Page 111 of The Spark

‘At the end of the day, Jamie was a coward,’ Lara says. ‘And after he died... no doubt his parents wanted everyone to remember him as an angel, not a liar and a cheat. So they never said anything. I mean, that’s how you’ve thought of him all these years, isn’t it? Saint Jamie.’

I don’t reply. The power of speech has left me completely. I still can’t seem to square the idea of it – Jamie being in love with someone else. Sleeping with someone else. Lying to me, every single day for twelve months. Maybe more. And behaving the whole time like he was deeply in love with me.

Slightly dazed, I try to recall how many times Jamie and I were physically intimate during that year. A hundred, maybe? More?

How the hell could I have got it so wrong?

I feel a violent swirl of nausea, bile biting the back of my throat.

‘I swear I’m not saying any of this to hurt you, Neve. But the truth is, I can’t bear to see you chuck away what you have with Ash for the sake of someone who – let’s face it – was not in love with you. Ash is a good guy. If you needed proof that he isn’t Jamie, then this is it. No scientists required. And this is going to sound harsh, but if Jamie was coming back to life for anyone, then... it would be her, and not you.’

These words do a fresh number on my gut. I turn my face away.

‘Let Heather have his ghost,’ Lara whispers.

But how do I explain how mad and impossible that sounds to me, even now, because for the best part of a decade, I have been gripped by loving and grieving and revering the memory of this man? How do I make her see the agonising humiliation of realising I have compared every potential partner to someone who never actually loved me? That I have been worshipping at the altar of a cheat and a liar? How can I possibly convey how horrified I feel to have wasted so much precious time?

‘Were you angry, when he told you?’ My voice sounds low and lifeless now, crushed flat by the weight of our conversation.

Lara nods. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been that angry. In fact, me raging at him would have been one of the last things he—’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ A sob clambers into my mouth. ‘You could have... messaged, or emailed. You could have just let me know, so I wouldn’t have wasted the last decade of my life obsessing about someone who—’

‘I did message, and email. I asked if we could meet, but you never replied.’

I swallow, and look down. This, of course, is true. Besides which, the blame for all this lies only with one person. And it is not Lara.

‘Anyway. I should probably say, I didn’t believe you, when you said you thought Ash was some kind of reincarnation of Jamie. For reasons that I hope are obvious now. But I desperately wanted my best friend back, and I thought if I argued with you, that might not happen.’ She shuffles up straighter, taking my hand with hers. It feels oddly bony in my grip. ‘You have to see that this... This is good information. It means you can finally move on from the past. Because Jamie was, unequivocally, an arsehole.’

The tears start to fall now. ‘It’s not as simple as that. I can’t... ask him why. I can’t get angry, because there’s nowhere for it to go. I just have to accept that he did this. But how can I, when he – what we had – meant everything to me?’

Lara doesn’t reply.

I glance over at her, and realise with surprise that her eyes have fluttered closed. She almost looks as though she’s drifted off to sleep. Christ, she must be exhausted. ‘Hey, are you okay?’ I say, putting a hand on her arm.

She starts. ‘Say again?’

I feel a strange urge to laugh. Disbelief maybe, that Lara – a person who’s always had seemingly boundless energy – could have dropped off as we were talking, in the middle of the day. ‘Are you okay?’

Swallowing, she shifts slightly, nods. ‘Sorry. Yeah. Not sure what happened there.’

She looks strangely vulnerable suddenly, and I remember with a jolt of bitterness how privately grateful I’d felt that I had Jamie, the night a married man nearly hurt her.

‘Anyway, look,’ Lara says, ‘there’s actually another reason I wanted to get this all off my chest. And this... This does feel a bit more complicated.’

Something cold forms a ball in my stomach, and I know straight away that it is fear.

She starts to talk, and incredibly, my world turns even darker than before.

Chapter 47.

‘So, it turns out you were right all along. I’m stupidly stubborn. I left it too late to see a doctor. I convinced myself it was IBS. I spent a fortune on antacids. I refused to even consider the fact it might be cancer. People kept saying it to me, and I just... didn’t listen.’

I can’t look at her face. I stare instead at the heightened outline of her clavicle. She’s thin, so thin. And tired, and entirely without appetite. She looks drained. Every movement is laboured.

How the hell did I miss this?

Because I was too busy thinking about Jamie to notice what was happening right in front of me.

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