I woke up and felt for him. My eyes bleary and unfocused. I reached for the glass of water on my walnut bedside table and downed the whole pint.
How did we get back to my place? Snippets of Angie’s Christmas party floated around my foggy head. Running into Kit’s uncle and aunt, who had dressed as pandas. Getting hungry and chomping through five fortune cookies.
“Kit?” I called weakly, my head sore and my throat hoarse.
“Out here.”
I found him on the “terrace,” a paltry attempt at outdoor space in London, which was actually the roof of the flat underneath, accessed by climbing through my bedroom window. I hugged him from behind.
“Morning, how did you sleep?” I asked.
He pulled my arms off him, his body stiff as a board.
“Everything okay?”
Kit looked at the ground and said nothing.
“What’s wrong?” I reached my arm around him. He shrugged me off.
“Jade. Stop.”
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
Kit put his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes. I saw that they were raw and puffy. He took a deep breath. “I’m going to give you one chance to tell me the truth.”
“What?”
“There’s no point lying.”
“I haven’t said anything yet, and you’re already accusing me of lying.”
“That seems to be all you’ve been doing recently.”
“Kit, stop talking in code. What’s going on?”
He looked at me searchingly. “There’s really nothing you want to tell me?”
Yes. So much I’ve wanted to tell you.
“No.” I shrugged.
Kit’s face, which a moment ago was cherubically vulnerable, turned hard. His lips curled in a way that told me I would hate what he was about to say.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”
“Find out what?”
Kit sighed.
“Sam Parsons plays at my rugby club.”
“So?”
“Word’s spread that you went home with his cousin a few weeks ago. The guys messaged me this morning to give me a heads-up.”
My brain was slow to add up the connections. It used to be agile and nimble, forming arguments in seconds, stringing them together with logical propositions. Now, I could hardly parse what I was hearing.
“Listen,” I fumbled, “it’s not how it looks—”
“Really, Jade? ’Cos it looks really fucking bad for you right now.”
“Can we go inside and talk about this?”
“So you’re not denying it?”
“What?”
“Look at you, you’re not even denying fucking him!”
“Please,” I said, “can we go inside and talk?”
“SEVEN YEARS.” I jumped as Kit shouted. My body automatically backed itself against the wall. “Seven years I’ve wasted on you. Have you no loyalty?”
“Please, stop, it’s not like that,” I pleaded. “I can explain—”
“Be my guest!” Kit threw his arms up. “Please, Jade, I’m dying to hear this explanation of yours.”
“I don’t really know where to start. I’m sorry if this is a bit garbled…” I trailed off. I had rehearsed what I was going to say so many times. Had conversations with myself. But Josh got there first. He usurped my experience with his distorted narrative, and now I was on the back foot. The burden now lay with me to disprove his story. “The last few weeks I’ve been feeling really not myself. I can’t sleep, I get nightmares. I’m jumpy and stressed. And obviously, we had that weird night when we tried to have sex… and… there was all that blood.”
“Get to the point,” Kit snapped.
“I’m trying.” I breathed out. “You know that night with the big Reuben event? Back in November?”
“You’re joking,” Kit interjected. “This happened a month ago?”
“No! Well, yes. But I’m trying to explain.”
“Go ahead.”
“Well, I was next to the Founding Partner and the guy was a total creep. He was clearly trying to get me boozed, constantly putting drinks in my hand and telling me to come back to his.”
“What has this got to do with anything?”
“Josh pulled me away from him and out of the situation, then put me in a taxi home.”
“This isn’t where you tell me he’s your knight in shining armor, is it?”
“No, no. He’s a horrible guy. But that’s the last thing I remember. Since then, I’ve been hearing these whispers around the office, people looking at me funny, so I confronted him—Josh—and…”
“And?” Kit prompted.
“And he said we had sex,” I said, my voice small and guilty.
Kit put his head in his hands.
“But Kit I literally don’t remember anything I don’t even remember him being in my flat I was so drunk I swear I had no control over what was happening I don’t remember what happened and I know you’re going to be like why has it taken you so long to tell me this? But it’s because I didn’t know what happened that night and I didn’t know how to process it but you know I would never do anything to hurt you I love you so much and our relationship is so important to me this is all just so fucked I’ve been so confused and lost but I know I shouldn’t have kept it from you I just didn’t know what to say but I’m sorry I’m so sorry please can you say something?” My words tumbled over themselves, no space to breathe between sentences.
