He said something to me that made me think of one of the DMs I sent Maddy last week. Something about the colour of the vodka glasses and me wearing his favourite dress. I was really spooked. And annoyed. I asked him how he knew that stuff when he wasn’t there and he just said he knew the bar, that’s all. And we were always drinking vodka. And that it was a lucky guess I’d wear that dress.
I pretended to let it go. I suppose it was just possible that he was telling the truth.
But then I deliberately sent a photo to Maddy of us with a bunch of people from our course – including some fit guys – and sure enough Alex was in a foul mood the next time I saw him. Grilling me about who I’d been out with and who else was there from the course, name-dropping some of the people in the picture. He had to have seen the photo.
Which means he must have got into my Facebook account and read my DMs. Argh. Hacked the page? Or worked out the password （to be honest it wasn’t that safe）。
So yesterday I changed all my passwords （most of them were the same one, I’m hopeless at this stuff） and I told him I’d done this as I was worried someone had hacked my account and was looking at my direct messages.
Well. He went mental! I thought he’d be embarrassed and even a bit ashamed （as it’s obvious it was him） but I never dreamt he would lose it like that . . . I tried to calm him down. A part of me felt guilty that I’d provoked him, like he’s always saying. I mean, I did send the group shot deliberately. But it turned into this massive fight about trust and him loving me so much more than I love him; him wanting to keep me safe. The hairs were literally standing up on the back of my neck because it all felt so wrong. So weird.
Then he started crying – properly sobbing. And I didn’t know what to feel. I tried to leave but he said we needed to talk it through some more and work it out. He was still crying and he sort of grabbed my arm, not to hurt me, I know that, but just to stop me leaving. Anyway. I had to wrench it away.
Oh. My. Word. The look in his eyes. It was scary.
So that’s why I’m babbling here. Because he’s supposed to be coming with me next weekend to visit Mum and Dad again. We’ve got an expensive fancy afternoon tea booked as an early celebration for my birthday. And I don’t know what to do.
He’s been bombarding me with texts today, apologising. Sending me pictures of us all loved up etc. He keeps saying that all couples argue, which I suppose is true （though I told him before that my parents aren’t like that）。 And that getting past this will make us stronger . . .
I keep thinking about films and soaps, and rerunning TV dramas in my head. Is it normal to fight as badly as this? Can you get past stuff this bad? Do I expect too much? Is he right that I over-think everything?
And the thing is I am always boring everyone about how great he is. The perfect boyfriend. And yet suddenly I don’t know what I think of him at all – and what does that say about me? About my judgement?
So do I cancel the visit home? Do I confide in Mum after all?
The problem is, she really hates any kind of argument. I don’t exactly know why. Gran said some difficult stuff happened when she was a kid but I don’t know the details. So if I tell her about this, she’ll probably worry herself sick. She was the one in the early days telling me I was way too young to be thinking about a serious relationship. I was the one trying to convince her how fab and special Alex is and how ‘serious’ we are. Argh.
It’s all unravelling so quickly that I haven’t even told Maddy yet.
I don’t even know what to think.
I just . . . don’t . . . know.
CHAPTER 8
THE FATHER – NOW
Ed closes the front door behind him and hangs his waterproof jacket on one of the hooks on the wall. He throws his keys into the little wooden bowl on the narrow side table and listens to the familiar jangle as they settle.
Next, he stands perfectly still in the hallway, taking in the silence. Not so long ago, he would have rejoiced to come home to this. An empty house. The rare treat of the place to himself. He would have made a large pot of coffee and taken it into the conservatory with Radio 4 on his phone, piped through the speaker on the shelf. He would have luxuriated in doing precisely what he wanted with no jobs allocated by Rachel and no pleas from Gemma to help with her new CV, which in recent weeks she has been changing almost daily.
He’s walked through this front door a million times and thrown his keys into that same carved wooden bowl a million times and yet it is as if he doesn’t recognise the place. The bowl. The hall.