The Sunday Girl by Pip Drysdale

Author:Pip Drysdale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia

Twenty minutes later I was lying with my head on his chest, his pink work shirt open.

‘So, how was your day?’ I asked, gently tugging at his chest hair with my teeth.

‘Shit,’ he said. ‘I’m in the doghouse. Henry can barely meet my eye. Candice looks down on me. I’m sick of trying to convince them that I did nothing wrong. It’s a nightmare.’

His eyes were to the ceiling. My throat was tight.

‘Shall we run away to an island?’ I whispered.

But I knew that was my chance. To tell the truth. To make it right. And I even opened my mouth to say the words. But the sounds just wouldn’t form. And so I lay there, my mouth partially open, physically incapable of telling him what I’d done.

And instead I said: ‘Jenny called this afternoon, the HR woman from work. I can go back to work on Monday.’

He rolled onto his side and stroked my cheek. ‘Well, that’s great,’ he said.

‘But they gave me a warning,’ I added.

‘You naughty girl,’ he smiled. ‘But you see? I told you it would all blow over.’ He reached for my hand. ‘So, what do you have planned for tomorrow, then?’

‘Not sure. Charlotte’s away in Scotland until Sunday, so I can’t even play with her.’

‘Jesus, doesn’t she ever work?’

‘Half-term,’ I said.

And we lay there, our hands interwoven, for what felt like forever. My phone buzzed a couple of times, as did his, but we didn’t care what the world wanted. So we didn’t check. Nothing outside of that room mattered: it was a warm low-lit bubble, and there was nowhere else we wanted to be. It had been fifteen days since the break-up, thirteen since I saw the sex tape, ten since I’d first opened The Art of War and thirty-six hours since the Stepanovich story broke, and that was the first moment in that time when everything felt sane again. Calm.

Like every eye of the storm, I guess.

But then he reached for his phone.

‘Fuck, Dad called,’ he said. And just like that our cocoon had been pierced. So I reached for mine too: a Facebook message had come in. I was lying on my side, facing away from him, goose bumps forming on my arm as I read it:

Hi Taylor, I know you don’t want to talk to me, but you need to. There’s something you need to know. Please can we meet. And don’t tell Angus.

It was from Kim.

My pulse quickened as I thought of the petrol receipt and the picture of them together on that ski slope. What does she want? What could we possibly have to talk about? Should I tell him?

But then the warmth of his hand was on my hip and the choice evaporated. He was looking over my shoulder and I didn’t know how long he’d been there. What he’d seen.

‘I just got a message from Kim!’ I said, turning to look at him.

‘What does she want?’ he asked, his eyes wide and his jaw clenched.

‘I don’t know.

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