Page 48 of The Love of Our Lives

At the top of the stairs, Adam has kindly left my bag in front of my door and I lug it into the hallway, as Fran trails quietly behind me.

I hate having to part ways with Adam again after so much time together; feel this almost desperate pull towards him, like I might lose him again if I let go.

But he reassures me by text that we’ll catch up as soon as we can tomorrow, and after admitting our true feelings to each other in Canada, I know inside myself that nothing will stop it happening this time.

We can’t go back now.

I dump my bag in the hall before ushering Fran through to the living room, where she hovers uncertainly at the centre. It’s just so unlike the usually punchy Fran that I almost feel bad for her.

‘Take a seat and I’ll put on some coffee,’ I sigh, realising there’s no easy way out of this now. I just need to get through it.

‘All right,’ she says, sitting down on the sofa and looking about herself.

‘I really like what you’ve done with the place,’ I hear her call out, and realise she must be looking at my messy paint wall.

I go about boiling the kettle and pouring coffee granules into cups – I don’t have any milk in yet, so I just serve it black for both of us.

‘Smells delicious,’ Fran says, shooting up to take one from me. I sit down on the chair opposite her; wait for her to start.

She takes a couple of careful sips first, as though gearing herself up for whatever she’s about to say, then she places the mug down on one of the little dancing coasters I bought at a market.

‘I like these,’ she says, as though stalling for time. I don’t reply, don’t make this any easier on her than I already have, because I feel annoyed on Emily’s behalf. Eventually she takes a breath.

‘We never meant for it to happen,’ she says. ‘I just want you to know that I’d never thought about it at all before. I knew you were with him and I was with Toby. But then you started working all the time – you disappeared on Simon, and me.’

There it is, that weird reverse blaming that Simon did too – he made me feel like it was all my fault. I start to feel frustrated again.

‘So, you’re saying you don’t want me to feel bad about working too much, but ultimately, that’s what you’re blaming it on?’ I say.

Fran starts to shake her head. ‘No, that’s not what I said.’

‘Well, you sort of did.’

Why shouldn’t Emily have worked hard if that made her successful and independent? No one would have batted an eye at a man doing it. I don’t see why that means her fiancé had no option but to cheat on her with her best friend.

Fran is silenced for a moment.

‘You’re right, E, you working hard wasn’t to blame . . . but it wasn’t just for a bit,’ she says, and I look up.

‘Those last two years in London, you were basically always in the office or on work trips. No one actually saw you. You never made it to any dinners or parties. You even missed my birthday, and Simon’s . . .’

An uncomfortable feeling starts to form in my stomach.

Emily missed their birthdays?

‘And I promise I’m not trying to make you feel bad about what we did,’ Fran says quickly, wipes a tear away, ‘I promise that’s not it, because there are absolutely no excuses, but I just wanted to let you see how it came about in the first place. We really didn’t mean to hurt anyone.’

I feel sick thinking about it; can’t imagine what Emily must have gone through. But I need more information.

‘How long?’ I say.

Fran pauses. ‘A few months,’ she says, wiping another tear away, and I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.

A few months?

‘I know, I’m a horrible person,’ she says quickly, seeing my face, ‘but I bumped into him at the pub one night and he was drowning his sorrows, and I’d been having all these worries about how different Toby and I were.

One bottle led to another and . . . oh god.

’ Fran puts her head in her hands. But almost immediately, she lifts her head up again, looks at me dead on.

‘The next morning, I was physically sick so many times for what I’d done, and I told Simon we needed to tell you the truth straight away, tell Toby too.

But then, everything sort of drifted on.

You kept working more and more and Toby went away on all those business trips . . .’

‘Then you and Simon drifted on too,’ I say steadily, ‘and I found the dinner receipt.’

Fran nods. ‘Yes, and I was sure you’d see right through it.

I was fully prepared to come clean, to get it out in the open.

But then you decided to leave for Edinburgh and I just. .

. .’ She takes a breath. ‘You and Simon had already broken up anyway, and you were starting this new life, so I figured, maybe we’d let sleeping dogs lie? ’

‘But then he came up to see me,’ I say.

‘Yes . . . and I was terrified you’d find out.’

‘So that’s why you were pushing me towards Adam.’

‘Not just that,’ Fran says, eyes widening. ‘I genuinely wanted you to be happy.’

‘Funny way of showing it.’

She shuts her eyes briefly. ‘Then at the wedding, Simon started saying he couldn’t continue with you again without being honest about what happened, and oh god, I just died inside. But I wanted to say thank you . . . for not saying anything at the time.’

I don’t reply initially, as I try to gather my thoughts, as the full picture emerges clearly in my mind.

Emily suspected Simon was cheating on her and that was the trigger for her to finally try a new life.

Because sometimes you just know something deep inside and you don’t need proof.

So she did it – left it all behind and started again.

Then she went down to Fran’s wedding in London, deliberated coming back to it all, coming back to Simon, but we both found out the same thing at the same time – it was Fran he’d been cheating with. And suddenly it all came crashing down.

There would be no going back.

That was it – that was Emily’s clincher.

‘And I love Toby, I really do,’ Fran is saying. ‘It’s the worst mistake I’ve ever made, and I just can’t . . .’ she lets out a sob now, ‘I can’t handle the idea of telling him. He’ll definitely leave me, you know he will. What am I going to do?’

As Fran rambles on about how sorry she is, my mind starts to clear suddenly, settle.

We might not be friends again but I know just how terrible she feels – how she’s paid for this a thousand times over in her head, like I did with Cat – and maybe somewhere beneath it all there was a silver lining for Emily; the first push she needed to get out there and change things.

And although I could shout at Fran; rant about what a horrible friend she’s been, sometimes there really is nothing else to be done – shit happens in life and there is no way back.

But you can still go forwards and hope the light eventually shines through.

‘What you’re going to do,’ I say steadily, ‘is stop living a lie, Fran, because that is no way to live. And don’t make Toby’s life a lie too. At least give him the chance to decide what’s right for him.’

Fran looks up at me, tears in her eyes, but then finally, she nods.

‘And what are you going to do?’ she almost whispers.

I pause, suddenly uncertain.

‘Because despite what you might think,’ she adds, ‘I really did mean it when I said I wanted you to be happy. When you moved up here, I was panicked, of course, but it was clear quite quickly that it had been a good choice – you really doing it finally.’

‘Doing what?’ I ask.

‘All of it; all the stuff you never had a chance to before. And you’re right about the work, E – you genuinely did so great with your career. But this new Emily is great too . . . this new, slower, Emily seems happier.’

‘And Adam’s not too bad either,’ Fran adds with a glint in her eye, and I can’t help letting out a laugh.

A bubble of light passes between us, the old dynamics coming through again. Then Fran sniffs; looks at me.

‘Will you ever be able to forgive me?’ she says, with tear-stained eyes.

I pause, realising my future right now is still really quite unclear.

‘Maybe,’ I say eventually. ‘Let’s see what happens.’

And with a tearful smile, she finally gets up and leaves.