Page 71 of The Love Hack

‘Ro— A colleague. He lives really close by so it’s so bother for him.’

‘Are you sure he works in online journalism and isn’t actually a fully qualified vet?’ Amelie teased. ‘You must really rate the guy to trust him with your cat. But anyway, how’s work going? How’s being Adam? Do you know absolutely everything about the male psyche now?’

Here it was – the opening I’d been searching for. I needed to take it, right now, otherwise my sister and I would still me making chitchat about bed linen and cat-sitters in half an hour, and I wouldn’t have told her what was going on or found out what was wrong with her.

‘So here’s the thing, Am,’ I took a big gulp of water. ‘The Adam column’s been going really well. I’ve discovered this amazing hack, which I’ll tell you all about some other time. But Adam got – I got – an email last week that was kind of different from all the others.’

‘Different how? Did it say, “I’ve realised I’ve been a dick to women all my life and that’s why I can’t sustain a satisfying and meaningful relationship. Tell me how to be better.”?’

I laughed. ‘Nope, haven’t had that one yet. But it was weird, and I think you’ll get why I thought so. Hold on, I’m going to read it to you.’

Amelie watched, her face curious but unconcerned, as I rummaged in my bag for my phone and then rummaged through my phone until I found the letter from Adam’s anonymous correspondent and started reading it aloud.

When I got to the bit about Porsche, a little smile flickered on her face – That’s the same car as Zack’s got. Then the smile disappeared at the mention of moving to a city his wife didn’t know well, and was replaced by a frown when I read the words ‘putting in the hours’. When I reached the bit about the wife being clingy and needy, Amelie had started gnawing her cuticle again, so I stopped reading.

She tilted her had like she was waiting for me to go on, then when I didn’t, she said slowly, ‘So let me get this straight. You had a letter from a guy who sounded a bit like Zack, and he thinks his marriage might might be going tits up, so you came out here to tell me I need to get my shit together or Zack’s going to get fed up with me?’

’No!’ I was appalled at how badly how she’d misunderstood – how badly I’d handled things so far. ‘It’s not that. It’s… The thing is, Am – and I don’t want to read you the next bit so please don’t make me – he goes on to say he’s back in touch with an ex-girlfriend at work and he thinks he might still have feelings for her, and I really didn’t want that to happen to you.’

Her face had gone all still now. ‘So you came out here to tell me to get my shit together or Zack’ll fuck another woman?’

‘Amelie, no. Honestly. I… By the time I’d finished reading that, I was about ninety nine per cent sure that the guy writing the letter was Zack. And I was really really worried. Not that you were doing anything wrong, because you’re not, but that he was – or was about to. So I – I mean, the advice Adam gave was to support you, so here I am. And also to find out whether my suspicions about what he was getting up to were correct or not, and I thought that the best way to do that was to come over and see, you, yeah, you know, here I am.’

‘I see.’ I saw, too – I saw that this wasn’t landing a bit well. I wished I knew how to backtrack and explain properly, but I didn’t. ‘So you thought you’d come and ask me if I think my husband’s having an affair?’

’No, I—’ Don’t mention the bloody sleuthing, Lucy. Not now. ‘Well, do you, Am? I mean, if you think about what that guy wrote to Adam, does that sound to you like something Zack might write?’

Her face was still all stony and her voice was cold. She didn’t even look – or sound – like my sister at that point. ‘Zack has many colleagues he works closely with. Some of them he’s worked closely with in the past. He’s probably dated at least one of them. So circumstantially, if you wanted to make the fact fit your pet theory, you probably could.’

I really, really wished I could turn this around – or, even better, turn around myself, walk out of the door and go downstairs and press the buzzer and try again from the beginning.

As gently as I could, I said, ‘Am, I’m so sorry. I’m messing this up. I love you. I came here because I love you and I was worried about you. And now I know I was right to worry. It’s not just about Zack – what he is or isn’t doing. It’s about you. You seem sad. You said you were homesick. You’ve lost weight. If there’s something wrong, please talk to me. Forget about Adam. I’m your sister and I’ll do absolutely anything to make you feel better.’

At last, the rigid mask that Amelie’s face had become seemed to crack, then dissolve. She made a sound that started out as a croak and turned into a wail and then buried her head in her hands and burst into tears. I scooted across the sofa and hugged her tight, stroking her back and shushing her until the first flood of sobs started to ease off, and then I dashed into the bathroom and brought back a fancy gold-foiled cube of tissues and put them on the sofa between us, and held one of her hands while she mopped her eyes with the other.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. ‘Please tell me. Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.’

Amelie looked at me, her eyes all red and damp and her mouth turned down like the sad face emoji. ‘I’m having a baby.’

My heart soared and then immediately plummeted again. This was the best news – but it had come at the worst possible time.

‘Am! You’re pregnant! No way! I mean, that’s… you do want to be, right? You’ve always wanted babies.’

‘I do,’ she said. ‘Like, yeah, I’ve always wanted kids. But maybe not right now. Not here. God, Luce, I’ve been so fucking sick you wouldn’t believe. I’ve been puking twenty four-seven. That’s why I’ve hardly left the apartment. And I’ve been so lonely. And I haven’t told Zack yet because I wanted telling him to be a happy thing, and right now I feel so awful I don’t know if I even want to keep it. I mean, if I feel as sick as this, does it mean there’s something wrong?’

‘Of course it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong! I’m not a fricking midwife, but come on. Look at the Princess of Wales – sick as a dog all through her pregnancies and her kids are fine. Have you seen anyone?’

She shook her head. ‘Our health insurance is through Zack’s work and I haven’t got the details and I didn’t want to ask him because – you know.’

‘But you were being sick the whole time! Surely he’d want you to see a doctor? In case you’d picked up some rare tropical disease on honeymoon or something.’

‘I’m not so bad when he’s here. It’s in the mornings mostly and he’s already left for work. And the afternoons, if I’m honest. And by the time he gets in at night, like I said, I’m in bed already. That’s the only time it stops. So he knows I haven’t been well but he doesn’t know it’s been this bad.’

‘Do you know how far along you are?’

‘I think it must’ve happened on honeymoon, so what – three months? I wanted to tell him properly, with like balloons or something, and make it all special. But how could I do that, when I’m feeling so vile and wishing it wasn’t happening?’

Shit. Shit shit shit. How on earth, knowing this, could I tell her the full extent of what I knew about Zack?

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