Page 6 of The Actor and His Secret

Because doing this means I suddenly won’t be able to hide from the world I ran from. Although I never wished to simply hide.

I wanted to completely disappear.

You’re free.

Behind the pillow, where Selina had sat, another bottle waits for me. This one is half full.

You’re free.

I pull the cork free with my teeth, eyes trapped to the tops of trees and buildings beyond my window.

You’re free.

I lift the bottle to my mouth and tip it back, pouring the liquid down my throat. It burns.

You’re free.

This time another voice registers in the far reaches of my skull. The voice that haunts me every single day since I tried to get free.

You’ll never be free. Not from me, son.

PART 2

THE CURRENT DAY

3

OLI

Nearly eight years into dating Geoff and I never expect to find him buried five and a half inches deep in a stranger.

I drop my phone onto the hardwood floor with a clatter loud enough to startle the both of them. They’re in our bed.

Geoffrey is fucking some twenty-year-old twink on my sheets, the ones I picked out from Frette because Geoff was whining that the perfectly good ones I’d bought online were ‘too scratchy’. The boy’s head is on my special anti-allergy pillow. His feet are practically touching it too, where he’s folded in half.

'Um,' I say eloquently as Geoff turns his head, still balls-deep in an arse that is definitely not mine. 'What the fuck?'

'Oh.' Geoff’s brown eyes fly open. His hips give another thrust. He doesn’t even stop thrusting. 'Oli? Why are you home?'

I didn’t call because I wanted to surprise Geoff, who’d been complaining for weeks about my work schedule. Never mind that now that he’s a managing director at his investment bank he’s hardly ever home. He claims all the time that I’m the one who works too much, but I think it’s really that he’s angry that I’m not always immediately available to him in the moments he’s actually here and not at work.

So when I got off work early today, I didn’t go out for drinks with the rest of the team. Everyone wanted to blow off steam after another intense week - with the premier happening next weekend, pressure is at an all-time high. The buzz we’ve been getting has been incredible, but I’m not counting my chickens.

Although right now I’m not counting anything at all. I’m watching my long-term boyfriend fuck another man.

I know we’ve been having problems. I’ve been pushing for us to see a couple’s counsellor. I’ve been chalking it up to being so busy, to having fallen into a rhythm of domesticity after a year of living together, sex dropping off to almost nothing because we sit and watch each other floss our teeth every night. Never for a minute did I think that it was because he was getting it somewhere else.

'I wanted to surprise you with a meal.' I even went to the shops and got a bottle of nice wine, ingredients to cook some fancy pasta recipe that I’d found online. Geoff pulls out, and my entire body goes numb watching his dick withdraw. He’s not even wearing a condom.

Selfish fucking disgusting piece of shit cunt.

'I can explain.' He gets up, flicking his fingers at the boy on our bed like he’s a dog that he’s ordering to sit. The intruder gets up, blushing furiously, and starts to get dressed. I can’t help but stare at him, because he looks just like a younger, fitter me who has genetically blessed skin and infinite time to spend at the gym. 'Oli, you’ve just been so obsessed with this stupid book, I was lonely. A man has needs, love.'

'Don’t fucking call me that,' I hiss. The pieces are all clicking into place at once. The way that Geoff had reacted with disappointment instead of excitement that night a year ago when I’d announced my new job. He’d covered it up quickly, but I never forgot it. 'How long has this been going on?'

The lookalike-me finishes dressing, pulls on his shoes, and scampers out the door, his feet pattering on the stairs.

'You’re always so jealous,' Geoff rolls his eyes and pushes a hand through his generically dirty-blond hair. He’s still wearing his Rolex. It’s fucking galling. 'It’s not that big of a deal.'

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