Page 67 of The Work Husband

Except I had no plans, a brutal hangover and a life that had been turned on its head over the past two days.

‘You’d better come in,’ I said, not knowing what else to say.

I didn’t want to invite her in – flowers or no flowers. But there was no way I could send her packing or shut the door in her face without feeling even shittier about myself than I already did.

‘Thank you.’ Diffidently, she stepped inside. She’d been here before, of course – just the day before yesterday, although it felt much longer ago than that to me – and God only knew how many times before that.

She handed me the flowers cautiously, as if she was worried I might hurl them back in her face. But I took them and thanked her.

‘Have a seat.’ I gestured towards the sofa where she’d sat in Sam’s arms, weeping like her heart was breaking. ‘Would you like a coffee?’

‘That would be amazing, actually. But take your time, if you need to…’

I looked down at my bare feet and shabby robe. Ah, I did need to.

‘Give me five minutes, okay?’

‘Of course.’

It was more like ten before I rejoined her, having dressed, cleaned my teeth, washed my face, necked two paracetamol, fed the cat and made coffee. I was in nothing like the state I would have hoped to be in if I’d imagined she would ever come knocking at my door, but it would have to do.

‘So.’ I perched on the armchair at a right angle to the sofa – the uncomfortable one, bought for its elegant lines and sunshine-yellow velvet upholstery, which neither Sam nor I ever sat on. Then social etiquette took over and I heard myself asking the woman who’d stolen my boyfriend, ‘How are you?’

But Ava was in no mood for pleasantries. ‘I wanted to talk to you, Georgia. I owe you an apology – and an explanation.’

I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t been expecting that – but then, I hadn’t been expecting her to turn up here in the first place.

When I didn’t respond, she carried on. ‘I talked to Sam yesterday. He told me what happened between you two.’

He told you he dumped me, I thought. That was nice of him. Had he also told her that he was now free to continue his relationship with Ava, pick up where they’d left off all those years ago, and the flowers were some kind of consolation prize?

‘Right,’ I said, taking a sip of my coffee.

‘He… what he said, it made me realise…’ Ava went on, in fits and starts, like she was struggling to find the right words. ‘It made me realise I’ve been selfish. I had stuff going on, and I was all wrapped up in that, and I just didn’t think about the impact it was going to have on you.’

You didn’t think arranging clandestine meetings with my boyfriend might upset me just a tiny bit? Okay, Ava, you do you.

‘Impact,’ I said. ‘Yes, it kind of did.’

‘I know.’ She hung her head, the bright hair obscuring her face. ‘Which is why I wanted to apologise. But like I said, I need to explain too. Then maybe you’ll understand.’

‘Okay.’ I drank some more coffee, then put the mug down, clasping my hands between my knees so she couldn’t see them shaking. ‘Go on.’

‘I’ve been going through some stuff.’ She looked at me directly again. ‘Working through it, my therapist says. It’s to do with something that happened round about the time Sam and I split up.’

‘Six years ago,’ I said. ‘That’s a long time.’

‘I didn’t want to talk about it when it happened. Or afterwards, come to that.’ To be fair to Ava, she didn’t look much like she wanted to talk about it now. But I could see her forcing herself to do just that.

‘But I realised it was – well, it was affecting my whole life,’ she went on. ‘I haven’t had a proper relationship with anyone since Sam. I’ve had nightmares and flashbacks and panic attacks. I thought it would get better eventually, but it didn’t.’

‘That sounds horrible.’ I still had no idea where she was going with this, but I knew she was more likely to keep talking if I listened sympathetically.

‘So I found a therapist who specialises in post-traumatic stress disorder. I didn’t know that was what I had, but there were other things on her website that looked familiar. We had a couple of sessions over Zoom, but it wasn’t really working for me so I stopped. Then I got offered a new job in London, and she’s based here, so I was able to start seeing her in person.’

‘That was fortunate,’ I said encouragingly.

‘It didn’t feel that way.’ Ava smiled weakly. ‘It meant confronting things I really didn’t want to confront. And part of that was talking to Sam because he was the person I was closest to when it happened.’