Page 21 of Cuckoo

I lunged at her.

I lose it then. Beside me, there’s a tall bar table and some empty glasses left behind by a group. I swipe my arm recklessly over the top of it and a wine glass hurtles towards Noah and his mistress. He pushes her out of the way at the last minute, a scream erupting from her.

‘What the hell!’ someone shouts as the glass shatters against the wall, shards twinkling under the flashing blue lights.

Some of the men who were standing around start towards me, yanking me back and away. ‘That’s enough,’ one of them is saying to me.

‘Don’t manhandle her!’ Sukhi spits, wrenching me out of his grip.

A swarm of people have surrounded Noah and the blonde, a wall of bodies between us.

I don’t wait to be thrown out or to see what will happen next.

I storm out, Sukhi hot on my heels.

I don’t remember the journey home.

I leave her in the taxi and refuse to let her come in with me. I need to be alone. I get into the flat and the first thing I see is the picture on the wall of Noah and me in Barcelona, his arm around me on Las Ramblas, both of us beaming into the lens. I pick it up and hurl it across the room, crying out as I do so. It hits the wall and glass shatters everywhere. I’m thrown back to that moment in the club, directing the wine glass at them both. I’m sobbing in a heap on the floor. I feel Sukhi heave me up and drag me into bed. I hear her saying soothing things that I cannot fully make out or care about. She’s come in anyway, followed me from the taxi. I want to be grateful for this friendship, but all I can think about is Noah; my Noah, kissing that beautiful blonde girl.

His hand around her neck. My hands around her neck.

Chapter Eighteen

When I wake in the morning, the bed is empty again. It shouldn’t shock me, but it still sends a hollow pain through my chest. The memory of Noah kissing that blonde woman last night flashes before me and I bring a hand to my heart because I can almost physically feel it breaking, the pain shooting through to my back.

I wring the bare space on my finger where, just yesterday, a golden band of love sat. It feels horribly empty now, the space gnawing away at my finger bone. I clench my fist shut. I can’t believe he didn’t come home. He choseher.

Staggering to the kitchen, I see that, once again, Sukhi has cleared up my mess, this time placing the photograph of Noah and me in the bin alongside the glass shards from the frame. I physically wince as the Claire smiling at me from the bin morphs into the blonde woman, Noah’s arm wrapped around her instead.

Who is this woman Noah has left me for, and why has he chosen her? I stumble over to the sink and forget a glass, drinking directly from the tap instead, desperate to give my body the bare minimum it needs to function so I can resume my social media investigation. Then I pour myself a coffee, quickly throw back a glass of waterfor my headache, and drag my laptop up to my seat at the table.

He chose her.

The familiar blue branding of Facebook lights up my screen and I ignore the ‘Log in’ button and instead click the green ‘Create new account’ button. When it asks for my name, I type in Emma Smith. A generic name. A name easily forgotten. With trembling fingers, I search Noah’s name and confirm that Sukhi was right. There he is, profile photo grinning and accompanied by the spotty teenage Noah Coors, and the two across the pond. He had blocked my Claire Arundale profile. But Emma Smith can find him, and she clicks onto his page. No new updates since last night. I’d like to think it’s because he’s crying, lost without me, figuring out the best way to get me back and rectify his lies. But then I imagine he and the dimpled blonde from the photograph making passionate love while I lie in my cold bed alone.

My hands clench.

I have an admission to make.

I was a virgin when I met Noah.

Boys had never taken an interest in me at school, and I was too painfully shy ever to approach them myself. I had convinced myself I was not worthy of male attention. The thought of sex, if I’m honest, made me feel sick. It brought up horrible memories from my childhood, of my drunken mother sneaking different men into our home after a night out. I would lie in bed and listen to them moaning and grunting, the mattress protesting through the paper-thin walls.

There was one particularly horrific incident when I wasfifteen years old. Mother had been out for the evening, and for once I hadn’t heard her come back home. She must have crept in at some point after I’d fallen asleep, and she hadn’t been alone. The man she had brought back with her was so drunk that, after a toilet break, he’d stumbled into my room instead of hers, climbing into my bed beside me where he passed out.

The clammy heat from his body had made me so uncomfortable that I’d woken up some time later. I’d frozen in confusion and fear, a large hand holding on to my hip from behind. I remember my heart seemed to stop for a second, before going into overdrive, adrenaline driving me as I turned around and realised that I had awoken to a hairy, naked body beside me, the reeking smell of Jack Daniel’s wafting out of his open mouth. I felt his soft, flaccid cock pressing against my back.

I tried to scream, but it came out a strange, strangled sound; half-gasp, half-whimper. I scrambled away from him so quickly I fell out of bed. I landed hard and bruised my tailbone but continued crawling away from the bed until I was against the wall. I kept trying to scream but it came out in a wild, breathy croak. He awoke with a start, looking over at me in confusion.

‘What the—’

‘Get out!’ I gasped, chest tight with panic.

He sat up groggily, blinking into the darkness and rubbing the back of his head.

My heart was thumping in my chest, adrenaline causing my legs to shake.

The commotion must have woken Mother because sherushed to my bedroom door in record time. I looked at her, terrified, desperate for some comfort. Instead, she had taken in the scene: me, clutching my bedtime T-shirt hemline, knees up against my wardrobe door, and him, naked and confused in my bed. She laughed then, throwing her head back as though the entire ordeal was one big joke. He sheepishly joined in after a moment of drunken confusion, while I sat there in silence, trembling. But when he got up and scurried out of my room, covering himself with one of my pillows, she paused before shutting the door. As she looked at me her eyes were hard, and I knew I was in for it.

---