Page 53 of We Live Here Now

52

Emily

I smile and laugh and watch as Iso and Cat dance, Iso still necking wine, her dancing becoming dangerously close to falling, while feeling completely lost in a bubble of my own. Time drags on, and even though I want to go and hide under the duvet and block everything out, I force myself to stay up for another hour before sneaking upstairs, feeling awful. I’m hoping for some time to myself, but within minutes Freddie is dropping his clothes on the floor and stumbling into bed with me, the wreckage of the party waiting until morning.

“I’m so sorry about everything, Em,” he mumbles, pulling me close. I don’t have the energy to push him away or remind him that he’d be in the spare room if we weren’t hiding our problems from our friends. “I really am,” he continues. “I hate myself for it. I’m sorry I lied. I’ll be better. I’ll sort it out. I promise. I love you. I do. I really do.” I don’t push him away, needing whatever comfort I can take.

As he slides into a heavy sleep, his weight uncomfortably draped over me, I want to cry. Everything’s crumbling around me. How has my life come to this? Surrounded by debt from my weak husband and losing my mind.

I lie there, listening as the others traipse to the bathroom, and then Mark’s annoyed mutterings as he virtually carries Iso up to the third floor, and finally the house falls quiet. I stare into the dark as Freddie grunts and snores and moves about in his sleep, and by three a.m. I give up trying to get any rest of my own and quietly get my notebook from the side table drawer and creep out to the bathroom.

With the book balanced on my knee, my writing’s a spidery scrawl as I purge my anxiety and upset onto the page, under the light of my phone’s flashlight. This is less a record of ghostly hauntings and more a reflection of my own mental instability.

There is nothing happening in the house. It’s all in my mind. Hallucinations. Sally hasn’t done anything at all. What is wrong with me? I’m fixated on a ghost that all evidence proves doesn’t exist.

I’ve made myself look really stupid—and mentally unstable—in front of the vicar. I should call Dr. Canning, I know I should. But I can’t face going back into the hospital. I just can’t. I have to learn to ignore all this until it stops. I can’t cope with it on top of everything going on in the “real” world. God , I write, and underline it. Maybe it would have been better if I’d just died?

It’s melodramatic and I don’t mean it. I’m in no rush to die again. All that nothingness terrifies me. The nonexistence of it all.

The toilet seat lid is cold and uncomfortable and I’m calmer after getting my shame down on the page. Not happier but at least calmer. There’s nothing I can do about it except try to talk to Paul next week. He’ll understand, I’m sure of it. Everyone can be prone to flights of fancy, and given my extenuating circumstances and his Christian nature, we’ll be laughing about it all by next weekend. It’s not like I explicitly accused anyone of anything, and it’s basically his job to forgive me.

I’m suddenly tired, hopefully now able to get to sleep, and turn off the phone light. Before I reach for the bathroom handle to unlock it, it quietly clicks by itself and opens a few inches. I freeze, staring at it, the cold draft around my ankles only part of the chill I’m suddenly feeling. I take a deep breath. I couldn’t have locked it properly and the draft has pushed it open. That’s all.

I reach forward to pull it open some more so I can leave, but the door, only a few inches open, refuses to budge. I yank harder, but nothing gives, an invisible force holding it solidly, unmoving, from the other side. I stand back, confused. Is it me again? My stupid, mad post-sepsis brain? Am I imagining I can’t open it?

I stare, not sure quite what to do, and then I hear something. Someone moving around. Very human footsteps coming down from the third floor. I pull at the door again but it still won’t budge, so I press my eye into the gap. In the gloom I catch sight of Mark as he whispers urgently to someone out of sight, and then there are more careful footsteps as they head down to the ground floor.

I stand back, confused, and then the door silently opens just wide enough for me to get out. I step out cautiously, feeling like I’ve walked into a secret. I peer over the banister.

“She’s totally out. What about him?”

“Snoring.”

A giggle and a shh. My breath catches. Is that Cat? What is she doing downstairs with Mark? I shiver in the chilly air— maybe Freddie is right, maybe there is a draft —and as they disappear along the boot room corridor, I give it a few seconds and then creep downstairs myself, rounding from the wooden floor onto the flagstones of the narrow corridor to the right of the front door.

The stones are like ice blocks underfoot, making my feet hurt, but I keep going, my racing heart warming me from the inside even as my extremities freeze. I grip my phone tight as I get nearer to the boot room door. It’s closed, but maybe if I press my ear against it I’ll be able to hear them. Figure out what they’re doing.

Deep inside, I know why they’re up. There’s only one reason two married adults would be creeping around together in the middle of the night, but I just can’t bring myself to believe it without evidence. Cat and Mark? Cat of Cat and Russell and marriage is teamwork ? And I can’t grasp the idea of Mark cheating on perfect Iso, who is toned and slim and doesn’t have the teeniest bit of cellulite and still acts like she’s twenty-one. Everyone’s in love with Iso.

I edge toward the door, remembering how much Iso drank tonight. Maybe there is trouble in paradise. Iso has always loved booze more than the rest of us, but there was definitely an edge to how she was at the party. But Cat? How could Cat do that to her? How could they do this to any of us?

My heart is pounding so hard when I reach the closed door that I’m not sure I’d be able to hear anything through it even if they were shouting at each other on the other side, but as I go to press my ear against the cold grain, the wood moves ever so slightly, opening.

I step back, my hand over my mouth, sure I’ve been caught, but the door stops at only two inches wide. It’s a creaky old door with a stiff metal latch. It should have been louder when it opened, but there was nothing. A smooth silence as if it had just been soaked in oil.

A breathless moan escapes from inside. I can’t help myself; I take a step forward. I have to see. I put my eye to the gap and it immediately widens. They’re bathed in moonlight—Cat, perched on the shelf against the wall, her legs wrapped around Mark, who looks almost comical with his boxers down around his ankles as he frantically pumps himself into her. It’s grotesque and revolting to see my friends, good-looking as they may be, like this, but without thinking, as an icy draft snakes up my legs, I lift my phone and start to record.

Neither of them even glances toward the door as Mark groans, lowering his head to Cat’s exposed breasts. As his hands and mouth grasp at her breasts, she gasps and pulls her legs tighter around him. “Fuck me harder,” she mutters, her eyes closed, and then wraps her hands around his neck. “Fuck me till it hurts me.”

He stops then, pulling out, his dick hard and almost purple even in the darkness, and spins her around, bending her over the shelf, hand on her neck as he thrusts back into her, the cheeks of her arse moonlight pale as he grips them.

“God, you’re such a dirty bitch,” he mutters, gripping her by her hair, and they encourage each other with breathless words and commands and insults. I can hear his flesh slapping against hers, and yet, despite how uncomfortable it’s making me feel, I keep on recording.

I have to , I tell myself. Iso would never believe this is real without evidence. Maybe of Mark but never of Cat. Neither would Russell. Neither would Freddie, and neither would I if I weren’t seeing it with my own eyes. I feel sick. How long has it been going on?

I record them, lost in each other, for a few more seconds and then quietly step away and creep back upstairs to my own bed, climbing in beside my own disappointing husband. I lie there, wide awake and in shock, and maybe fifteen minutes later I hear two pairs of guilty feet carefully returning to their own rooms and their own unsuspecting partners.