Page 66 of The Spark

His head is in his hands now. ‘This felt real to me, Neve.’

‘It was. It is. I—’

‘But it turns out I’m just second-best to your ex.’

‘No,’ I insist again.

‘Okay. So if Jamie walked back in here right now, what would you do?’

I swallow, hard. My voice can hardly make it up for air. ‘That’s not fair,’ I whisper.

‘Maybe not. But the fact the answer doesn’t come easily tells me everything I need to know.’

‘Ash—’

‘We should call it a night,’ he says coolly, clearing his throat. ‘I need some breathing space.’ He gets to his feet, picks the bowls off the floor, then heads over to the sink, like he doesn’t even want to be near me any more.

My whole body becomes a silent scream. Just tell him – tell him what you believe! It could change everything! But somehow my brain won’t co-operate and free the words from my mouth.

‘Okay,’ I say eventually. ‘I’ll call a cab.’

He nods then disappears towards the bedroom. I book a cab, then gather my things and wait mutely on the sofa. After a while, it becomes clear he won’t be coming out to see me off.

Frustration loops through me, a murky cycle of recrimination. We’ve had the perfect couple of months, but now everything is a mess. And I have no idea how to fix it. If I even can.

Chapter 29.

Then

‘Where would you like to go most in the world?’ Jamie asked me one night, after getting off the phone to his dad. It was the January of our second year at uni. Chris had just booked a cruise, fourteen days in the Caribbean with Debra and her mother. He’d invited Jamie too, but Jamie had had to remind him it would be his final year of undergraduate study that winter, that he couldn’t possibly take two weeks off to lie on a pool deck and drink piña coladas in thirty-degree heat. It amused me, overhearing him making the trip of a lifetime sound frivolous, like something he couldn’t possibly spare the time to indulge. I knew his dad would have hated that.

I lay back against Jamie’s chest, enjoying feeling secure in his arms. We were in bed, listening to Ellie Goulding. His hair was damp from the shower, the linger of mint bodywash still on his skin.

I felt so loved, in that moment. Cared for. Safe.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, in answer to his question.

‘Well, where’s your favourite place you’ve been?’

‘I quite liked Devon.’

He nudged me playfully. ‘I meant abroad.’

‘I’ve never been abroad.’

Next to me, I felt him draw away. ‘Shut up.’

‘You know this. When have I ever been abroad?’

A couple of moments passed. ‘Oh,’ he said slowly. ‘Right. Okay.’

I shrugged. ‘Anyway, I don’t have a passport.’

‘You don’t have a passport,’ he repeated, like I’d just confessed I couldn’t read, or didn’t have a legal name.

‘Nope,’ I said, bristling defensively, trying not to think about what his father would say, if he knew. You need to be with a girl who’s well-travelled, Jamie. How can someone have a broad perspective on life if they’ve never even left England?

The more I’d come to know about Jamie’s dad, the more I wanted to avoid him. I’d started to have doubts about exactly the type of man he was. Was he, for example, one of those dads who delighted in doing slightly perverse, alarm-bell things like taking his son to strip clubs, or setting him up with the daughters of family friends? I imagined him grilling Jamie about me, probably in one of those pubs with stags’ heads all over the walls, demanding to know – again – why he’d insisted on committing so young.

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