Chapter 11 Jade

11 JADE

NOW

Rob’s at the gym again, and I’m on edge. I can tell Rob doesn’t like me talking to Darcy, Camilla, and Kate. Maybe it’s because they’re so much older, more his age than mine. God, I don’t know. With hindsight, it’s probably a bit selfish of me. We’re on honeymoon in the Maldives—we should be gazing into each other’s eyes, not hanging out with strangers.

I’ve sat on the settee for an hour now, trying to read a magazine. I thought about texting Annabella, or even calling her. I picked up my phone and looked at her number for ages. She blocked me about six months ago, when I didn’t go on the trip for her twenty-fifth. She wanted a group of us to go to Barcelona, told me months in advance so I could save for it, and I was all up for it until Rob said he’d arranged for us to take his nana to Peterborough that weekend to see her other grandkids. I’d not met his stepbrothers, and I knew his family meant the world to him. So I told Anna I couldn’t go.

But he’d not said anything about us going that exact weekend until I said I was going to Barcelona. I’d even booked my flight and paid for the hotel. Lily and Olu were sharing, and I was sharing with Anna. Anyway, he was so upset about it, especially since his nana had been poorly. He said it was important that we go because he had a feeling she wasn’t going to last much longer.

I botched it. I kept hoping that Rob would change his mind, or that he wouldn’t get the weekend off work, but that didn’t happen. As far as he was concerned, we were going that weekend to Peterborough. What could I say? No matter what I did, I was going to upset someone.

I said nothing to Anna until the night before, and I was a legit coward about it. I should have gone to see her and told her face-to-face that I wasn’t going to Barcelona. But I didn’t—I sent her a text message.

She lost it with me. Said I was selfish, that I’d changed . It stung, coming from her. I’ve not heard a word from her since. She didn’t come to my hen party, or my wedding. I’ve known her and Olu since I was five, when we all went to dance class together. And now they’ve blocked me.

But I miss them, I really do. I seem to have pushed so many of my friends away, without meaning to. My family, too—it’s been so long since I spent any time with them. Rob is all I have left. And I don’t want to be on my own.

I get up and decide to set the room up a bit, make it romantic for when Rob comes back. We told the staff that we were here for our honeymoon, so they strung fairy lights around the big window of the living room and scattered rose petals on the bed. So sweet of them.

I turn the lights off and fold the glass doors back so we can look out over the ocean, then take a bottle of sparkling elderflower out of the cooler and set it on the table with a couple of glasses. I want to put Rob in a good mood. He’s only drinking alcohol in the evenings to watch his calorie intake. I could feel his mood turning when I was sitting by the pool with those women. He says he just wants quality time with me, that I’m always putting him second. I did work overtime leading up to the wedding, to make sure we could afford everything and that I was paying my fair share. We were like ships in the night. I’ve tried so, so hard not to put him second.

The front door creaks open, and I jump. Rob appears in the hallway. He’s showered and changed—he must have done it at the gym. He glances at me, then at the fairy lights.

“Looks nice,” he says.

My shoulders lower. “You like it?”

He sees the bottle of elderflower and the wineglasses, then grins at me. I try to read his face, but I can’t. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because we’ve both been working so hard and been so preoccupied by the wedding that we don’t know each other anymore.

Or maybe it’s because he smiled just like that before he punched me in the face.

I watch as he slips his shoes off and sets them neatly by the front door, then clicks it shut, turning the lock. My eye still feels tender. Almost a week ago now.

We’ve still not talked about that night. I know he was nervous and stressed. Weddings really aren’t for the people getting married—at least, ours wasn’t. It felt like a whole thing, this big production instead of an intimate celebration of two people in love. I knew how much it meant to him to bring everyone together like that.

“Have you eaten?” I ask.

He nods. “I was starving after the gym. You?”

I shake my head. “I wasn’t sure where you’d gone. Didn’t you get my text messages?”

“I’d have messaged you back if I had,” he says. “You know that.”

I serve my meekest smile. “You want a drink?”

He crosses the room, a hand in his pocket, the other at his chin. He’s mulling something over. When we got together, we always spoke our minds. The old me would have asked him what was wrong, and he’d have said something like, Babe, I’m worried about this , or, I was thinking we should… But now the question stops in my mouth. I don’t know what’s safe to ask.