Kit stared at a leaf on the ground, silent as the seconds passed.
“Kit—” I began again. He held his hand up. “Kit, I don’t remember it, I was so drunk.” Is that the truth? He said I wanted it, that I moaned for him. Am I spinning this? I didn’t have time to examine my weak grip on reality as Kit finally looked up.
“Jade…” he began. “I don’t know what to say—how could yo—” He stopped himself before he finished. Say it! You want to say how could I have let this happen. “This is such a mindfuck.”
I recoiled at his words.
“The nurse,” I added, “she said all my bleeding wasn’t a period, it was because of some sort of injury from that night.” I thought that having a tangible physical aftermath would back me up. I desperately wanted him to ask if I was okay, how I was feeling, that he was sorry I went through that alone.
“Hang on.” Kit’s voice was icy. “You told me it was nothing.”
“What?”
“When you came out of the appointment, I asked what the nurse said. You told me it was nothing.”
“I—I don’t know why—I shouldn’t have said that—”
“And I asked you about that firm event when I saw you that weekend. You could have told me then.”
“I didn’t remember anything then!”
“That’s just bloody convenient, isn’t it.”
I took a step back. He looked regretful, but not enough to apologize.
“What are you saying?” I asked. Kit stared out to Vauxhall Bridge, the sky a uniform sheet of slate. The river murky, a few shades darker than the MI6 building that loomed over it, an ominous tank on the bank. Cars were backed up across the bridge, unmoving as the lights cycled twice from green to amber to red.
“You know,” Kit began quietly, “before we all found out what Dad was up to, my mum knew something was going on. I remember overhearing her accusing him of having an affair, based only on a hunch. Women’s intuition, I guess.”
“Kit…” I said, unsure of why this trip down memory lane was relevant.
He carried on, “He made us all think she was hysterical. I was sixteen, and he made the mother of his children out to be mentally unwell. She was right all along.” He took a deep breath. “My point is that I learned in a pretty traumatizing way the importance of believing women.” He looked at me expectantly before saying, “Everything you’ve said this morning. Do you swear—can you promise me—that’s what happened? That I won’t be a total mug for trusting you on this?”
“Yes, I promise.”
Can I promise him that?
Kit nodded, as if concluding a negotiation with himself. My tongue was taut against the back of my teeth, my shoulders strained, my hands balled, my nails digging into my palms. Then, like an elastic band snapped back, Kit crumpled into me. His body fell limp and his arms swaddled mine.
“I don’t know what to say,” he whimpered into my hoodie. “This is all such a—it’s all such a big shock.” I stroked his hair, using my nails to gently massage his scalp in the way I knew soothed him. His distress was the priority now. The shock would wear off, the dust would settle. And then he’d ask me how I was doing. For now, I was so relieved.
“I know, I know it’s a lot.”
“I just—” Kit pulled away and wiped his eyes. “I don’t know why you didn’t feel you could tell me. What does our relationship mean if you can’t come to me with something so massive? Do you not trust me?”
“It’s not a reflection on us!” I exclaimed. “It’s me, it’s all me. I didn’t know how to deal with this properly. It’s nothing to do with you.” I wasn’t sure I believed that, but I would have said anything to erase the furrow in his brow and the heartache in his face. Kit pulled me into his chest and held me tight. The relief was like a tidal wave, sweeping the tension in my body away. “I’m sorry,” I gasped into him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I’m sorry I let it spiral so out of control.”
“It’s okay.” Kit cradled my head. “It’s okay, I’m not angry with you.”
Perhaps we could preserve this position in time; if we were very still, we could maintain this delicate ecosystem. We could reset to factory settings and move on as if this blemish never happened. An arctic gust of wind shot past us and whipped through my thin pajamas, stinging my skin. We hurried inside. I covered Kit’s shoulders in a blanket. I went to the kitchen. The walls of my vagina were burning. I was reminded of last night, of my forcing Kit to force me and I cringed. As the kettle boiled, I rested my forehead against the kitchen counter, the same way I did the morning after the Savoy, and took serrated breaths through the pain. I made Kit a tea and went back to the living room with three chocolate cookies. I kissed his forehead and told him I loved him. Kit nestled himself around me, spooning me on the sofa. I cried, he cried. We held each other. The cold outside turned to sleet, and we sat silently huddled under the blanket, harvesting our body heat.
