Page 16 of You Belong With Me

Edie had seen her general appeal as a person decimated online after the Jack Marshall Incident, no wonder she had paranoia about unworthiness. The words of her tormentors were tattooed on her brain forever. She’d imagined their greatest hits etched on her headstone:Here Lies A Pig In A Ribbon. No One Did, Indeed, Ever Marry That.

Edie had under one minute, while the girl washed her hands alongside her, to decide on a gamble. If Denim Dress’s assumption was made for uncomplimentary reasons, it would be excruciating for both of them. If Edie didn’t ask, it would live on rent free in her head.

Before she hit the button on the hand-dryer, Edie said: ‘Sorry. Can I ask – Elliot’s not my brother. Why did you think he was my brother?’

The girl froze in surprise. ‘You’ve got the same colour hair? You look like each other.’

She said it easily enough and with a confused expressionthat told Edie it was the truth. She looked like she shared DNA with him?! Fortune favours the brave.

‘Ahhh.Thank you!’ Edie pushed her hands under the jet blast of the Dyson.

She organised a quick photo for Denim Dress before they left, Edie beaming and full of ravioli and goodwill.

8

On the walk home, Elliot’s mother twitched Edie’s sleeve, abruptly fascinated in how a house they passed had got a profusion of magenta bougainvillea to grow ‘in that lovely arched shape’.

It was a few moments, and suggesting twine was involved, before Edie twigged that Deborah was inventing a pretext to hang back and put some distance between them and Elliot and his father.

‘Edie, I’m sorry if this is overbearing. My son’s happiness matters to me too much not to risk grabbing this chance to speak to you.’

‘OK,’ Edie said, abruptly very worried. And things had been going so well. What was coming?Now, I know a ‘pre-nup’ seems unromantic …

‘Could we keep the fact we’ve spoken between us? Elliot’s naturally very protective of you, and I don’t know if he’d judge this outrageously overstepping.’

Edie was now wondering what she needed protecting from. She didn’t know if she objected until she knew what this was, but to say so felt combative.

‘This sounds ominous …’ she said more neutrally, trying not to make it clear her teeth were practically rattling.

‘Oh, I hope it’s not! I’m flapping. Bob and I are utterly thrilled you and Elliot have worked it out. You’re remarkably good for him. There are so many girls who’d fall at his feet, and that’s useless. I assume he told you what happened today? The story with his biological father?’

Edie nodded. ‘Yes, unfortunately.’

‘Elliot has this curse of appearing to cope when he’s not coping. He makes sure everyone else is all right and ignores and denies his own needs. He was like that as a very little boy. You’d think coming from the chaos he had that he’d have been badly behaved or difficult, but he was like a tiny adult, checking I’d remembered my house keys. He had to be a grown-up, because the first grown-ups he knew weren’t safe.’

‘I can see that,’ Edie said.

‘When you had your time apart, Elliot talked about you a lot. I worried about him, how desolate he’d be if he heard you’d met someone else, and alone with his thoughts in some hotel room. His ever-tactful brother told him to cheer up because “he has everything” and Elliot replied that none of it meant anything without you.’

Edie flushed with pleasure. She wished she could enjoy his mother ratting him out like this, but the fact it was a preamble made her wary. Did she think they were unhealthily infatuated? Or that Edie had blown hot and cold?

‘… So, I hope you don’t mind, he told me about your mother.’

Oh.Right.Here we go. Edie steeled herself, hoping thiswasn’t ago to counselling and don’t bring any incipient mental illness into our familyspeech.Edie had Googledis post natal depression hereditaryherself. She’d be stiffly polite if it was, for Elliot’s sake, even though it was a weaponisation of a tragedy against her.

‘I don’t mind that he told you,’ Edie said honestly, thinking what she might mind would come next.

‘It set me thinking. Aside from the obvious reasons you both get on so well, as bright young things …’

‘Hah. Youngish.’

‘I don’t know if this has occurred to you, but both you and Elliot have known profound loss and abandonment, at young ages. I think there’s a very deep level of understanding between you as a result.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Edie said, rather startled that she hadn’t. She’d thought their traumas were very different.

‘I say abandonment – I know your mother was very ill, and I am sure she didn’t want to leave you.’

‘It’s how it’s felt at times, even if that wasn’t what it was.’

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