Page 88 of We Used To Be Magic

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Please pick up. It’s about Julian.

‘Found it?’ Ezra calls down the hallway– I start, dropping the phone. It hits the edge of the bedframe, clattering on to the floor. I know I should pick it up, but I can’t. I hear Ezra’s footsteps –

‘You okay?’ he asks, appearing in the doorway. I just stare at him – I can barely form a thought right now, let alone a sentence. Maybe I’m asleep. Maybe I haven’t woken up yet, and this is an incredibly vivid stress dream.

‘Audrey?’ he says, moving closer. He sees the phone then – looks at it, at me.

He crouches to pick it up. It alights in his hand like it did in mine, his hair falling across his eyes as he straightens, silently studying the screen.

‘What’s going on?’ I ask, privately marvelling at how calm I sound. I have to stay calm, though, because he can’t knowanything for sure. Whatever he or Marika might think, I never told anyone anything. He can’t.

‘I’m sorry,’ he begins, his voice throaty. ‘I didn’t – I was going to tell you …’

He trails off, looking up at me. He’s so pale, eyes unblinking – I hold his gaze, trying very, very hard to look confused.

‘I – I met someone who told me what kind of a person Julian is,’ he continues stiltedly. ‘And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to upset you. I thought – because of that night, at his apartment—’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I interject. ‘I—’

‘I spoke to Marika,’ Ezra says quietly. ‘She mentioned a photoshoot, at his studio …’

I recoil like I’ve been slapped, my vision blurring – when it clears, all I can see is Ezra’s ashen face, tendons jutting in his neck. I’d think he was angry if it wasn’t for the fact that his eyes have never been softer, spilling over with pity.

I realise then that maybe it doesn’t matter that I never said anything, because he’s seen it. Seen me crying, sick, scared – and then there’s Marika. She saw it too, and she fuckingliveswith me. If they spoke to each other, connecting days and events …

Just like that, my carefully constructed denial unravels.They know. Ezra knows, and no matter how fervently I insist that nothing happened, he won’t believe me.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ezra says again, voice so low that I can barely hear it. ‘I’m so sorry.’

A tear drips down my face, surprising me. I don’t feel sad. I don’t know what I feel right now.

‘It’s probably not as bad …’ I begin, but I don’t finish that sentence because suddenly my face is against Ezra’s chest, his arms around me. He’s holding me so tightly that I could let my legs go out from under me and I’d still be upright, aloft in the embrace. I can feel his heart beating, just as hard as mine.Harder, maybe, and I don’t want him to let go. I’m scared that when he does, all of the feeling will come flooding back in, and right now I’m numb to everything except the warmth of his body, the insistence of it. He knows and he knew and he’s here. Are those facts disparate or is it all connected? I can’t make sense of it in this moment. I don’t know if it matters.

He knows. And so does Marika.

‘I need to find my phone,’ I hear myself say, voice muffled. ‘Marika will be worried.’

Ezra’s arms slacken, and I instantly regret speaking.

‘Okay,’ he says, voice hoarse. ‘Yeah, uh – of course.’

‘It’s important,’ I manage. ‘There’s this journalist – she messaged me and she probably messaged Marika …’

‘A journalist?’

‘Yeah, uh – something to do with Julian.’

‘Right. Uh – which journalist?’ he asks, and I stare at him. It’s a strange question. Stranger still is the look on his face.

‘Just – it was a journalist who told me about Julian,’ he says haltingly. ‘I didn’t know when we first started talking, but – I might have mentioned you …’

His words become distorted, suddenly. He’s still talking and I’m watching his lips move but I can’t comprehend what he’s saying. It’s like all of the blood in my body has flooded to my head – I stagger backwards, and he moves forward in tandem, presumably to steady me.

‘You told a journalist about me?’ I choke out, throwing up my arm to stop him. He blinks at me, brow crumpling.

‘No,’ he says. ‘Not on purpose—’

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