‘Thanks for the pedantry, Beelzebub.’ I huff heavily some more. ‘OK, do I look’ – pant pant – ‘like someone who would kidnapachild?’
‘No, definitely not,’ Louise manages to get out between gasps.
‘WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?’ At the end of the row, Alex shouts over the music in her headphones.
‘That’s a relief.’ Puff puff puff. ‘It’s just that as we arrived here earlier’ – I tap some buttons and slow the treadmill down a few degrees so I can speak properly – ‘some woman was leaving the gym with her little girl and she looked right at me in this really accusing way, you guys. And then she yanked her kid closer to her as I went by, eyeing me suspiciously the whole time. Like I was goingto kidnap her daughter. And that’s not even the first time it’s happened. Parents are constantly pulling their kids away from me!’
‘I saw that woman!’ Bibi confirms. ‘Her child wasn’t even cute, why would you kidnap it? Shewishessomeone would want to kidnap it.’
‘Who brings their child to the gym?’ Louise joins me in slowing the pace down. She’s sweating just as much as me, which is reassuring. I thought I was easily the most unfit of the four of us.
‘WHAT HAPPENED?’ Alex yells, still not taking out her headphones.
‘But actually, I mean’ – Bibi is still jogging; she looks a bit hot but she’s not even sweating – ‘you don’t know what a kid kidnapper looks like these days, do you? And youdohave quite starey eyes.’ She regards me suspiciously from her treadmill and I glare back. Then I remember glaring will make my eyes even starier and stop.
‘Why would starey eyes make you a criminal?’ Louise is now sauntering on her machine.
‘WHERE’S AN ANIMAL?’ Alex yells, still chewing gum, even during workouts.
Bibi shrugs.
‘So now I look like a child murdererandI have creepy eyes,’ I muse. ‘That’s good to know.’ I examine myself in the wall-sized mirrors in front of all the exercise machines. It is not a pretty sight. I’m not quite as red as Lou, but I’m still pretty disgusting. A big dark ring of sweat circles the neck ofmy t-shirt, and my hair has plastered itself in clumps around the edge of my face.
‘No one said childmurderer.’ Bibi sounds exasperated. ‘You only look like you’dtakethe child. But I reckon you’d just walk it to the park and give it ice cream. Then get bored when it whined and give it right back.’
‘Aw, thank you, Bibi!’ I give her a winning smile as I turn off the machine. It beeps in protest and I silently tell it to go fuck itself. ‘I’m going to do some rowing – anyone want to join me?’
‘IT’S SNOWING?’ Alex shouts, looking baffled.
We go to the gym very much once in a blue moon, and only when we can all go together for support. Without peer pressure, I don’t think I would ever exercise. We even invited Sofia today but she has another Tinder date. She seems to be having a great time since the hospital. She’s having more dates than me, and I’m mostly happy for her. I’m really trying to get my jealousy thing under control.
‘I’m coming!’ Lou leaps off her machine, almost tripping over as she does, and then pokes at Alex. ‘ROWING NOW,’ she mouths, pointing at the nearby machines. Alex removes her headphones and joins us, wiping sweat off her brow.
‘What did I miss?’ she asks. ‘Were we talking about Esther’s mission? Have you met up with Will yet?’
‘Obviously not,’ Bibi snaps, rolling her eyes. Lou and I exchange glances, quickly taking the middle two rowing machines between them.
‘Well, no,’ I add swiftly. ‘Will and I are still texting a lot,but a big part of me feels like that relationship is, and would always be – I dunno –tainted. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but every time I think about him, I feel these horrible stabs of guilt.’ I pause. ‘I never thought I’d be a cheater, never ever ever ever. But when it happened, it all felt way too inevitable. Like I had no control, no say in it.’ I look down at the machine, ashamed of myself. ‘I know that’s just an excuse. But that night it happened, that’s what I kept telling myself.’
‘How did it actually happen?’ Alex frowns, looking intrigued.
I sigh. ‘Well, we’d been messaging for weeks and things were getting out of control flirty. He’d been asking to meet up for ages and I kept saying no. And then one night, I was out for some drinks with my assistant, Katie, who was brand new at the time. We’d had a week-long conference at the museum that had ended that day and we wanted to celebrate. I was sort ofdeterminedto get really drunk – forcing down glass after glass of Prosecco. It’s pretty obvious now that I wanted an excuse to do what I did.’
I pick up my towel to dab at my sweaty forehead. It’s an obvious excuse to wipe my eyes, which are starting to well up. Louise reaches over to stroke my back, getting a palm full of sweat for her trouble.
‘Anyway,’ I continue, trying to regain some composure, ‘Iletmyself be drunk. Iletmyself get in an Uber to Will’s house. Iletmyself kiss him when he opened the door. And Iletmyself fall into his bed right away. I kept telling myself it was all happeningtome. I had no control, I was just somepassive victim of fate and destiny.’ I roll my eyes. ‘And the shitty thing was that I had no control over the horrendous guilt that arrived afterwards, either. Which is why I went home right away and told Idris.’
‘At least you told him,’ Bibi says in something close to a comforting voice.
I nod slowly. ‘But that’s also why I was so determined to make it work with Will. I kept telling myself he was fantastic and everything was brilliant between us. Like, it had to work! Because ithadto be worth all that pain. He had to be worth it.’
We fall silent. I reach forward to fiddle with the settings of my machine, avoiding their looks. I am afraid they will be accusing, or – worse – pitying.
‘Well, so what about The Serious One, have you contacted him yet?’ Alex tries to reset the mood.
I shake my head. ‘I haven’t contacted him, but to be fair to me, I actually don’t have a number. I deleted it after we broke up.’
‘Didn’t you write it down somewhere?’ Alex asks, pulling hard on her machine.