He walks slowly toward me, then opens the bottle of elderflower fizz and pours us both a drink. He hands one to me, and I take it, watching him carefully.

“I wanted to talk to you about something,” he says.

“Yeah?”

He’s still standing. I sit down in one of the armchairs. Is this about the bruise on my eye, the one he won’t look at? Maybe he wants to apologize.

“Let’s go to the balcony,” he says. “Come on. We’ll talk while looking out over the ocean.”

For a moment, the old Rob is back, in his eyes, in his smile. Phew. What a relief.

I follow him up to the balcony, listening as he tells me about his afternoon at the gym—he ran the full marathon in four hours, his best time ever, but he’s still trying to get it under that.

“That’s amazing,” I say.

He turns and looks me in the eye, and I feel something twist in the pit of my stomach. Was my tone wrong? Did I sound sarcastic? The old me would have cracked a joke, said something like, For God’s sake, Rob, a tortoise could have run that in four hours . And the old Rob would have laughed. But when I speak to him now, I weigh up every single word in case it’s offensive in some way, in case my tone might trigger a row. I sound like a robot.

And I feel like he knows it.

He sits down on the wooden lounger on the balcony, and I sit in the one beside him. For a long time, he simply sips his fizz, looking out at the ocean. I do the same: sit with my glass in my hands and my knees together, staring out to sea. Waiting for him to speak.

“I want us to try for a baby,” he says finally.

He turns to meet my gaze, but I don’t manage to fake a happy reaction.

“No?” he says, clocking the fear that’s sprung onto my face. “You don’t want to have a baby with me?”

“No, I do….” I say, trying hard to look excited or happy. Why won’t my face work?

He turns his full body to me, cocking his head as though he can see my thoughts. “I think we should try straightaway.”

“Now?” I say, too loud. “You mean… on this holiday?”

“Yeah, why not? I’m not getting any younger. Nana might live to see our first child.”

I think back to Nana. Fit as a fiddle, that woman. Treats Rob like he’s still ten years old. She legit raised him, which is why she babies him. She’s eighty-seven, uses a walking stick to get about. But otherwise, she’s as sharp as a tack and nowhere near as ill as Rob makes her out to be. She was the center of attention at our wedding.

“You came off the pill last month,” he says. Then, suspicious: “Didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” I remember it with a sick feeling. I was getting migraines, my vision all smashed up and the right side of my head feeling like it had been bashed in. Some days the pain of it made me puke. The GP made me come off the pill right away and get an IUD. My appointment for the IUD fitting isn’t for another six weeks, so in the meantime we’ve been using condoms.

“We could start trying tonight, if you wanted,” he says, when I don’t add anything else. “It can take years to conceive, can’t it?”

It can also take moments , I think. My mum fell pregnant with me the first time she slept with my dad. My grandma was super fertile, too. I realize in one horrifying moment that the absolute last thing I want right now is to fall pregnant with Rob’s baby.

But he rises to his feet, beaming with joy, and takes the drink from my hand. Then he sets it on the ground and leads me back into the bedroom. I still haven’t agreed to this. He cups my breast with one hand.

“God, Jade,” he says with a shudder. “I never thought I’d marry such a beautiful woman.”

He kisses me, removing my panties with his free hand. For a moment, all the tenderness is exactly like the old Rob. His brown eyes lock with mine, and there’s a look there I recognize: the way he used to look at me.

But it fades as quickly as it appeared. He lays me back on the bed and pushes inside me. No condom. I look around the room, focusing on the mosquito net around the bed, the drone of the air-conditioning, the white-framed watercolor of a boat on the far wall. I wish I could get on a boat. But where would I go?

I think of what Dad said on the morning of my wedding. Last chance to back out . I looked at him and gave a nervous laugh, expecting him to say he was joking. But he didn’t.

As usual, the sex doesn’t last long. I see Rob’s expression change, the familiar gasp, then wait for him to roll over. I head to the bathroom quickly, letting it all fall out into the toilet bowl. Hopefully , I think with a shiver. Hopefully, it didn’t reach far enough.

By the time I get back into bed, he’s fast asleep.

And I still haven’t said yes.