Page 78 of Come Back To Me

“Ann, I got it. I got his address. Now help me decide what to wear.”

She turns to face me, a small smile on her lips. “How do you know he’ll be there?” she asks.

I stop on my way to the bathroom and frown. I guess I don’t. I’ll wait outside if I have to.

“What if that hussy shows up with him, that Peeta?”

“Petra,” I correct her, staring into my suitcase. “I don’t know. I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it.”

“There will be a fight,” Ann decides. “A catfight.”

“Sure,” I shrug, pulling out a dress I brought just for this occasion. “Let’s see if she’s scrappy.”

Ann claps her hands and then returns to her spot. I glance back at her. She’s been in this apartment for thirteen years, she told me so when we first met and she invited me in for tea. Thirteen years of never leaving this one small place. I close the bathroom door and rip out my hairband, letting my hair fall free. I have one shot. I’m going to use all my weapons.

When the Uber pulls up to David’s houseboat, I am trembling.

“Bloody hell,” I say as I climb out of the car.

He used to say he wanted to buy a houseboat one day, but people say things like that all the time. I tell people that I want to live in a tree house, for fuck’s sake, that doesn’t mean I’ll live in a tree house. There are dozens of them, their front yards a long, narrow dock, their backyards the blue/green expanse of Lake Union.

I look at the address on my phone, the one Ferdinand texted to me and I trace it to a grey houseboat with white shutters. It’s not very large or extravagant. Pink bougainvillea climb around the front door in a stunning arc. The door itself is bright yellow with a music note as a knocker. I step forward, off the dock and onto the walkway. Next to the welcome mat are two pairs of flip-flops sitting side by side: one a man’s, one a woman’s. It makes me sick to look at them, to know that neither of them is mine.

“Petra,” I say, under my breath.

Dodgy bitch and her stupid flip-flops. I never thought about her in my rush to get here, that she’d actually be living with him—though it makes sense, doesn’t it? I breathe deeply and step forward to knock on the door. I knock hard, three times, and then I step back, preparing myself for whatever is about to happen.

I see someone move across the rectangular windows that frame the door, a flash of white. I steel myself as I hear the bolt slide open. Silver hair, lavender lips.

“Petra,” I say.

She looks startled. Of course—I’m supposed to be in France. She grips the door with one hand and stares at me.

“Where’s my husband?”

“Fuck you, Yara.”

She’s about to close the door in my face, but I stick my foot in the gap so she can’t close it. She’s flustered as I try to peer past her into the house. Most of the lights are off, but I can hear the sound of a TV. If David were here surely he’d have come to the door.

“Where is he?”

“If you don’t go I’ll call the police,” she says.

I laugh. “What will you tell them? That David’s wife is harassing his whore?”

Red is not a good color on Petra—it clashes with her makeup. I watch as her face turns an ugly beet color and panic rises in her eyes.

“You’re crazy,” she says. “You won’t give him a divorce and now you’re stalking him.”

“He’s never asked me for a divorce, Petra.”

She blinks at me, unsure. I can see the uncertainty on her face.

“You left him,” she says.

“Yes, I did.”

“You never deserved him,” she adds.

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