Bliss

twenty six

You know those moments where everything slows, yourself included, and you feel like you might just have died and ended up in purgatory?

Well, this is one of those moments.

But I'm not dead.

I'm very much alive, just like Spencer, and Isaac, and the girl whose shirt is in the sink.

In a feeble attempt to cover up, she makes a grab for it and holds it tightly against her chest. She then turns her eyes, so blue and unassuming, towards me, at which point her shoulders sag, mimicking mine, and the realisation seems to hit.

"He's not single, is he?" she asks, her voice so much smoother than mine.

My lips part, but no sound escapes, so I settle for a quick shake of the head.

"Good to know."

She shoots him a withering glare. It's much more than I can muster, so I offer her a smile. It seems to take her by surprise, but she smiles too and squeezes my shoulder as she slips past and disappears downstairs, leaving me, Spencer and Isaac in a state of uncomfortable silence.

Isaac's next to leave. That is, he doesn't really go, but he's no longer in the bathroom. Instead, he takes up post on the landing. He flips the switch beside him and bathes the space in a soft orange glow that counteracts the harsh white light of the bathroom spotlights. I step into the amber hallway, leaving Spencer in the blinding bathroom, and lean against the bannister.

"I'm sorry," he says, any sense of apology ruined by his actions. "I don't know what came over me. It's like one minute I was looking for you, and the next I—"

"Was shoving your tongue down somebody else's throat?"

He rushes forward and reaches for my hand. I flinch; he takes it anyway. "It was a mistake," he says as he laces his fingers through mine. "A massive mistake."

"That's what you said the last time."

"Because it's the truth."

"And how many times am I supposed to let you make this mistake?" I ask, my voice straining in an attempt to sound strong. "How many times must I sit here and watch you pick yourself?"

"If I didn't care, I wouldn't be fighting for you," he says, entirely ignoring my words, my feelings, my everything.

"Well, thanks."

He smiles. It makes me sick to my stomach.

"But I can fight for myself."

I don't bother to wait for a reaction. Don't bother to wait for his feeble attempts at clawing me back into his sticky web. Nothing he says will change the fact that I can't do this anymore. Can't keep picking him over myself, for that was always the choice.

Not him or Isaac, but him or me. My happiness or his. For as long as Spencer got his own way, there was no such thing as our happiness.

Isaac stands up the moment I reach the landing. He steps aside, giving me the space I need, before following in my wake, the two of us leaving Spencer behind.

I think he says something. Spencer that is. It's probably wholly unnecessary, and almost ninety-nine point nine per cent lie, but it's out there. Thankfully, I don't have to listen to it. Not anymore.

I walk straight past the living room and head out the front door, fishing my phone out of my purse as the chilled air wraps around me like a cloak.

"Where are you going?" Isaac asks, still hot on my heels.