“We’re not going through a bad patch.” I hear a flash of real anger in his voice. “We’re over.”
“Does she know that?”
“She knows.”
“Are you sure? Are you totally positive that she realizes?”
“Of course.” He sounds impatient.
“It’s not ‘Of course’! How exactly did you break up? Did you sit down and have a proper talk with her?”
There’s silence. Sam’s not meeting my eye. He so did not sit down and have a proper talk with her. I know it. He probably sent her a brief text, saying, Over. Sam.
“Well, you need to tell her to stop all this ridiculous emailing. Don’t you?” I try to get his attention. “Sam?”
He’s checking his phone again. Typical. He doesn’t want to know, he doesn’t want to talk about it, he doesn’t want to engage—
A thought strikes me. Oh my God, of course.
“Sam, do you ever actually reply to Willow’s emails?”
He doesn’t, does he? Suddenly it’s all clear. That’s why she starts a fresh one each time. It’s like she’s pinning messages to a blank wall.
“So if you never reply, how does she know what you really think?” I raise my voice still further over the speaker. “Oh, wait, she doesn’t! That’s why she’s so deluded about everything! That’s why she thinks you still somehow belong to her!”
Sam isn’t even meeting my eye.
“God, you are a stubborn fuck!” I yell in exasperation, just as the announcement stops.
OK. Obviously I wouldn’t have spoken so loudly if I’d realized that was about to happen. Obviously I wouldn’t have used the f-word. So that mother with her children sitting three rows away can stop shooting me evil looks as though I’m personally corrupting them.
“You really are!” I continue in a furious undertone. “You can’t just blank Willow out and think she’ll go away. You can’t press ignore forever. She won’t go away, Sam. Take it from me. You need to talk to her and explain exactly what the situation is, and what is wrong with all this, and—”
“Look, leave it.” Sam sounds irate. “If she wants to send pointless emails, she can send pointless emails. It doesn’t bother me.”
“But it’s toxic! It’s bad! It shouldn’t happen!”
“You don’t know anything about it,” he snaps. I think I’ve pressed a nerve.
And by the way, that’s a joke. I don’t know anything about it?
“I know all about it!” I contradict him. “I’ve been dealing with your in-box, remember? Mr. Blank, No Reply, Ignore Everything and Everyone.”
Sam glares at me. “Just because I don’t reply to every email with sixty-five bloody smiley faces… .”
He is not turning this against me. What’s better, smiley faces or denial?
“Well, you don’t reply to anyone, ” I retort scathingly. “Not even your own dad!”
“What?” He sounds scandalised. “What the hell are you going on about now?”
“I read his email,” I say defiantly. “About how he wants to talk to you and he wishes you’d come and visit him in Hampshire and he’s got something to tell you. He said you and he hadn’t talked for ages and he missed the old days. And you didn’t even answer him. You’re heartless.”
Sam throws his head back in a roar of laughter. “Oh, Poppy. You really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think I do.”
“I think you don’t.”
“I think you’ll find I have a little more insight into your own life than you do.”
I glare at him mutinously. Now I hope Sam’s dad did get my email. Wait till Sam arrives at the Chiddingford Hotel and finds his father there, all dressed up and hopeful with a rose in his buttonhole. Then maybe he won’t be so flippant.
Sam has picked up our phone and is reading the text again.
“I’m not engaged,” he says, his brows knitted. “I don’t have a fiancée.”
“Yes, I got that, thanks,” I say sarcastically. “You just have a psychotic ex who thinks she still owns you even though you broke up two months ago—”
“No, no.” He shakes his head. “You’re not following. The two of us are effectively sharing this phone right now, yes?”
“Yes.” Where’s he going with this?
“So this message could have been meant for either of us. I don’t have a fiancée, Poppy.” He raises his head, looking a little grim. “But you do.”
I stare at him uncomprehendingly for a moment—then it’s as though something icy trickles down my spine.
“No. You mean—No. No. Don’t be stupid.” I grab the phone from him. “It says fiancée, with an extra e. ” I find the word and jab at it to prove my point. “See? It’s crystal clear. Fiancée, feminine.”
“Agreed.” He nods. “But there is no fiancée, feminine. She doesn’t exist. So … ”
I stare back at him, feeling a little sick, rerunning the text in my mind with a different spelling. Your fiancé has been unfaithful.
No. It couldn’t be …
Magnus would never —
There’s a bleeping sound, and we both start. It’s the rest of the text coming in. I snatch up the phone, read the entire thing through silently, then let it drop down on the table, my head spinning.