Page 74 of The Night Before Christmas
They waited. Felicity silently counted the seconds, one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, wondering whether the little dog would eventually run out of steam. He didn’t. As if on cue, Felix joined in. Then the bulldogs. Then suddenly, the whole room was at it.
‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’ shouted Adam over the din.
Felicity looked at him for a long moment and felt a new affinity with Freddy. A better judge of character than she was, clearly.
‘Sure.’ She shrugged, carefully navigating the narrow space between Adam on one side and cages full of yapping dogs on the other, and leading the former out into the corridor, trying to calm the dogs down as she did so. The noise was astonishing. She got a waft of Adam’s expensive aftershave as she passed him, which she tried to ignore. ‘But you’ve got five minutes. That’s it.’
The door shut behind them and one by one the dogs quietened down. Mission accomplished. Every so often they could still hear Freddy giving a warning growl as if to prevent a recurrence.
‘Woah, that little dog is really aggressive,’ said Adam, clearly a bit shaken… or had he looked like that when he arrived?
‘He’s been through a lot,’ said Felicity. ‘Who can blame him for being a bit edgy? But I think we’re slowly coming to an understanding, the two of us.’
Adam nodded and crossed his arms like he was feeling a sudden chill.
‘So. Five minutes. Go,’ said Felicity.
‘Right, yes,’ said Adam and then paused.
‘Go on then.’
‘It’s not that easy.’
‘Try.’
‘Okay, fine. Erm.’
What is this?
‘Okay. Look. I came to say I’m sorry, Fliss.’
‘I think we’ve been over this.’
‘I mean it, Felicity. Even now, even these last few weeks, I’ve treated you so badly and I just, I need to tell you I’m sorry. I need you to hear me.’
‘And when were you going to tell me you’d slept with Bex. What the hell, Adam?’
He took a step backwards, his cheeks pink. ‘Oh God. She told you. Look. It never meant anything. She means nothing. You’ve always been the love of my life, you know that.’
There was a pause. Adam seemed to be expecting her to say something. Did he actually have tears in his eyes? The phone rang in the office and Felicity could hear Andrea picking up the receiver, then talking more quietly than usual. She wondered vaguely who it was.
Am I on some kind of hidden camera show? Is that them calling to give me my prize and have a good laugh at my expense?
She’d felt sorry for Adam for a second or two, but it was fleeting. Then she realised, perhaps for the first time in her life, she felt sorry for herself. He opened his mouth to say something more, but she cut him off sharply.
‘I’m sorry too, Adam. I’m sorry I gave up on us but more than that, I’m sorry I wasted so much of my time on you in the first place. It feels like you’ve been hurting me in slow motion.’
‘I don’t think that’s entirely–’
She held up a hand and he stopped abruptly. ‘All these years, you’ve controlled me, manipulated me, cheated on me, and even now you won’t let me get on with my life. You don’t ever want me to be happy and for someone who professes to love me, that’s a very strange state of affairs. You left a bloody ring on my doorstep. What the hell was that about?’
She was in full flow now and although she knew she sounded caustic, she didn’t feel inclined to stop.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever forget what you did, but I’m damned if I’m going to let it rule my life any longer. So, I forgive you, if that’s what you wanted to hear. Will that satisfy you? I forgive you and also I’m not going to be the person who saves you from being alone. Or from your own stupid mistakes. In fact, I never want to see you again.’
As she spoke those final words, Adam dropped to the floor suddenly and with an almighty thump. It happened in a split second, and it was so shocking that Felicity let out a little scream. His eyes were wide open, and he had ended up sitting very upright, leaning against the rabbit enclosure, posed at rather an unnatural angle. Felicity ran towards him, hysterically shouting for Andrea to call an ambulance, convinced he’d somehow dropped dead in that instant, already running through what would happen if she’d killed him with her words.
‘Adam? Adam! I’m so sorry! Adam, please be okay!’
