On the first morning in her new bedroom, Kate woke late. Andrew was asleep beside her, arms folded over his stomach, his chin tucked into his chest. His chest was moving heavily with his breathing, his breath stale, but she turned toward him and, without waking him, pulled his arms around her so that her waking body was enveloped in the warmth of his, her breath in his. Today, she knew, was the first time in a while that she had woken to the certainty that she wanted to live.
It was Sunday, and neither of them had anywhere else to be, and Claire wasn’t arriving until the evening. They hadn’t often had Max’s flat to themselves, and Andrew was making the most of not having to worry about waking Shona, who worked long hours and slept late on the weekends. He turned up the Isley Brothers, sang in an irritatingly tuneful mock falsetto. The flat filled with the smell of coffee, and Kate did a little more unpacking while Andrew put bacon under the grill. She came in for breakfast wearing his hooded sweatshirt, which came down over the tops of her thighs, grazing her scars.
“Thief,” said Andrew, tugging at the sweatshirt and pulling her into him. He looked down at her, kissed his teeth disapprovingly, but his eyes were smiling. Kate pulled away, stuck up her middle finger, and slid the butter dish toward her.
“You never let me take any of your shit,” she said. “Your room is so horribly tidy I never get the chance.”
“I have to be careful with you there.”
Max, even less than Andrew, was only very sparsely memorialized among her possessions. His absence seemed more remarkable, given the years they had known each other. There were some photographs that had been stuck childishly onto the pin-board in her old room: matt, low-lit images of them at some party together, their arms around each other. There were presents he had brought back from holidays—a dusty bottle of wine whose label was printed with the image of Dali’s melting clock, a novelty bottle opener—and business cards he had given to Kate because he hadn’t quite worked out what else to do with them.
There was also a poster that Kate had never got round to putting up, a freeze-frame from L’Accusé that Zara had given her, the old image that had stayed with Kate all these years of Lucille looking out of her window, makeup smeared, tights run. Zara had signed the poster in black marker pen for her, a message that read: For Kate, who would have made this a far better film. Z. Zara had sent the poster to her after they’d talked about the film on the phone, and Kate remembered that she had sounded rueful that day, but Kate had not asked her why.
“This is cool,” Andrew said when Kate took it out to show him. “It’ll be valuable when you’ve won your Academy Award.”
“She was in a weird mood when she gave me this. Told me she regretted making the film.”
“You’re lucky,” Andrew said, looking at the poster. “Takes some people years of running to get the kinds of jobs you’re getting. She’s shown you a lot of shortcuts.”
“I know that,” Kate said. She took the poster back, started to roll it up. “It wasn’t just a whim, though, you know. I was going to apply for an MA, but…”
Andrew shrugged. “I’m just saying. I’ve got mates from film school who stuck at it for most of their twenties. Half of them are training to be lawyers now.”
“Oh, poor them.”
“You’re defensive,” said Andrew. He sat back on the bed, made that kissing noise with his teeth again, looked sideways at Kate. There was that slight sternness about him, which she’d seen when they’d first gone to the cinema together: Kate regretted her sarcasm. She climbed on top of him and put her forehead against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice muffled. “I just don’t want you to think I’m like Max.”
His chest rose and fell under her. He put his hand on the back of her head.
“You’re not,” he said. “They treat you like one of their own, though. It’s not a bad thing. It’s nice. They must like you a lot.”
“Is that so hard to believe?” Kate said.
Andrew was pushing her, not quite challenging her loyalty, but asking her to show him how much of it he was entitled to. It was for this reason, then, as well as the fact that they were in new, neutral territory, that Kate started to talk properly. She sat up as she spoke, and he sat up with her, she not quite looking at him, and told him that she’d known the man who had attacked her. Still knew him—in fact, had even come close to having to face him socially, because he was a cousin of Max’s.
“It’s good that you’re away from him,” Andrew said, and she didn’t know whether he was talking about Lewis or about Max. “I thought it might be something like that.”
“Like what?”
“I thought it might be someone you knew. Or Shona did, anyway.”
