Page 87 of The Spare

‘Pretty much everything I do is driven by shame,’ I concur.

‘So let’s stop shaming ourselves and start getting curious,’ Soph says. ‘That’s when the magic begins. Not with What’s wrong with me? but with What’s making me feel this way? Is it real, or is it the RSD? What am I really scared of?’

I laugh nervously. ‘Heavy stuff.’

‘Yes, but less heavy than Everyone hates me, and everyone wants me to die.’

‘Everyone actually does want me to die, though.’

She scoffs. ‘Please. A few Mail Online journalists who need to go touch some grass and a few Reddit users. Are you really going to allow them to be your moral compass? I don’t think so.’

When she puts it like that…

As we continue to chat and get stuck into the excellent mezze, something vaguely approaching calm settles over me. Maybe the lack of fucks these two give about the stuff that’s been weighing me down is infectious. Maybe having them onside makes me feel protected. Maybe it’s just the sunshine and rosé and strong female energy galvanising me.

But, for the first time in weeks, I feel… okay. Not great, not healed, but okay. It’s as if someone has dug me out of the trenches, and taken off my blindfold, and turned me to face the sun.

Perhaps I’m not a dreadful person. Not a failure. Perhaps not all of this is my fault.

And, most exciting of all, perhaps there are people out there who can help me find a different narrative than the ones that have plagued me my entire life.

I’m broken.

I’m too much.

I’m not enough.

CHAPTER 40

Selena

If infamy comes in physical form, it’s making the cover of Hello! or OK! magazines, and you’d better believe Ben, Xav, Ivy, and me have been regular fixtures in recent months.

The tabloids never got what they were so desperate for: formal clarification by anyone in the de Vere clan as to what the hell really went down inside The Great Groom Swap.

But they did get some leaked footage from the huge midsummer party the four of us threw to formally introduce Ivy to our social circle. Even by the de Veres’ standards, it was one for the history books. The theme? Party Like it’s 1987, inspired by the amazing TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals. Ben was, naturally, Rupert Campbell-Black, and I was his paramour, Taggie. Xav and Ivy, to everyone’s endless amusement, went as the nouveau riche Freddie and Valerie Jones (Ivy tells me she very much enjoyed Xav’s fake ‘womb broom’ later that night. Ew. TMI). It was fucking hysterical, and Ben and I are still having regular sex to Robert Palmer’s ‘Addicted to Love’.

The tabloids have also been able to photograph us to their nasty little hearts’ content as we’ve tentatively made our way beyond the wrought-iron gates of Belvedere and back into society. We’ve done Ascot and Queens, and they got their money shot when the four of us sat courtside at the Wimbledon Men’s Final as guests of Ralph Lauren.

And get this: the Sun actually paid a body language expert to sit across from us and watch me and Ben for the entire five-set match. Apparently, its readers were that desperate to know if our marriage was real or a sham. The definitive conclusion this expert reached was that Ben and I are likely fucking like rabbits.

The Sun’s take?

GAME, SET AND LOVE MATCH: We paid a body language expert to observe the Duke and Duchess of Oxford at a tennis match. Her verdict after four hours of Wimbledon surveillance: ‘However murky the details behind their wedding remain, their chemistry is off the charts. This couple is well and truly besotted with each other—and likely to be having phenomenal sex.’

I was beyond mortified.

I was also absolutely thrilled.

Ben has framed the front page in the downstairs loo.

It’s six o’clock on a still-hot July evening, and the heat is radiating off Belvedere’s tennis court, where Ben and I are attempting to play mixed doubles with Xav and Ivy. Ben has the dance version of ‘Le temps d’amour’ pumping out from a free-standing speaker at the edge of the court, and it’s giving South of France. The holiday vibes are real—the boys and I have all taken the week off work—and the ice-cold rosé is flowing.

Battling with Françoise Hardy’s dulcet tones are the less dulcet shrieks of delight coming from the pool next to the court, where the twins are hosting some friends for a couple of nights. Xav has bought all manner of tacky pool toys for ‘his’ girls—think flamingo rings and gigantic sunbathing floaties with holders for their Stanleys—and, judging by their screams, they’re having a ball. The Wentworth-de Vere offensive on Hartwell House worked, and Rose and Lily apparently made some genuinely non-bitchy friends over the course of the summer term, which is a greater accomplishment than I managed at Le Rosey, that’s for sure.

I don't speak to Annabel or Minty any more. Technically, they cut off contact with me after Wedding-gate, but let’s face it: they did me a favour. My new therapist, Lynne—referred by Soph—says I need to guard my energy more fiercely. When your brain is convinced that everyone thinks you’re a failure, a handy first step to mental tranquillity is ditching the spiteful little bitches who do actually want you to fail (only she put it more professionally than that).

I adjust my visor. The sweat is making it slippy. Xav has been relentlessly taking the piss out of me for wearing full tennis whites when the boys are playing in nothing but swim shorts and running shoes, while Ivy’s in a very unsupportive string bikini top and denim cut-offs. At some point, she’ll give her husband a black eye with one of her unshackled boobs, but I doubt he’ll mind. He can’t take his eyes off her, which is proving problematic for his game, but the disadvantage is equalised by the fact that my little white minidress is having the exact same effect on Ben.