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Chapters (59)
  1. Bad Friends
  2. Copyright
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. AFTER: DECEMBER
  6. BEFORE: JUNE
  7. Chapter One
  8. Chapter Two
  9. Chapter Three
  10. Chapter Four
  11. Chapter Five
  12. Chapter Six
  13. Chapter Seven
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Chapter Ten
  17. Chapter Eleven
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. Chapter Nineteen
  26. Chapter Twenty
  27. Chapter Twenty-One
  28. Chapter Twenty-Two
  29. Chapter Twenty-Three
  30. Chapter Twenty-Four
  31. Chapter Twenty-Five
  32. Chapter Twenty-Six
  33. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  34. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  35. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  36. Chapter Thirty
  37. Chapter Thirty-One
  38. Chapter Thirty-Two
  39. Chapter Thirty-Three
  40. Chapter Thirty-Four
  41. Chapter Thirty-Five
  42. Chapter Thirty-Six
  43. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  44. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  45. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  46. Chapter Forty
  47. Chapter Forty-One
  48. Chapter Forty-Two
  49. Chapter Forty-Three
  50. Chapter Forty-Four
  51. Chapter Forty-Five
  52. Chapter Forty-Six
  53. Chapter Forty-Seven
  54. Chapter Forty-Eight
  55. A CONVERSATION WITH CLAIRE SEEBER
  56. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  57. About the Author
  58. By the same author:
  59. About the Publisher

Upstairs, I lay down on the bed that we used to share, pretended I was very calm, and held my breath as I waited for him to go.

A few minutes later the front door slammed, and I began to breathe again. I didn’t cry; I was still too angry for tears. I lit a cigarette instead. After a minute I got up, zombie-like, and went to the window very slowly, like I was sleepwalking. I watched Alex as he opened the door of a silver car I didn’t recognise, probably one of Malcolm’s. I knew it was pointless trying to stop him driving in his state; I’d learned the hard way that it was impossible to ever stop Alex doing exactly what he wanted. In a pool of light under the lamppost, he stopped at the car door –then he ran back across the street. My heart missed a beat. It wasn’t over; of course it wasn’t. It couldn’t really be over, I’d known that all along … He disappeared from sight, and I held my breath again …

Then I heard something thud through the letterbox. And I knew without even going to check what Alex had just posted: his keys to the flat. He got in the car and slammed the door shut, then he drove off. He hadn’t looked up once.

I lay down again. I couldn’t deny that I’d been hoping that when he turned around he was about to come running up those silly steel stairs and be the funny, decisive Alex I’d first met two years ago. Before he’d got too drunk to even make it to the bedroom.

But really I knew that if that had happened, it would only have prolonged the madness.

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

The purr of my mobile woke me but by the time I’d scrabbled to find it, the ringing had stopped. My head was pounding as hard as my heart had last night; my hair was stuck all sweaty to my cheek; my mouth felt like I’d just licked an ashtray clean. Digby was running in ever-decreasing circles at the foot of the bed, whining frantically, desperate to be let out. Through one bleary eye I checked the time on the phone’s display. I’d overslept again.

After Alex had gone I’d found I couldn’t sleep so eventually I’d opened a bottle of wine to calm me down. I’d forgotten to set the alarm, and I’d left the heating on, desperate to get warm again after the chill that Alex had left, a chill that pervaded through my bones to my heart. Now I felt like I’d just slept in a sauna; I was sweaty and horribly headachey.