‘Why would I be cross with you?’ she asked.
‘Did I steal your time with Ant? I know you said I wasn’t being a third wheel, but maybe I was? We wondered if that was why you went to bed early.’
‘We?’ Libby said, feeling, once more, a little put out. ‘You and Ant?’
Another pause. ‘Yes. It’s not that we were talking about you. Not really. Not much. It was just general chat and then you were gone before we got up and I haven’t heard from you all day.’
‘I left you both a note,’ Libby said, ‘and I’ve been busy all day. I’m just tired now. All the hard work must be catching up with me.’
‘Well, if you’re sure,’ Jess said, but Libby noticed a hesitancy in her voice.
‘I am,’ Libby replied, even if she wasn’t entirely sure. Yes, she trusted Jess implicitly. Probably more than she trusted anyone else. She wasn’t worried that her friend and her boyfriend would get up to anything behind her back, but she did feel out of sorts all the same. Was it simply that, in seeing how well Jess and Ant could get along, how they could talk and laugh and how they enjoyed shared interests, just highlighted how superficial her own relationship with Ant was?
There was a third, prolonged, pause before Jess spoke again. ‘I really didn’t know until the last minute that the conference wasn’t happening. I hope you believe that. I’d have gone with you if I’d known earlier.’
Libby bristled a little. This was a different issue and she realised she did feel let down by Jess. And she definitely felt as if Ant’s support for her dream project had waned considerably as soon as it got down to the heavy lifting.
She realised she didn’t have the emotional or physical energy for trying to unpick this particular issue just now though. ‘Look, Jess, I’m tired. It’s been a long weekend. Can we talk during the week? I’ll send you a WhatsApp as soon as I know how the week is shaping up properly.’
‘You’re working too hard,’ Jess said, her voice filled with concern. ‘Ant and I both think so.’
It was that comment which changed Libby’s mind and made her think that she did, perhaps, have the emotional energy for this conversation after all.
‘You both do, do you?’ Libby said and she could hear the harshness in her voice.
‘I knew you were annoyed,’ Jess said.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ she muttered. ‘If you want to know, then yes, I am annoyed. I’m annoyed you and Ant seem to have decided I’m working too hard when you both know I’m pushing a tight deadline. What did you expect would happen? It was always going to be tough-going. And you both talk about how hard I’m working, but you don’t offer to help. Not really. You’ve been to the shop once. Ant barely made it in the front door before he cleared off. Neither of you wanted to come with me to Belfast. Even though I promised a night away and a bit of fun. And I understood that, because you were working. But then I find that you didn’t go to the conference but instead spent the lion’s share of it with Ant, of all people, who himself was supposed to be working. Even when I was there, you two seemed to be lost in your own little bubble, and, to add insult to injury, you decided to talk about me behind my back.’
There was silence, then a sniff. ‘You asked me to stay. You both did. I would’ve got a taxi home. I hadn’t planned to be there.’
‘Was I really going to be that bitch? The person that told you to go on home to your lonely flat while I sat there and drank the rest of the bottle of wine you opened?’
‘My lonely flat?’ Jess said, her voice now stern. ‘I’m very good at keeping my own company. God knows I need to be, since I’m so far down your list of priorities these days. I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw your dentist more than you saw me.’
Libby felt her face redden. She knew she had neglected Jess over the last few months. Ever since she had been seeing Ant, if truth be told. Ever since Jess had seen the shop up for sale and the project had consumed her.
Jess was in her stride now though. ‘But, look, I’m okay to be there when you’re feeling sad,’ she continued. ‘Or stressed or whining about how terrible it is that you don’t know whether or not you’re in love. Or you want someone to go to Belfast with you. As a second choice, Libby, for God’s sake. I wasn’t even your first thought! Don’t throw in a “but it would have been fun”. This wasn’t about me and you. It was just about you.’
Libby felt stung. Everything Jess said hit her hard. She couldn’t argue against any of it. Shame rose in her.
‘I know you’ve had a tough time,’ Jess said, her words cutting through, ‘but almost everything about the course of the last two years has been about you. How you feel. What you want. What you’re getting, or not getting, from your relationship, or fling, or whatever the hell it is with Ant. And that bloody stupid bookshop!’ Jess stopped talking then, as if she knew she had gone too far.
Libby just sat, frozen. Her shame gave way to something altogether more toxic. She was angry and bruised. She could not believe what her friend had said. It wouldn’t have hurt more if she had punched her right in the gut.
That bloody stupid bookshop.
She didn’t trust herself to speak. Instead, she stared, blinking, at her phone for a moment or two and then ended the call. Having placed the phone back on the footstool, she immersed herself, head and all, under the water, where she wondered what the hell had just happened, until she couldn’t last one more second without a breath.
17
Fight Club
Libby Quinn did not fall out with people. In fact, she normally went very much out of her way to make sure that no one ever thought badly of her. She had been born a people-pleaser and she was pretty sure she would die a people-pleaser.
It was quite extraordinary – the lengths she would go to just to make sure she kept those around her happy, frequently tying herself up in all sorts of knots to be there for everyone. Even if it meant saying yes to things she absolutely wanted to say no to. Even if it meant smiling sweetly and turning the metaphorical cheek if someone was overtly mean to her. Even if it meant not correcting someone when they got her name wrong for the forty-seventh time in case it embarrassed them. For the full three years of her university career, she was called Elaine by the girl who lived across the hall from her and she never once corrected her.
Libby was the sort of person who would apologise to people when they walked into her. She had even been known to apologise to inanimate objects. If she thought she had annoyed someone, she would genuinely lose sleep over it.
So, if she absolutely did not fall out with people she barely knew, then falling out with people she considered as close as her own family was definitely not something she had much experience of.
Falling out with Jess knocked her for six. It gave her a constant dull feeling, which pulled her down and filled her with doubt and self-loathing.
First of all, she knew there had been real hurt in Jess’s voice. And truth in her words. Maybe Libby was not as much of a people-pleaser as she thought.
The thought that Jess had made some valid points hit her in waves of differing strengths throughout the day. She had neglected her friend. And she had been focused on the shop, and all the preparation that had brought her to this point. But she needed to focus on the shop. It was important. Probably the most important thing she had ever done in her life. Surely Jess understood that. And she would have been there for Jess if she needed her. In a heartbeat. She’d have dropped everything and come running.