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Mum was only thirty-three when she died and Ivy only turned thirty-five last November.
‘Jo Malone? Really?’ I sniff at it before reading the stylish label that tells me it’s pomegranate noir. ‘Isn’t this a bit expensive for you?’
‘How does that saying go? Whisky before wine and you’ll pay the fine?’
‘I always thought it was wine before whisky and you’ll be fine. Maybe it’s the other way around?’
‘Come on, Ivy. That’s not fair. I wanted to tell you.’ ‘But you didn’t. Instead, you lied. Again.’ Hurt flickered on Jess’s face, but it was true, whether she wanted to hear it or not. Only this time, Jess hadn’t lied about a guy. It was about their dad, lying upstairs with who knew how long left to live. Keeping it a secret hadn’t protected her from anything, it had only made her lose time.
The next day, Ivy walked into the kitchen where Jess was stood at the sink rinsing lettuce leaves.
Jess laughed sarcastically. ‘Look at yourself. Is it any wonder you get treated like you do? You had Dad wrapped around your little finger. Being the fucked-up one who needed all the extra love and attention but never did anything to earn it.’
Ivy shot her hand out and slapped Jess right across the face. The tips of her fingers stung as they connected with her sister’s cheek with such force that Jess’s head snapped to the side. For a few seconds, they stood in silence with just the sound of their breathing and the reverberation from music though the walls between them. When Jess slowly turned back, her eyes were swimming with
This was what life was about. She was here to live, experience and feel. She simply wasn’t made for anything else.
I’d thought these feelings swirling in my body had gone, but instead he’s managed to rob me of breath and control the pace of my heart just by being in the same room.
don’t know. Lately, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about stuff, you know?’ Ivy continued. ‘I think I might have been a bit of a brat about a lot of things.’
And as I stand here making a drink to take to work with me, all I can think of is why didn’t I add the one thing on there that really mattered: sort things out with Ivy. I still can’t believe she’s dead. I still can’t understand how it’s really been so long since that fight.
But I’m pissed at myself all the same and I’m even more pissed with Ivy for dying. And I know I shouldn’t say that. But I am.
Finn shakes his head again. ‘The way she died . . . I thought it was a sick joke. Mixing sleeping pills and alcohol.
nobody ever does anything because of you. You can trigger a reaction – anger, jealousy, whatever it might be. But the way they act on that emotion is always down to them and never down to you.’
It’s been eight years, nine months and twenty-six days since my body has felt this and I drink it in as he hoists me up onto the bar. My legs wrap around his waist, and it’s a movement that somehow jolts me back into reality. I pull my head away and push my palms into his chest.
