Undulate (Alchemy, #2)

by Elodie Hart

She was unhappy with her circumstances, and she was unhappy with the person those circumstances made her, and she took action to change those circumstances.

Nobody gets to tell you what to believe. Nobody gets to own your mind, your heart or your body. You own them. You get to decide.

I choose to believe that sex is a staggeringly great perk of being a flesh and blood human being, and that I’m entirely justified in doing whatever I please to maximise that perk, as long as my co-conspirators (yes, that’s plural) consent to and enjoy whatever sensual acts we dream up.

I swear to God, if this guy was in any way looking to get back on the horse, he could get laid so easily tonight. All he’d have to do is stand there looking like that, and talk about losing his wife and single-parenting his little girls, and everyone with a vagina would make a rugby scrum to comfort the hot widower with the sad blue eyes.

‘It’s specific. To you. No matter how fucked up my home life still is—and believe me, it’s a total shit show, no matter what it looks like from the outside—my brain is so fucking full of you I can barely hold it together. All I can think about is doing unspeakable things to you. The whole. Fucking. Time. So for the love of God, please stop fiddling with your hem, because I can’t look away.’

‘With all due respect, mate,’ he says, ‘the girls deserve a father who’s happy and fulfilled and loved. Not someone crippled by grief. No one, and I mean no one, would deny your right to happiness.’ He drains his pint. ‘I’ve got to be getting back, I’m afraid. But, and I say this with love, maybe it’s time to get out of your own way, you pompous arsehole.’

‘You use the word shameless like it’s a bad thing, but from where I’m standing, it’s a good thing. I’ve met enough Catholics to know what a devastating handicap shame can be—God knows, I suffer from it enough myself. But you just get on with it. You know what you want and you go for it, especially at the club, and I admire it.’

Jesus, Mads. You seem to own your sexuality, and trust me, that’s a rare and beautiful thing.’

Mummy. Dear, sweet God Almighty, can nothing save us from this pain? Can nothing ease the devastation for my little girls of waking in the middle of the night and being hit by the cruelty of their reality?

It’s fucking brutal. The gaping chasm Claire’s death has left in their lives, and mine, is unbearable.

It’s vicious. My own grief is magnified for the agony I experience at seeing my daughters’ pain. And I would do anything to assuage their pain. Anything.

‘I have a confession to make,’ he murmurs in my ear as our heart rates return to normal. I close my legs together, clamping him inside me for as long as I can, not wanting him to leave me empty and bereft. ‘What’s that?’ ‘I’d give anything,’ he says, ‘to take you home with me and curl myself around you all night.’

Zach is as memorable as they are forgettable. I can’t even recall any of their faces right now, but I already know my chances of forgetting this man’s face anytime soon are zero.

It sounds like he’s complimenting my actual soul, and I have no idea what to do with that.

‘At first, I might have been trying to find oblivion through you, to be honest. It was so fucking tempting to just lose myself in you. But lately, I feel more found than lost.’ I press my lips together as tears sting the corners of my eyes, because that is simply the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me. And I want so badly to believe him.

‘Oh, please,’ she says, rolling her eyes. This woman is fucking shameless, and not in a healthy, Alchemy-like way. More like in an entitled, stick-up-her-arse way. ‘Look at you. The guy didn’t stand a chance. But you don’t have what he needs in a partner. You’re a beautiful distraction. A little plaything, nothing more.’

‘You may think you make him happy,’ she hisses, ‘but I bet what he’s got with you is more like oblivion than a deep, lasting happiness.’

I do actually throw up. I heave and heave until the toilet bowl is full of perfectly good bellini and parma ham. What a fucking waste. Jesus fuck. My skin is clammy, and it feels like it’s crawling. As if that woman’s descent from plain insipid to passive-aggressive to actually aggressive has smeared its toxicity all over me.

Because, let’s face it. That’s what he needs, right? I mean, who am I even kidding? For all the conversations we’ve had about us getting ‘serious’, whatever that means, and him letting the girls know we’re ‘dating’ (again, whatever that means), and for all the effort he’s made to make me feel welcome today, we’ve never had an actual proper conversation about the future.

And that’s because we both know there isn’t one. Not really. He doesn’t want a vacuous twenty-three-year-old raising his kids any more than I want to swap cocktail hour with Belle for witching hour with kids. I want my own babies. I want to come at motherhood gradually, to learn my babies from the moment I conceive them, rather than trying to inflict myself on a dead woman’s beautiful, bereaved little girls, no matter how easy it feels to be with them.

I’ve always known what I am to Zach. I’m more than a plaything, but I really don’t think I’m any more than a palate cleanser. Someone who was there at the right time to help him restore his confidence, his levity. And I think I’ve done that. He’s blossomed under my lavish, consistent attention. Zach isn’t the haunted guy I eye-fucked on Rafe’s balcony. Not anymore. And that’s a great gift to have given him. But I have a horrible, horrible feeling this relationship of ours has an expiry date. And that date is probably around the time someone like Frances bends his ear and slips their poison in one too many times.

That’s the shittiest, most heartbreaking part, because I’ve never wanted to make someone happy like I want to make Zach French happy. But maybe there’s only a particular type of happiness I can give him, and maybe it’s not actually happiness at all.

I don’t leave his side for the rest of the afternoon. Because if we have an expiration date, if this perfect, easy, glorious, Technicolor thing we have is temporary, I’m making every minute count.

He doesn’t understand why I’ve been pulling back. I’ll have to tell him at some point. Explain to him that I’m really not what he wants or needs at this stage in his life, that we’re infatuated with each other but perhaps, somehow—don’t fucking ask me how—we should at least attempt to sever those unbreakable ties. Loosen them, at least. Maybe—

She’s mine. This astonishing woman, whom I’ll readily admit to having underestimated, even distrusted, when I first met her, has taken me as I am. Has shone her light on me. It’s equally trite and truthful to say she’s brought me back to life. I suspect I never really distrusted her. More likely is that I distrusted myself. The overwhelming carnality of my reactions to her. No good can possibly come from this, I told myself. I’m delighted to report I couldn’t have been more fucking wrong.

At some point, my darling, when you’re ready, I’ll send you a new love, she wrote. She’ll be amazing. Nothing like me—obviously—because I’m a one-off. In fact, I’m going to find someone so different from me that she’ll make your head spin. But I have a feeling she’ll still leave unfinished cups of tea everywhere and sing the whole fucking time and drive you up the wall. Because I’m mean like that. You didn’t think I’d leave you in peace, did you? Although she will be seriously stunning—just like me :). Because I’m not that mean. And you’re welcome. Yours forever. In this life and the next. Claire xx