“Shona knows?” Kate felt suddenly panicked.
“Well, yeah, we’ve talked about it. She said she thought you probably know him.” He stopped. “Why, does it bother you, me talking to her?”
In fact, it did not bother her. It was a relief, even, to know that this did not have to be a secret, and for a moment, she couldn’t remember why it was.
“No,” she said. “I suppose I just didn’t think about the fact that you might want to. But now you say it, it makes sense that you would. I’m glad.”
Andrew didn’t need to ask her whether Max had any idea who had raped her, nor did he ask what to Kate was the most obvious question: are you ever going to tell him? She supposed he saw that she didn’t have an answer. For the moment, though, the most important thing was that she had trusted him enough to tell him what only her therapist knew. And she realized, after he left, that they had spent nearly twenty-four hours together. She’d asked him to stay another night, tugging the cord of the hoodie he’d now reclaimed. But he was watching First Dates with Shona: this was their weekly tradition and he wasn’t going to break it for her, even if she had just entrusted him with her deepest secret.
“I’ll put in a good word, you might get invited next time,” he said, putting his hand over her face and pushing her back through the doorway by way of goodbye. She liked that Andrew had tested her, but she knew that her alliances had changed long before, even if she’d only been able to admit this to herself when Max had told her he was moving out; when he had given her permission. She had always resented the thought of neglecting a friendship for a relationship, but Kate knew that she had been absent from her friendship with Max for some time now: another thing Lewis had taken from her. As she finished unpacking, ready for when Claire would arrive that evening, Kate asked herself whether she missed Andrew more than Max, and she found she could not answer. For Andrew, her body ached, just as it ought. But for Max, it was something different. She could have wept if she’d let herself. For Max, there was insurmountable sadness that was most akin to grief.
Claire arrived that evening, laden with possessions that quickly dominated their small shared space. Kate was happy in the afterglow of Andrew’s presence, and she helped Claire to unpack while they drank wine and waited for pizza to arrive. They finished their first bottle quickly and, when Kate went to get the next from the fridge, Claire squatted in front of the television, playing with the remote until it flickered into life. With the unobtrusive noise of Sunday-night TV in the background they could just as easily have been at school again, drinking the wine freely provided by Alison up in Kate’s room, smoking stale roll-ups out the window and flushing the stubs down the toilet. When they were drunk enough, Claire recounted in detail the disintegration of her relationship with Alex.
“There are just things you can’t know about a person until you live with them,” she said. “I mean, I always knew he was careful with money. But splitting the cost of toilet roll by usage was just too much.”
“He didn’t.”
“I know. I’d never really thought of myself as a feminist until then, but I really did feel discriminated against.”
“Just because you don’t have a penis,” Kate lamented.
“Exactly.”
“It sucks that it didn’t work out,” Kate said. “But I’m glad you’re here.” She paused. “I’m sorry I’ve been absent these last few months.”
They both knew that it was years since they’d been as open with one another as this. But Kate meant what she said. She could think of few people she would rather be with at that moment. That evening, Kate told her friend what she had been wanting to tell her for months now.
“I had no idea,” Claire said when Kate had finished.
“How would you? We’ve hardly seen each other. I’ve been doing my best to hide it. But you know, I think that might have made it worse.”
“Does Alison know?”
“No.”
“And Max?”
“Yes. But he doesn’t know who.” She told Claire then what she had told Andrew earlier that day: that it was Max’s cousin who was responsible. It felt like a relief this time to say it. Claire was almost more shocked by this piece of information than the news that Kate had been assaulted.
“I suppose,” she said, after a moment’s pause, “this means I probably can’t have sex with Max, doesn’t it?”
Kate laughed. “Not necessarily. I mean, he is single, so…”
Claire patted her on the leg. “I won’t,” she said loyally. “I’ve got your back.”
“It’s part of the reason I had to move out,” Kate said. “The fear of bumping into him has been wearing me down.”
“He was too good to be true, probably, wasn’t he? Max, I mean.”
“We were never together,” Kate said.
“I know. Doesn’t mean it can’t break your heart, though, losing someone like that.”