Page 156 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
He shakes his head.
“No, go on,” I shrug. “Say it.”
A second passes before he locks his eyes on me.
I know it’s coming.
“Because I’m not a fucking junkie and he is!”
But it still stings.
I nod, grab my keys from the table and then walk out.
∗ ∗ ∗
We all know where I end up. And maybe I subconsciously planned this. Picked out the shirt knowing he was going to tell it wasn’t his and goading him into saying the one thing that’s been on the tip of his tongue for months.
Still, though, when Connie opens the door to his apartment, it feels like taking a deep breath.
But when I see Arthur walking out of his bedroom and stopping in the hallway, it feels like everything all at once. When I look at him, I can almost see everything that we’ve ever been through. He’s like a walking memory book of all my best and worst years and what’s the good without the bad? With Digby, there’s nothing. With Arthur there is everything. There’s every single day since I was five years old.
Every day, every night, every dream, he appeared to me just like Aphrodite rising from her shell—and she was meant to be something so ugly. Born from a severed penis and yet, turned out to be the personification of love and beauty. They’re quite similar, don’t you think?
“Phoebe?” He comes walking over. “What you doing here?”
I look back at Connie, he stands there, showing off his fresh tan wearing only his boxers. He never asks why I turn up. Just opens the door and welcomes me in.
I turn back to Arthur. “I wanted to see you.”
He frowns, a bit confused, I imagine. “I have a dinner thing with my family tonight—”
“Oh, right,” I nod, a bit sad. “I’ll come another time.”
I go to leave but he reaches out, grabs my wrist and kisses me. “You didn’t let me finish. I have a dinner thing tonight but I wasn’t planning on turning up anyway.”
Connie walks past us, squeezes the back of my neck as he goes.
I pull back a bit, my arms still wrapped around his waist. “Are you sure? Maybe you should go. When was the last time you showed up to anything with your family?”
He gives me a careless shrug, scrunches up at his face. “They don’t really feel like my family, Phoebs. You, him,” he nods behind him. “The rest of you, you feel like my family more than them.”
I let out a breath, feel very sorry for him. “Have you at least spoken to any of them? Evangeline phoned me earlier. Asked after you.”
He laughs. “Did she fuck.”
“She did!” I hit his chest. “She is your sister.”
“What did she want?” He puts his arm over my shoulders, walks us down to his room.
I slip the belt off my trench, watch his eyes go wide. “Nothing. She just wondered how you were.”
“Yeah, well,” he stretches, scratches the back of his neck. “They only seem to want me for something. Mum only calls once a fortnight and it’s usually for press.”
I throw my coat onto the chair in the corner that’s already piled high with clothes and slip my heels off. He eyes meup as I lay against his headboard, wipes away a small smile and then comes over.
Tugs the shirt I’m wearing. “This mine?”
I nod.
