The letter sat on the table between us, and I could see the guilt written all over Dave’s face before he even said a word. “You can keep the money, it’s fine,” I said, my voice shaking, “but you were going to leave and not tell us. ”
He tried to brush it off. “Right, she got bored, she moved on, it’s not that deep.
”
But I knew him better than that. “Yeah, I am, because I know you and I know when you’re bare-faced lying to my face. ”
The others piled on. Sally was miffed because she had no one to slow dance with at the wedding.
I reminded them all that Dave had left years ago and it messed me up badly, but he never did anything wrong. At least, that’s what I used to believe. “You’re the only one that’s properly accepted me, you know,” Dave said quietly. “But you’re still going to go, so what was the point?
”
I felt the anger rising. “You’re not my family. You only care about yourself. ”
Then everything went sideways.
This woman showed up—some stranger—and she started accusing Dave of something. “I do not know who Jodie Ramsey is,” Dave said, his voice tight. “So you need to do one before I scream this street down. ”
She wasn’t backing down.
“No, we don’t know any Jodie, okay? So you just need to leave us alone. ”
But she was relentless. “It’s me you’re after,” Dave said finally.
“No, it’s not. They’re after me. It’s not her. ”
I pulled him inside, my mind spinning.
Something about a USB stick, something about gangsters. Dave admitted he brought all of it to our door and didn’t deserve my sympathy. But when I pressed him for the truth, he broke down. “At home, no more lies,” he said.
“She really wanted me to stay. ”
I told him I wanted him to stay too. That we could move on. I even said I’d go with him to see Shona, but he insisted on staying behind.
“I’ll stay here and unpack if you’re sure about me staying. ”
Then things got weird. He started talking about kissing someone, about thinking they were someone else. “You saw me lying there and you thought you were kissing—” he started, and I froze.
“No, no, no, no, no. That is not what happened. ”
But it was too late. The truth was spilling out, and I couldn’t stop it.
He kissed me, thinking I was Shona. And now Shona had to know. “You can’t follow someone else’s body,” I told him. “Shona wants me to stay.
Well, she won’t after this. ”
He looked at me with something like desperation. “Tell her that you kissed me. And tell her that you said I smelt like a sexy sweet shop.
”
I laughed, but it was hollow. “Right, no, only because I thought she was Shona. ”
“She’s not going to want you anywhere near her,” he said. And then he said the words that stopped me cold.
“YOU CAN’T GO ON LIKE THIS ALL YOUR LIFE. ”
I wanted to argue, but the truth was there, ugly and undeniable. No one cares if you live or die. He said it like it was a fact I already knew, like he was just confirming what I’d been telling myself for years.
Maybe he was right. Maybe I’d been hiding from it all along. But I wasn’t about to let him off that easy.
Not after everything he’d done.
