Page 91 of The Love Hack

‘Baby?’ Ross said. ‘You mean you’re…?’

I realised that, amid all the drama with Ross telling me about his father, and Greg’s call, and then he and I spending the night together, it hadn’t crossed my mind to tell him this vital piece of news about Amelie.

‘I wasn’t sure if you’d want everyone to know,’ I said.

‘Mum and Dad don’t.’ Amelie smiled. ‘I reckoned when I turn up unannounced at their front door and say I need my old room back for the foreseeable, it might soften the blow a bit if I tell them I’ve got their first grandchild on board.’

‘Don’t be mad,’ I said. ‘They’ll be thrilled to have you. And when they find out about the baby – oh my God.’

Amelie’s face changed. Until that moment, she’d been all poise and bravado; now, her brow furrowed and her lower lip trembled a bit.

‘I just feel so stupid,’ she said. ‘After the wedding and everything. I mean, Zack paid for most of it but Mum and Dad paid loads. And it was all so perfect – all the time she spent on the phone to the bloody florist and having sleepless nights over the cake and shit. All for nothing.’

‘Am, that’s just the whatchamacallit. Sunk cost thing. Fallacy. All that time and money’s spent regardless – no one would want you to stay with Zack and be unhappy just to get their money’s worth out of the stupid flowers.’

‘I know you’re right,’ she said. ‘’But there’s so much else. All the wedding presents. We didn’t even want most of them but Mum and Dad’s friends all wanted to buy something so we had that register thing and now we’ve got three toasters we don’t even need. I’m knocking the carbs on the head as soon as this baby’s born. I could barely do up this dress earlier and it used to fit.’

‘You’re pregnant. Newsflash – pregnant people put on weight. And you can give the toasters to a food bank or sell them on Facebook or something. It’s still not a reason to stay.’

‘I know,’ she said again. ‘Seriously. I went through all that. After you left – and by the way, I was utterly shitty and I’m sorry?—‘

‘I was an utter idiot and I’m sorry too?—‘

‘Anyway, I was absolutely certain that I’d stay with him. I went through it all in my head. First I convinced myself that you were wrong – that you’d fucked up somehow. That Zack would never have sent that message to Adam, it was all a mistake, and even if it had been him he wouldn’t have actually done anything. And then I told myself that I’ve been a totally crap wife and I wouldn’t blame him if he had – I could forgive him and we’d move past it, and our marriage would be stronger than ever.’

Given her wedding had only happened a few months before, I reckoned that was a fairly low baseline to set. But of course I wasn’t going to say that.

‘Why did you change your mind?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t. Not at first. Like you saw, my mind was all made up. But then I thought – maybe I should be a bit more like you. A bit more logical. So I did a bit of digging. I’m not proud of it, but I went on the computer he uses when he works from home over weekends. I’ve never even looked at if before – he had no reason to set up a password or anything. And his WhatsApp was right there on the screen, with messages between him and this Brooke.’ She spat the name out like it tasted horrible, which I supposed it did.

‘Oh Am. I’m so sorry you had the see that.’

‘It was vile. I had to go and puke, and I hadn’t puked for two whole days.’

I felt a surge of anger at Zack, for doing this to my sister when she was least able to cope with it. But then, there would never have been a good time, would there?

‘And so I went to confront him. I told him I knew. I didn’t tell him you’d seen him, or about the letter to Adam or anything. I just said I’d felt suspicious so I’d looked at his computer.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘He went off on one at me for snooping.’

‘Of course he bloody did.’

‘And then he tried to deny it, and he got his phone out and tried to delete the chat, but I’d taken screenshots and I showed him. And then he said it was all my fault, because I’d been a disappointment to him as a wife and I didn’t understand the pressure of his job and she did.’

‘What a bastard!’ Ross interjected from next to me. ‘Sorry. It’s none of my business.’

‘You crack on,’ Amelie said, with a watery smile. ‘The more people call him a bastard the better. I need to hear it.’

‘Then what happened?’ I asked, reaching for Ross’s hand and twining my fingers into his.

‘Then I told him about the baby. And he started crying. Luce, it was awful. I ended up apologising to him. And he said he was sorry, and he would end things with her right away, and he just wanted us to be together and be a family.’

‘Oh my God.’ I could imagine Amelie, weakened by his tears and pleas for forgiveness and a misplaced sense of loyalty to a man who’d treated her appallingly, deciding to stay after all.

‘I’d almost decided to stay after all,’ she said, confirming my thoughts. ‘And then he got up to get us a glass of water and I looked at my phone – you know how you do: Russia invades Ukraine, you check your phone. House is burning down, you check your phone.’

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