Page 30 of You Can't Hurt Me

He nodded, grinning. “He really should be careful where he leaves his toothbrush.” He sniggers, delighted, letting the full force of it land.

“His toothbrush,” I echo.

“I looked at it and thought, now, Tony, you’re always up for a new experience. I wonder what it would feel like sticking that where the sun don’t shine?”

“That’s repulsive. He was seriously ill because of you. What the fuck?”

He shrugs. “Revenge. Come on, Anna, don’t act so shocked. You’re a master at that too,” he fires back.

I was still cut up about Dan, butthat? Bile rose in my throat. Growing up, Tony’s appetite for practical jokes was tolerated by my mother as harmless signs of a restless, creative mind. Salt in my coffee, that sort of thing. Often she found these episodes amusing, the price you pay for an imagination, as she used to say to me. But this?

I considered telling Amira when it happened, but something stopped me, watching them so happy together. This was the reason for my initial foreboding, that a point would come when I would be implicated, blamed either for my silence or my honesty. So when I could tell Tony was growing bored with Amira, as I knew he would, I decided to step in to help them both.

Less than a month after my birthday, I invited Tony to a hotel launch in town, introduced him to Agatha, a fashion PR I had met through a recent interview. Her eyes were the palest sea green and the ends of her auburn hair were dip-dyed silvery blue. Tony told her, ever so charmingly, that she looked like a mermaid. Of course she did. That night I left them at the bar alone together, took a cab home early, and one thing led to another. If it wasn’t her, it would have been someone else. I thought Amira had recovered, but clearly not, since here they were. Back together.

None of this is new to me down the years, the infidelities, the restless desire to seek the next conquest—Agatha, Amira, many others after them, the inability to commit. No different to him abandoning the first episode of a new Netflix show.

“Please spare me the details, save it for your newest therapist. You have major issues,” I had replied, maybe a little too lightly.

“Everyone has issues, Anna. You of all people should know that.”

A plume of steam rises as Amira sieves the rice. I help carry small dishes into the sitting room. There’s lemon chicken and grilled halloumi, chickpea stew with crispy onions.

“What a feast, Am,” says Tony, distracted, not really looking at the food at all. I sit down at the table, watch as he examines my desk, as if it’s a crime scene dense in clues. Tony wasn’t thrilled when I told him I’d been hired as a ghostwriter, but he’d tried to be supportive. I can see it’s still an issue for him as he peers at my printer and its in-tray, where the top pages of my book contract lie. I meant to post it back to Priya yesterday. He picks them up and starts to read.

“Uh. Confidential, thank you.” I swoop over to swipe them from his hand.

I notice how Amira’s glances stray to him as he hovers at my desk.

“Does Nate know you took all these?” she asks.

“Of course.” I swallow hard. “He saw me take one of them and was fine about it.” The little white lies come to me more easily these days.

Tony nods, still staring at the photos. “I’m curious, is this normal for a ghostwriter?”

“It’s called research. Immersing yourself in your subject. Writing books demands that,” I say, airily, aware of how pretentious I sound but riffing on it anyway. “You can spin so much around an image. There’s a whole story in just one expression. You know that from your own work, don’t you?”

He looks away, lets out a short contemptuous laugh. “Writing books? That’s pushing it. You don’t even get your name on it.”

I open my mouth.

“What? I only meant you deserve better, Anna. A high-profile figure like him should credit you, at least.”

I redden, angered, only because I’ve had the same thought. “Ghostwriting doesn’t work like that.”

“Doesn’t it?” He lets the question hang as Amira walks over and they study a line of Post-its in yellow and orange that flutter on the wall above my desk. Below them is a small whiteboard on which I’ve felt-tipped two lines annotated with dates and details of their lives, one in green for Nate, the other red for Eva. They rise separately at first, meet and at their peak join together. After that, one dips sharply while the other carries on. It’s a work in progress, still waiting to be fleshed out over the coming weeks. The undulating highs and lows of Eva’s and Nate’s lifelines.

“Come on, it’s not that interesting. You’re studying it like it’s the Rosetta Stone.”

“Poor old red line didn’t stand a chance,” he muses. “Still, getting to decide their fates must be fun.”

“I’m mapping out the facts, not making it up. It’s called a memoir,” I remind him, frowning. “Apparently, they’re based on true life?”

“I wouldn’t bank on it if Dr. Reid’s involved.”

“Don’t believe everything you read in the news.”

“Don’t believe everything he tells you.”

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