I’ve thought about BJ fucking Paili because he wanted to do so almost daily since I left for New York. It was the part of it that was irreconcilable, the part that stuck out like a sore thumb, because nothing about BJ til then led me to believe that he would fuck everything between us up just because he wanted to. That was the hardest part to accept, and actually, I think I did accept it. After Tom and I finally ended properly, and I started speed-dating through the boys in Page Six. I think I accepted that he hurt me just because I was hurtable, and thenceforth I only let boys in so far.

That’s what happened with Jack-Jack.

“Are you okay?” Gus asks, lying down on my bed two nights before we leave.

I roll in towards him, my face blank. I pull the blue and lilac textured-finish button-fastening cardigan from Dolce & Gabbana snug against me.

“No.”