‘Nothing is going on. Okay? Nothing’s happening, everything is fine. And you can’t – you can’t keep doing this, it’s not healthy.’
I pick up the shirt he threw down on the bed and slide it back onto the hanger.
‘Ellie? Are you listening to me?’
‘I’m not one of your students, Michael. Don’t talk to me like I am.’ I swing back around to face him. ‘Or maybe you’d prefer it if I was one of your students.’
‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing …’ I start to walk away, out of the room. I’m done here.
‘No, you don’t get to walk away like that. Jesus … Ellie!’
I stop in the doorway, but I don’t turn around.
‘Ellie?’
I stay still, I don’t move. I just lean against the doorpost and sigh.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says quietly, and I ache for him to touch me, to make all this shit go away. I want it all to go away. I want my husband back. ‘It’s been a long day. I’m just tired.’
Excuses. That’s all they are. He makes them regularly. He’s too tired to talk, too exhausted to go over it all again. Didn’t the counsellor help us? She helped him. Nothing helped me. But even she never got the full story, did she? And he’s still okay with that. I’m not.
‘How about we eat dinner, then have an early night, hmm?’
I slowly turn around. I look at him, but his eyes – he doesn’t look at me the way he used to look at me. There’s always a hint of something else there now. Is it pity? I want my fucking husband back.
‘When I tell you I love you, Ellie, I mean it.’
‘I know.’ Liar.
‘That’s what we need to concentrate on, okay? Us. Everything else – all of that, it’s in the past. It’s over. It’s over. I promise.’
Michael – he needs a distraction, something to stop him from going over and over it all in his head; something to take away his guilt. I think he needs that. And I think he’s found her, his distraction. My husband’s lying to me and that’s not right. None of this is right.
‘It’s over,’ I whisper. I’m just telling him what he wants to hear, and whether he believes that or not – no. He’ll believe it. He’ll tell himself that he’s managed to pacify me. That’s exactly what he’ll do. Because he’s done it before, so many times.
He smiles and he takes a step forward. Yet, when he touches me, as his thumb gently strokes my jawline, his mouth lowering down onto mine, I actually let myself believe that everything’s fine. It’s all going to be all right. But that only lasts a second because, okay, he’s kissing me, and the kiss is soft and warm but there’s no passion there. That rarely makes an appearance now. We barely touch each other in that way any more, and when we do have sex it’s as though we just go through with it every so often to tell ourselves something, and I don’t even know what that something is. It feels as if we’re clinging onto what remnants of a relationship we have left, and that breaks my heart a million times over. I want it to be so different. I want him to want me the way he used to want me, fuck me the way he used to fuck me.
‘Michael …’
He slides his thumb over my mouth, silencing me, shaking his head as his eyes stare deep into mine. ‘No, Ellie.’ He steps back from me, slips his hands into his pockets. ‘I’m going to have a quick shower, then we’ll eat. Okay?’
Nothing is okay.
I know he’s lying.
I know he’s hiding something.
I know that he wants me to move on and forget, but I can’t do that.
I won’t, do that …
I throw my bag down on the floor and lock the front door behind me, grabbing the handle and pulling it towards me, just to make sure it’s secure.
I know Michael’s home, his car’s in the driveway, he’s early. It’s just gone four-thirty and I’ve only popped back myself to pick up some papers I need from my office for a meeting at the spa in an hour.
I glance through into the living room as I walk past, but it’s all quiet in there. He isn’t in the kitchen either, so he must be upstairs.
I go to my office, find the papers I need and head back out into the hall, sliding the files into my bag before I make my way upstairs. And I’m about to call out Michael’s name, but I stop myself. I can smell paint. Fresh paint. We aren’t decorating, we haven’t talked about making any changes, haven’t talked about repainting anything.
I climb the stairs slowly, and when I reach the landing, when I see where Michael is, what room he’s in, it feels as though someone’s reached into my chest and yanked out my heart.
‘What are you doing?’
He spins around, almost dropping the paintbrush in his hand. ‘Ellie! I didn’t expect you home just yet. I wanted to surprise you.’
I look around me. Three of the walls are still sunflower yellow, but the wall he’s standing in front of is now half-painted a deep purple colour.
‘Don’t,’ I whisper.
He frowns. He doesn’t understand, but he should.
‘Put the brush down.’
‘Ellie …’
‘Put the fucking brush down, Michael.’
He narrows his eyes, watches me as I move towards him. And then it hits me, like a volcano erupting inside of me. The anger. The pain. It spills out of me, so fast I can’t control it.
I run towards him, snatch the brush from his hand and I slap him. Once. Twice. Again, harder. I want to lash out, hurt him, the way he’s hurt me, by doing this. But he grabs my wrist, he grips it tight, because I’m fighting this. I’m fighting him.
‘You had no right to do this.’ I hiss, my eyes burning into his. ‘You don’t touch this room, you don’t do that.’
‘Ellie, we talked about this …’
I wrench my wrist free of his grip. ‘No, Michael, you talked about this. And I told you I didn’t want it. Not yet. It’s too soon.’
‘You weren’t thinking straight back then.’
I look at him. I shake my head. What happened to us? ‘Fuck you.’
‘Jesus Christ, Ellie, come on!’
‘Put it back how it was and don’t touch it again.’
‘This isn’t rational behaviour.’
‘And you’re not being fair.’
‘Ellie …’
‘Leave this room alone. Do you hear me? Leave this room alone.’
*
‘I don’t think he meant to hurt you, Ellie.’
Liam hands me a bottle of beer and sits down opposite me at a table out in the pub’s riverside beer garden. I needed to talk to someone. I needed a friend.
‘Did you know what he was going to do?’
‘No, I didn’t, but, you know, maybe he’s right. Maybe it is time to do something about …’
The