Page 167 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
I open my mouth but he lifts his head, looks right at me—or through me. “I already know what the truth is, Phoebe—but fuck, I just need to hear it.”
“Okay,” I nod, already crying at the question I know he’s about to ask me.
“Are you sleeping with Arthur?”
“Yes.”
And my voice is so quiet that I’m not sure if he heard me but the sound of his chair scrapping back against the tiles is loud enough to assure me that he did.
“Digby!” I push my chair back, follow him down the hall. “Can you at least listen to me?”
I watch as he grabs a weekender from the top of the wardrobe, throws it down onto the ottoman in the middle of the room (yes, room for wardrobe because what do you expect? Said wardrobe to be a piece of literal furniture in the actual bedroom?). He doesn’t even acknowledge me as he starts ripping his clothes from hangers and stuffing them into the bag.
“Digby—”
“What?” He turns to face me, face red, eyebrows furrowed, lips twitching. “Not being fucking funny, Phoebe, but I don’t really want to hear that he can do everything for you that I couldn’t!”
“It isn’t like that!” I shake my head, wipe my tears. “Please, just listen to—”
“Stop it!” He shouts, drops the shirt he was holding. “Just fucking stop it, will you? There is nothing I want to hear from you right now. You and Arthur fucking deserve each other. There’s something there,” he shakes his head, licks his lips. “I don’t know what it is between you two but I doubt God himself could rip you apart. And the most fucked up part about all of this? I love you so much Phoebe that I’m actually relieved that you finally admitted it. Watching you die everyday for years because you couldn’t be with him, fucking killed me—so I’m glad, I’m happy for you,” he finishes with a final sharp nod of his head.
I swallow, well try to but it burns with how hard I’m crying. I don’t feel like I deserve to cry right now. This whole fucking mess of goodbyes and clothes on the floor is all my fault. And I think I must really hate myself for doing this. Why would anyone do this to themselves? What’s happening right now is deeper than any cut I could inflict on myself.
I don’t try to stop him as he brushes past me and into the bathroom where he stuffs more things into his bag. I want to ask where he’s going, if I can come with him but there isn’t any point. He doesn’t want me anymore. And as much as I wanted this relationship to end, watching him walk out of the door without even giving me one final glance, shatters me.
Him leaving doesn’t hurt me. Me making him leave is what hurts. I don’t know why I do this. I don’t know why I make it my life’s mission to ruin every good thing that comes my way. Perhaps I don’t deserve it. Maybe Arthur and I deserve each other because we’re just as bad. Digby wasn’t a bad person when I met him. That angry, impulsive version of him that’s recently surfaced is because of me. I turned him into that and he rightfully hates me for doing so. I didn’t like the fact I was turning him into that, either, or that I was so aware that I was.
I stand in the kitchen for a long while, staring at the door, wishing and willing he’ll come back but he doesn’t. I know he won’t. Just like the leaves in autumn, another one falls off and leaves me shivering and bare.
At the rate people have been leaving me in recent years, you’d think I was a bad person. Am I? A bad person? Am I, really? What’s your idea of a bad person? Me or a serial killer? You can’t really put us in the same category. You probably just hate me because of how much I hate myself and to that I say, please don’t. I hate myself enough for the both of us. At the very least just feel some pity for me as I sit on the cold wood floor by the front door and cry until my eyes have drained all liquid.
∗ ∗ ∗
The sound of my phone ringing is what eventually drags me out of the big black hole I crawled into. I hadn’t realised that I stayed on the kitchen floor, scrunched into myself in hopes thefloor would open up and let me fall further. I push myself up. You can’t fall into the floor. The floor is the lowest you can go.
My phone is buzzing on my bedside table.
I pick it up.
An unknown number, not from England.
“Hello?”
“Phoebe?”
I freeze.
“Freddy?”
“Oh my god,” she cries. “I’m sorry for calling so late, I didn’t realise the time—”
“It’s fine, what’s wrong?”
I don’t move, breathe, think—nothing. I stay stock still in case the phone ends and I don’t hear her voice for another year.
“I’m okay, Phoebe,” she tells me, breathlessly. “But I need to tell you something.”
“Okay,” I nod, my hand shaking.
