Page 35 of You Belong With Me

Lillian warned you how bad the photos were, didn’t she? That’s why you called to get me onside? But you were playing for time to see just how bad they were before you admitted to it? Were there other things that they didn’t get a photo of?

Elliot

She said the reporter said we looked ‘cosy’ and that it was a ‘strong story’ from their point of view. She also told me, if I didn’t want them to write a story like that, I’d not been very smart.

Edie

Why not pass that on? Why leave me to see it without that warning?

Elliot

Because I thought it was sadistically winding you up before either of us had seen it. Reporters say all kinds of things to goad you into admissions, plus add the fact I’d been drinking and could only vaguely recall she had her arm round me at one point. She was exactly the same with the director, but because he’s 60, they didn’t make anything of that.

Edie

Let’s be grown-ups and call it what it was, shall we? You were flirting. Hard flirting with the woman you’d got a pass from me to have make-believe sex with. And you got caught. Now you want me to react by instantly agreeing you can’t possibly be a cheater. Go to hell, Elliot.

Elliot

I swear I wasn’t doing anything as proactive as flirting. I was being unassertive in not shrugging her off. I was drunk and tired, and actresses (and actors) are often quite mad – it’s easier to go along with it when you’ve got to work with someone in long days.

Edie had no more to say. She wasn’t fully sure what she thought or what she believed. After a few minutes of consideration, she turned her phone off completely. Elliot might notice his messages weren’t getting ticked as received. Let him sweat.

It wasn’t only about punishment and revenge; she didn’t want to say things she’d regret.

Edie walked back indoors and through to the sitting room, where Hannah and Nick were shaking dice for Yahtzee.

‘I need to get totally obliterated fucking drunk,’ Edie said.

Hours later and once in bed, knowing she was in no fit state to absorb its revelations but unable to resist, Edie held her phone power button until the Apple icon appeared and the handset rippled back to life.

Within seconds, Elliot’s name sprang to the centre of the screen – along with a horde of Instagram nosy enquiries, linking to the article, many no doubt awash with schadenfreude that she’d had a taste of her own medicine.

He’d said the Christmas night photo was fine, and it had led here.Thanks for the humiliation.

She expected to find multiple messages from Elliot, and possibly mounting frustration or even criticism at realising she’d cut him dead, but there was only one.

Edie, I cannot fucking bear having hurt you like this, and I absolutely despise myself for my stupidity. If you want me to walk away from this job, I will. All I care about is you. I haven’t been unfaithful – I wouldn’t so much as think about it. There’sno room left in me for anyone except you. I know that’s just words right now, and I can’t make it better. I love you. X

He was good at forceful declarations, and it had an effect on her. Yet he was right: it didn’t mend it. Edie went to sleep in tears, pissed tears of complicated remorse.

She didn’t, these hours later and having calmed down, think they were involved. It was too fast, and it wasn’t the person she knew.

But she couldn’t set it all aside as irrelevant, either.

Edie kept thinking about how remarkable Elliot and Ines looked together, howright. How much everyone would desperately root for them to be in love for real. She felt like she was defying the forces of gravity by trying to build something lasting with him.

18

Nick and Hannah quickly closed the clacky cover on the iPad, sipped coffee and performatively discussed the weather when Edie entered the dining room. She was hot-showered and carefully pieced back together, full make-up. She was glad that she wasn’t home alone and had to be presentable. Wallowing wouldn’t help her self-esteem.

‘I know what you’re reading, you shits,’ Edie said cheerfully.

‘How are you feeling?’ Hannah asked.

‘A bit numb and stupid and hungover and like last night was a bad dream,’ Edie said honestly. She’d replied to Elliot, and curiously, her message hadn’t registered as delivered, making her think he had turned his phone off, too.

Morning. Sorry I had to stop then because I wasn’t in a good state or capable of saying things that I’d want to stand by. I appreciate you saying sorry, and I don’t think you’ve cheated, but I remain pretty hurt. I will let you know when I feel up to talking. E x

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