I woke up in a groggy post-nap haze. This morning’s conversation felt like it could have happened a week ago. Kit had moved to the other side of the sofa.
“How long was I asleep?” I said. He turned to me, his eyelids swollen and his eyes red-rimmed. He began biting his nails, the clip of his teeth the only sound between us. The atmosphere had transitioned into something much stonier. I wanted to fill the vacuum. Cry out that this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. That this was so bitterly unfair because I was supposed to tell him on my terms, when I was ready. It was meant to be gentle, loving.
“Hey,” I said. “How are you feeling?”
Kit exhaled. He moved toward me and kissed me, but in a stiff way. Like he was kissing me to hush me. He didn’t speak. Like an inquisitive child told to be seen not heard, I sat, nervous to talk again. The entire setup felt contrived. His arm around me was terse.
“Are you okay?” I turned to face him. Kit looked straight ahead.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t seem fine.”
“It’s a lot for me to think about right now.” He used his thumb and forefinger to repeatedly rub his eyes and eventually groaned.
“What—what is it?”
“I’m trying not to. I want to be there for you—this must be so hard for you—but…” Kit kept rubbing his eyes as if trying to banish his sight. “The idea of him being… intimate with you… it makes me…” Kit’s voice was rising. “It makes me so fucking angry.”
I jumped as he rocketed up and punched the sofa cushions.
“What a piece of shit.” Kit started pacing. “He knows you’re in a relationship, right? You made that clear?”
“Of course I did,” I said, taken aback by this surge of outrage. I was still reeling from Kit describing what happened as intimate.
“Fuck!” Kit put his head in his hands. “I can’t stop imagining you with him, replaying the image of you two together in my head.”
The green snake around Josh’s neck, the wolf in the streetlight, the wine gurgling into the glass.
I wish I could stop replaying it too.
“It wasn’t like that,” I managed.
“Right.” Kit nodded, coming back over and sitting again. “Right.”
“Right?”
“It’s just, some things aren’t adding up, Jade.”
“What things?”
“Well, how well do you even know this guy? Why did he end up in your flat?” Kit waved his hand, gesticulating at my apartment. All I heard in his questions were what were you doing with him? Why didn’t you know better? Why weren’t you more vigilant?
“I’ve told you already.” My voice was so small. I can’t do this. I can’t explain myself like this.
“Can you tell me again?” He held his hand out and squeezed mine gently. “I know it’s hard, but I’m here. For my peace of mind, please?”
I stared back at him. Was he really asking me to relive it?
“I barely remember, Kit.” I stumbled on my words. “I know we took an Uber but that’s about it. I don’t remember getting into it, or really getting out of it. Trust me, I wish for both of us I had more answers.”
“Okay.” He leaned into me and rested his head in my lap. “I’m just going to have to put my blind faith in you. This is such a shit situation for everyone.”
We shifted, arms and legs wrapped around each other.
“Sorry, a random thought—” Kit’s voice was mired in confusion and he rubbed his forehead. “Did you guys—did he use a condom?”
Did he?
“I—I don’t know,” I said feebly.
“Hang on. You took me to that sexual health clinic.” He turned his head like a robot malfunctioning. “Have you been tested?”
I hung my head in shame.
“Jade, I’m trying not to get annoyed with you and be there for you right now. But you might be infected with God knows what and you’ve been having sex with me without protection.”
“Okay.” I was rapidly trying to backtrack. “I know that sounds bad, but we can—”
“Stop.”
Kit stood up.
“Where are you going?” I shouted.
“I need a minute.” He stood up but made no noise. I can’t cry now. He paced around the kitchen. I couldn’t see him, but his steps were a sharp staccato on the wood floor, and they sounded like he might walk away from me.
When he returned, he was taking deep breaths, trying to steady himself.
“Okay.” He slumped. “I mean—I’m still in shock, how much you’ve hidden from me.”
“I didn’t mean to!”
“I understand why you weren’t completely transparent along the way, I really do, but that doesn’t stop it being hurtful.”
I nodded, silenced.
“What does this mean for us?”
His face was pallid, and I could see him floundering. I stopped breathing as he deliberated. I gasped with relief when Kit eventually picked up my hand and intertwined his fingers with mine. Then he pulled our conjoined hands to his mouth and kissed it.
“We’re in this together, J. I’m here for you and we’ll get through this.”
“We’ll get through this,” I parroted. Kit’s eyes finally conveyed hope, sincerity, support.
And, glimmering under it all, martyrdom.