I swallow and shake my head. “No, Dad. He didn’t tell me a thing.”
Chapter Seventeen
Frederic
Giselle, I can’t talk.
A text comes back in under a minute. Can you breathe? Does it feel like your airways are obstructed?
Angrily, I punch in a response. I can’t fucking talk and I can’t fucking sing. I might as well not be fucking breathing.
The reply takes longer this time. I thought this might happen. I tried to make you understand.
I throw the phone down on the car seat and press the heels of my hands against my eye sockets. Fuck fuck fuck. The cast. The director. The people who bought tickets. I’ve let so many people down. What’s going to happen to the show now? Will the understudy take over? It depends on whether I’ve tainted things so much that everyone returns their tickets. There’s meant to be a three-month run, work for all the actors and crew who signed on and were relying on the show to pay mortgages, educate their children. It can’t just be over for them. There must be a way I can—
I snatch my phone up again, hope flaring within me. There must be vocal exercises that can fix this. We can delay a week, maybe a fortnight, while my voice recovers.
It’s too late. I’m sorry.
Anger and disbelief slam through me. Fuck sorry. You’re giving up on me?
Several minutes pass and the cab pulls up outside my address. I pay the driver and get out. As I’m letting myself in the front door of my flat my phone buzzes.
I told you you were doing too much but you wouldn’t listen. You’re pigheaded and egotistical and wouldn’t take my advice or tell anyone else about your problems. You wouldn’t give anyone else the chance to tell you how stupid you were being so you can just keep your fuck sorries to yourself.
I glare at my phone, breathing hard, wanting to scream, wanting to punch my hand through the plaster in the hall. It can’t be over. I’m not ready for it to be over. I was supposed to have till the end of January and go out with dignity after a successful run. Not like this. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
A text message comes through, in English this time. It’s from Evie. Merde. She must be beside herself with worry, wondering what the hell has happened. I open the text and read, Why didn’t you tell me?
So she knows. Behind the cold pixels I can feel her hurt and disbelief. I had a thousand opportunities to tell her but every time I found an excuse not to, and now it’s too late. What can I say to try to make her understand I had a good reason for keeping this from her? I had a good reason, didn’t I?
But here, out past the limits of the world I thought I inhabited,
I can’t find a single good reason.
Just tell her something. She deserves an explanation.
My fingers hover over the keys to compose a reply. Sweet Evie, who I’ve been closer to than anyone since I got the diagnosis. Why didn’t I tell her?
You wouldn’t give anyone else the chance to tell you how stupid you were being.
Giselle’s right. I couldn’t face the thought of anyone holding up a mirror to my denial. I told myself that it was because I feared the flash of gladness in her eyes like I saw in Marion’s, but Evie would never have been glad that I could no longer sing. She’s shown me nothing but affection and sensitivity the whole time I’ve known her, and I’ve betrayed the trust she put in me.
Everything’s ruined, my career, the show, the short time I had with Evie, and it’s all because of my stupid fucking pride. I hurl my phone across the room and it hits the wall with a bang and clatters to the ground in the darkness.
I’ve never felt more alone in my life.
Chapter Eighteen
Evie
Read 20:29.
The read receipt mocks me well into the small hours. He hasn’t even deigned to reply to me. No sorry. No where are you. No let me explain. Nothing. And in the silence I can’t help but feel that nothing is telling: I was nothing to him. Fury and hurt boils through me and I grip the sheets in my fists, staring at the hotel room ceiling. For the first time in our relationship I feel the imbalance between us: him older, successful, experienced; and me, naïve, young and impressionable; and how foolish I was to believe him when he told me we were equals. My stomach rolls when I remember how I let him treat me. Little baby. I want to hit you. I want you to obey me.
How could he? I knew he could be sadistic, but cruel? No matter how deep we got into pain and domination I always felt like he was keeping me safe as he stripped me bare and laid me vulnerable. That was the only reason I let him do those things.
I squeeze my eyes shut, humiliation sweeping through me. I didn’t really let him treat me that way, did I? I wanted him to. The familiar, thick shame, my old friend from my breakup with Adam, returns. What’s wrong with me?