Page 34 of The Layover
‘You think Marcus is a piece of work? You thinkhe’sthe bad influence on her? Let me tell you something – I haveneverknown Kayleigh be more herself than when she’s with him. Marcus is the first guy she’s dated that I’ve thought,Yup, that’s the real Kayleigh. She doesn’t have to try to be someone else – someone better – when she’s with him.’
‘N-no, that’s not … She isn’t …’
‘You don’tknowher, Leon.I do. And I’m telling you, your sister is a stone-cold bitch. Which is great, sure, I love it about her—’
‘Doesn’t sound like it,’ I mutter, because there’s venom in the way she spits the words.
‘But that’s who she is. With her perfect life and perfect home and perfect job and perfect man andperfect fucking wedding—’
‘Careful,’ I warn. ‘You’re starting to sound jealous, Gem.’
The noise that rips out of her throat is a breathy laugh so incredulous and bitter, it only proves my point.
‘Yeah.Yeah, I’m jealous. She getseverything, all the time, and she doesn’t care who she hurts in the process. If this wedding turned into a raging shitshow because Marcus jilts herat the altar and it comes out her family all disapprove of the whole thing, I would stand by with the popcorn, because it’s theleastshe deserves. You know I’m the one who pitched for the promotion, but she caught wind and swanned in like she was entitled to it, and thenshegot it instead – and badmouthed me to our boss in the process. And now she gets to piss off to Barcelona for three weeks while I’m stuck picking up the slack for her, so she can enjoy herself and not stress about work.Ifound that flat for us to rent, but then she’s calling up the landlord and persuading him to sell so she can buy it – withMarcus, leaving me stuck in this shitty house-share with a girl who always steals the orange juice and someone who never pulls their weight with chores, and now it’smyfault she moved out and the three of us have to pitch in to cover her rent while we’re looking for someone else.’
‘That’s not what happened.’
It’s not. This is a warped version of everything Kayleigh’s told us.
A role opened up at work, so she interviewed and Gemma did too, but at the end of the day, she got it. She was just the right person for the position, but she was sure something else would come along for Gemma eventually. And the flat was kismet, a lucky find at the right time, everything just working out suddenly and perfectly, falling into place so she and Marcus could take the next step.
Isn’t that how it happened?
‘You wanna bet?’ Gemma snaps. ‘You want to know who she really is, Leon? Huh? Do you?’
She rises halfway out of her seat. Her hands are bunched into white-knuckled fists on the table and she leans towards me – over me, looming and snarling, teeth bared and lips peeled back – and she’s trembling.
I’m not sure I do want to know.
Not if it’s coming from someone who looks as hateful and angry as Gemma does right now, I think, but that’s not quite true.
Not if the answer is someone who does this to her best friend.
But I don’t say anything; I just sit there, staring, waiting. Dreading.
‘When your nana took Kayleigh aside and said she wasn’t very keen on Marcus, and thought that her big, glamorous new life in London wasn’t doing her any good, told Kayleigh that she needed to sort out her priorities because she was pushing all her family away and hurting them and they’d raised her better than that – Kayleigh laughed in her face. She told her she was an interfering busybody who couldn’t tell her what to do and just because Kayleigh had it all when the rest of you don’t, she didn’t have to sacrifice it to make the rest of you feel more comfortable about your own sad little lives. She wasawfulto your nana. And when she died, Kayleigh said, ‘Good riddance to the old bat.’She said that. Then she went and cried at the funeral and hugged you all and said how much she regretted that she hadn’t made time to visit. You know why she didn’t visit? Because she – quote – wasn’t going to waste her time being lectured to by some jealous old cow. Your nana held up a mirror, and Kayleigh didn’t like that, so she smashed it to pieces, and didn’t lose sleep over it.’
I can’t say a word. I’m completely numb.
Because – itfeelstrue. I can’t even try to deny that.
Kay kept promising to visit, kept sending her best over the phone with one of us, kept making excuses. She cried on the phone to Dad one time about how it was just too hard, the idea of seeing Nana in that home, so frail and unwell, but it’s not like she ever acknowledged how hard it was for all the rest of us. Myleene cried after every time she went to visit Nana, but she still went every couple of days. Fuck, Myleene wouldplanto go in to visit whenever Kay was supposed to – because we all knewKayleigh would never actually show up. Our little sister would sack off plans with her friends and hockey sessions and have to do her homework late at night just so she could be there when Kayleigh let everyone else down.
She didn’t visitonce.
We all blamed it on Marcus, on this new life she had withhim, on her busy job. We believed whatever excuses she gave because the alternative was …
This. Exactly what Gemma is saying. Which is so cruel and unthinkable, none of us would have ever dared contemplate it.
I knew Nana had spoken to Kay about Marcus. I knew Kay didn’t exactlylisten. But to hear she said those things – that she’d cut Nana out of her life without a second thought … That’s not the Kayleigh we all know.
Gemma must see that something she’s said has struck home, because she pauses to catch her breath. She wipes her cheeks briskly, getting rid of the few tears that have fallen there. I stammer something, a few half-formed words in half-hearted protests – she’s got it wrong, that’s not what happened, Kay would never, that isn’t her.
‘No,’ says a quiet voice on my other side, making me jump. ‘That sounds exactly like her.’
Christ, I’d all but forgotten Francesca was even there, never mind listening to this character assassination. Instinct tells me that of course she’d say that, she’s trying to steal Marcus and is no peach herself, but when I look at Francesca, her expression is weirdly apologetic. She lookssad, like all of this is hard to hear.
She looks like I feel.
