Page 68 of The Work Husband

Shit. Okay – she was getting to the point at last. But was she saying that whatever traumatic thing had happened to her had been something to do with Sam? That she was having nightmares and flashbacks because he’d hurt her?

‘What did he—’ I began, but now that Ava was talking, she didn’t seem inclined to stop.

‘My therapist suggested I get in touch with him.’ Her words were coming more rapidly now, although not easily. ‘I didn’t want to because I felt so bad about the way I’d treated him. I knew he’d have moved on – and he had, with you. But she said speaking to him would be part of the healing journey.’

This therapist, whoever she was, had certainly got Ava talking the talk.

‘And I went from not wanting to, to finding I needed to,’ she explained. ‘After my sessions with Elizabeth, I’d call him and tell him what we’d gone through, and it helped me to process it all.’

Well, isn’t that nice for you, I thought with a flash of resentment. Maybe you and your precious Elizabeth – and Sam, for that matter – could have spent three seconds thinking about what all that might have meant to me.

‘Sam told me about you,’ she said, as if she’d read my thoughts – or more likely, I hadn’t been able to stop my face revealing them. ‘He said you were serious. He said he felt awful seeing me, guilty, like he was betraying you. He said he was going to tell you we were meeting up.’

‘Which he did,’ I confirmed. I didn’t tell her how I’d reacted to that – either Sam already had, or Ava would surely have guessed.

‘But I begged him not to tell you what had actually happened,’ she continued. ‘And he agreed to that, eventually. He wasn’t happy about it – he hated keeping things from you. But I said it was none of your business to know.’

That stung because I could see the truth in it.

Again, Ava noticed my reaction.

‘I’m so sorry, Georgia. I know how that sounds.’ She smiled uncertainly. ‘The thing is… Everything Sam had told me about you made you sound so perfect. So together. You had this cool job, and you’d travelled all over the world, and you and Sam had bought this place together, and he said he could imagine marrying you one day. And I’d just been drifting. I already felt ashamed of what happened, and now I felt ashamed of just being me as well. I thought if you knew, you’d look down on me, and I couldn’t face that.’

My eyes widened. ‘I never looked down on you. I thought you were… I remembered how you and Sam were at university, and I thought I could never measure up to that. I was jealous as hell, if I’m honest.’

‘Jealous? Of me?’ Ava let out an incredulous laugh – a harsh, almost ugly sound. ‘Okay. God, that never crossed my mind. If I’m honest, I’ve been very… introspective is the word, I suppose. I couldn’t see past my own nose. I guess that’s part of having therapy. I needed to look so hard at myself, I didn’t really have the headspace to think about anyone else.’

‘I can see how that might work,’ I admitted grudgingly.

‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘I wasn’t thinking about you. I should have done, and I really, really apologise for that. But Sam was always thinking about you. The day I came here, he told me that he couldn’t hide the truth from you any more. He said he was going to have to tell you, that you’d understand, and that it wasn’t just about me any more because it was having a serious, horrible impact on you and him.’

When I’d found them in the flat that day, that was what had been happening. Ava begging Sam to change his mind and Sam refusing. No wonder she’d been so distraught. No wonder he’d been furious when I reacted the way I did: he’d been fighting my corner – fighting for our relationship.

Against Ava.

And I’d thrown it back in his face.

‘I know.’ Ava did her mind-reading thing again. Maybe this was also a trick Elizabeth had taught her. ‘You must think I’m the most selfish person ever. Like I came barging in and ruined everything for you because I was trying to sort out my own shit. That’s why I had to come and see you. I thought if I explained, you might be able to understand.’

I kind of did – but also, I didn’t. I still didn’t know what had happened to Ava, all those years ago, when she was half of SamandAva. And if it was something Sam had done, surely she would realise that I needed to know?

I couldn’t ask her. But she told me anyway, and afterwards I almost wished she hadn’t.

‘So here’s the thing.’ She looked down at her hands, then up at me again. I could see how hard this was for her, and for a moment I felt in awe of her courage, even though I could never have guessed what she was about to tell me. ‘Here’s what happened – why I couldn’t be with Sam the way I’d been before, and I couldn’t even like myself, and I… I did all kinds of other stupid shit.’

‘It’s okay, Ava,’ I said, trying to channel Elizabeth, who was apparently some kind of Ava-whisperer. ‘Deep breaths.’

‘Sam was away for the weekend with some mates.’ Her words came in a rush now. ‘It was fine – I wanted him to have a good time. So I arranged a night out with some friends as well, people I knew from uni and some other friends of theirs. A proper night out in Manchester – cocktails and a meal and then clubbing. I got really drunk – we all did. But it was all just good fun. Until…’

She hesitated. I didn’t say anything, just sat patiently and waited.

‘Later on, in the toilets in the club’ – she swallowed so hard I could hear it – ‘a man attacked me. I was raped.’

THIRTY-FOUR

I reached my hand up to the doorbell and hesitated for a moment.

The sun that had greeted me that morning was still shining; the day was still warm. Someone was having a barbecue, and the savoury aroma of grilling meat made my mouth water as I realised I hadn’t eaten since the previous lunchtime.