“A slut? Maybe not anymore.” A dangerous moment’s silence that I almost couldn’t break. The past crashing around me, the memories, the hurt. She drained the already empty glass, without noticing there was nothing left and hadn’t appeared to notice my pause. “So, I played the part of long-term-relationship girl, and, easy as that. Brendan falls in love with me. I literally made him say, ‘I love you,’ before we had sex for the first time, like fucking...Tara Reid in American Pie. And, Fern? It was amazing. We were so in love. It was everything I’ve ever wanted. When the job came up in America I didn’t even need to think about it. When he asked me to marry him, I cried my eyes out. We eloped to Gretna Green, just the two of us... Here...” She picked up her phone and her wedding photo arrived on her screen much too quickly for it to be anything other than something she regularly looked at. I took in twenty-four-year-old Jessica, on her wedding day. She looked like a film star—the photo taking on that vintage, classic quality you could imagine being used in a documentary about her life one day. She wore a white minidress with a veil longer than her hemline. She smiled with postbox red lips. This was the first time I’d seen Brendan too, and he was so generically a “handsome” man, I’m surprised he wasn’t on Shutterstock. Strong jaw, designer stubble, piercing green eyes—and a look that just screamed “money,” from the cut of his suit, to the tasteful placement of his handkerchief, to the way he’d gelled his hair. I’d never seen Jessica with such a man before—let alone married to one.

“You looked stunning,” I said. “And Brendan is handsome.”

She rolled her eyes as she took back the phone. “Doesn’t he fucking know it?” She sighed. “Anyway, I thought I’d cracked it. I didn’t tell him anything about my past, and, to be honest, he wasn’t that interested. We moved over there. Then we were in this gorgeous love bubble of emigrating together, getting pregnant, Bridget being born, getting to know all the other ex-pats at his work. Honestly, Fern, I didn’t drop the facade once. I was a perfect wife—demure, amenable, tender, lovable.”

“So what happened?”