Page 94 of The Last Saturday In July
Adam barely looked at her when he spoke again. ‘You have five days to this wedding; you need to focus on that.’
He left without another word, and Jess sank weakly into her chair. Sugar was supposed to be good for shock, she remembered. She found a KitKat in her desk and tore off the top, but after a single bite felt too sick to eat. She couldn’t put off the inevitable: she needed to talk to Kate.
She eventually found Kate in the loos near Accounts. She was leaning against the wall, hands braced behind her, eyes tightly closed.
‘Kate?’ Jess spoke quietly.
Kate’s eyes snapped open. ‘Stay away from me.’
‘Please, Kate, let me explain.’
Kate’s eyes glittered. ‘Explain what? That you’ve been screwing around behind Simon’s back? I got that.’
Jess swallowed hard. ‘It happened once, that night on the Isle of Man, when I was drunk.’
Kate took a step towards her. ‘Is that supposed to be an excuse?’
‘No, if I could change ...’
‘Does Simon know?’
Jess shook her head.
Kate looked at Jess like she was a stranger. ‘I can’t believe you’d do something like that, hurt someone you love. It isn’t you.’ She gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘But I guess it is.’
Jess felt a fresh wave of nausea. ‘You’ve no idea how guilty I’ve felt since that night.’
‘Not guilty enough to tell Simon and beg his forgiveness.’ Kate was trembling. ‘Because you’re too ashamed to be with a man who loves you, and who would never do that to you? Or because you’ve realised you don’t love him?’
Jess folded her arms, pushing them hard into her stomach. ‘Stop judging me. Look, I didn’t even want to tell you because I knew it’d be like this. I didn’t want you caught in the middle, as you always seem to be.’ She stopped, wishing she could find the right thing to say. ‘Just try to understand.’
Kate’s dark-brown eyes were full of hurt and disgust. ‘I get it, Jess, more than you think. But here’s where you and I are different. Just because I really want to do something, doesn’t mean I do it. Sometimes things are just wrong. It’s not that hard to figure out.’ Without another word, she walked out.
Jess sagged against the nearest washbasin. If things had been bad on Saturday, this was a hundred times worse.
But she also knew that no matter how angry Kate was, she wouldn’t say anything to Simon. It was up to her to come clean with him.
She thought about her mother, who’d poured so much time and energy into the wedding. And Úna? No, she couldn’t worry about Úna right now. In the last three years, she’d been stupid enough to thinkher life was sorted. Until that hen weekend, she and Simon had been happy. Not ecstatically happy, but who was constantly, ecstatically happy? Now she didn’t know where she stood. Simon hadn’t made a single move to get her back, Kate hated her, and the half of her family who weren’t worried about her, weren’t talking to her.
Her stomach gave one final heave and she dived into a cubicle to throw up. Grateful there was nobody else in the bathroom, she rinsed out her mouth at the washbasin, and stared bleakly into the mirror. The woman who stared back was unrecognisable. And it went way beyond her dishevelled hair and ruined make-up. It was official: her life was a total mess.
Chapter 37
‘WHY are you home in the middle of the day?’ Zoe looked up from her laptop at the dining-room table as Jess collapsed into the chair beside her an hour and a half later.
Jess rested her head in her hands. ‘I wasn’t feeling well.’
‘Oh solid, share your germs.’
‘It’s just stress.’ After she’d thrown up, Jess had struggled through for another while, unable to stop replaying the awful scenes with Adam and Kate. By then, she’d developed the worst headache since her hen-weekend hangover and was now dosed up on the strongest painkillers she could get without a prescription. ‘What about you?’
‘Day off.’ Zoe pushed her chair away from the table. ‘Actually, I have some news, but you need to keep an open mind.’
Grateful for the distraction, Jess took her hands away from her face and sat up a bit straighter. ‘I’m listening.’
Zoe caught back her hair, knotting it loosely on top of her head. ‘Finn’s been offered a job in Limerick city, teaching modern dance and performance art at a theatre school.’
Jess blinked. ‘That sounds great.’
