Page 28 of The Layover
I look at Francesca, who looks at me, equally confused.
And I know I should say something. No matter what Gemma’s reaction is, I should be outraged, too, should be jumping to berate Francesca and tell her to back off, this is my sister’s fiancé she’s talking about, my sister’s wedding she’s planning to ruin.
Would that … be so bad, though?
I mean, if there was any kind of sure-fire way to make Kayleigh see what a narcissistic, callous prat she’s engaged to, it’s by having him jilt her at the altar for the girl he’s always telling her ‘not to worry about’.
Which would be horrible, and heartbreaking, and devastating, yes, but …necessary?
We’d all be there to help her pick up the pieces, of course, and reassure her that it’s for the best. Him running off with someone else would be a good excuse for us all to hate him until Kayleigh’sover him enough to stomach hearing all the other ways he wasn’t right for her.
Francesca sucks in a breath, as if to brace herself for whatever rage I’m going to launch at her in my sister’s defence. Next to me, Gemma is still gasping for breath, laughing too hard to say more than a broken syllable or two at a time.
And I sit back in my chair, arms crossed, and say, ‘To hell with it. Rather you than Kayleigh. You’re welcome to the bastard.’
Gemma starts howling with laughter all over again.
Chapter Fifteen
Francesca
I – don’t believe this. I must be hallucinating. Or dreaming?
Is this some nasty plan cooked up between the two of them while I was gone, some way to humiliate me?
No, I don’t think it is; Gemma looked too aghast when I admitted to everything, and is absolutely beside herself now. I don’t think anybody could fake that sort of laughter. People are looking over, staring, the uninhibited sound carrying above all the general commotion.
As for Leon, the hostility he displayed earlier has vanished and he leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. ‘To hell with it,’ he says. ‘Rather you than Kayleigh. You’re welcome to the bastard.’
Ihaveto be dreaming.
Thishasto be a trick.
I overheard what they said about Marcus mocking me … That can’t be true. If anything,they’rethe ones mocking me.
But Leon’s blank expression, the way he slouches in his seat as if to say he really couldn’t care less, the bite in his voice that’s not directed at me, but at Marcus – it rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it’s because I was so ready for a fight, or maybe because he kept getting my hackles up earlier, but I scowl at him again now.
‘Don’t talk about him like that. This isn’t his fault. It’s – it’s nobody’s fault, it’s just … What we have, it’s real, it’s special, and I just don’t think it’s right that he should get married to somebody else when Iknowhe has feelings for me, and I feel the same way about him. It’s not just us I’m thinking about, it’s Kayleigh, too. Isn’t it punishing her, if we let her marry someone who isn’t in it one hundred per cent? It’s not as if Marcus has been cheating, like we’ve been carrying out some sordid affair behind her back—’
‘It’s an emotional affair,’ Leon tells me bluntly.
It’s—
Wait,isthat what it is? Is that what we’ve been doing? All the things we don’t quite say in our texts, all the sidelong looks and secret smiles, the hugs that we let go of the split-second before they become more than a quick greeting or goodbye?
Oh, God. It is, isn’t it?
I’ve been having an affair with an almost-married man.
I kept telling myself we were treading that line, but … Just because we haven’t kissed in that time, does that make this any less wrong? Isn’t that exactly why I can’t tell my friends or my family the entire truth about him, why I feel such guilt whenever they ask me about him? Didn’t I know, deep down, how wrong we were to carry on like this?
Thisis what I’ve been avoiding admitting to myself every time I back myself into a corner with too many little white lies. When Marcus and I spent the night together,obviouslyI told the gang from uni everything. They sent me Ben & Jerry’s over Deliveroo when I cried down the phone to them after rejecting him in the office a few days later. When he started dating Kayleigh officially, I couldn’t tell them that there wasstillsomething going on between us, however innocent. Because ofthis, because part of meknewthey’d tell me I was the other woman. And my family think he’s just a friend at work I have a bit of a crush on,someone whose friendship I don’t want to risk losing so that’s why I haven’t made a move …
And all that time, with each little white lie twisting the truth of our relationship, I’d tell myself,This is part of how it’s supposed to be. The whole ‘forbidden romance’ thing, the ‘true love conquers all’ fairy tale everybody wants to believe in. It wasn’t ared flag, more like … another hurdle in our journey to be together.
I feel ill, suddenly. It’s a mockery of the butterfly sensation I get in my stomach any time I imagine the look on Marcus’s face when I finally tell him I love him, too.
Is Kayleigh even really that cold and nasty, or is that just the idea I’ve built up of her in my head, so I can lie to myself that this is all okay? In her shoes, wouldn’t I have been a bit frosty towards someone my partner was so invested in?
