The Switch(90)

I turn away from Marian’s front door and then pause, looking down at the mobile phone in my hand. It’s not mine. It’s Leena’s. We were supposed to swap back once I got home, but then she left for London.

Of course, we told everyone we speak to regularly that we’d changed our phone numbers, but I know for a fact that Leena didn’t tell Ceci.

If Leena had proof that Ethan was being unfaithful to her … Surely then she’d believe me. And I could get proof. I just have to pretend to be Leena. Just for one little text message.

What I’m about to do is most certainly wrong. It’s meddling of the worst kind. But if I’ve learned anything these last two months, it’s that sometimes everyone’s better off if you speak up and step in.

Hello, Ceci. Ethan has told me everything. How could you?





33


Leena


The journey back to London feels hazy, as though my ears have popped and everything’s a little muffled. I find my way to my flat on autopilot; it’s only when I step into the building that I really connect with where I am. It’s all different. The whole downstairs space looks beautiful: exposed floorboards, a seating area, a dining table pushed to the back of the room. Grandma must have done this. There are bright, amateurish paintings stuck to the walls and a stack of bowls in one corner of the dining table; it seems lived-in, well loved.

Once I get to the flat, though, I forget all about the downstairs area. From the moment I open our door and smell that scent of home, all I can see is my life with Ethan. We cook in that kitchen, we curl up on that sofa, we kiss in this doorway, over and over, at the start and end of every evening we spend together. I can almost see him here, like the faint lines you leave in a notebook when you press down hard as you write.

He would never hurt me. He wouldn’t. I won’t believe it.

Fitz returns home half an hour later to find me sobbing on the floor, my back against the sofa. He’s at my side in an instant. He pulls me against his shoulder and I cry into his cashmere sweater and he doesn’t even tell me off for getting his dry-clean-only jumper all wet.

‘Everything’s a mess,’ I say between sobs.

Fitz kisses the top of my head. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Ethan … Grandma … He … She …’

‘I think I need some of the linking words here, Leena. I was always shit at Mad Libs.’

I can’t bring myself to tell him. There’s this one particular thing Grandma said that I’ve been hearing over and over, playing on a loop over the train announcements, the saxophonist in King’s Cross Station, the chatter of passers-by as I made my way here. He said you’ve been a different person.

I don’t believe Grandma. I trust Ethan. I love him, so much, he’s my happy place, my comfort blanket, he would never hurt me like that. He’s Ethan.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe if it’s true I can just forgive him and we can go back to how we were before. I’ve had a crush on Jackson, haven’t I? It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean I have to stop being Ethan’s Leena.

But even as I think it, I know I’m wrong. If Ethan’s — if he’s — with Ceci—

‘Jeez, Leena honey, stop, if you keep crying like this you’ll run out of water,’ Fitz says, pulling me in tighter against him. ‘Talk to me. What’s happened?’

‘I can’t talk about it,’ I manage. ‘I can’t. Please. Distract me.’

Fitz sighs. ‘No, Leena, don’t do that. Let’s talk about it, come on. Has Ethan done something bad?’

‘I can’t,’ I tell him, more firmly this time, pulling away. I wipe my face on my sleeve; my breath is coming in quiet gasps even now the tears are stopping, and I try to steady my breathing as best I can. ‘Is that my laptop?’ I say, spotting it on the coffee table under a heap of Martha’s old interior design magazines.

‘Yeah,’ Fitz says, in a tone that says, I’m humouring your need to change the subject, but don’t think I’m done. ‘How does it feel to be reunited? I could not live two months without mine. Or a smartphone.’

Shit, my phone. I never got to swap back with Grandma. I shake my head – I don’t have the energy to worry about that right now. I pull the laptop on to my knees, the weight of it reassuring and familiar.

‘How about I make you a smoothie?’ Fitz says, stroking my hair.

I sniff, scrubbing my cheeks dry. ‘Will it be brown?’

‘Invariably, yes. I have not cracked that in your absence. They still always come out brown. Even when everything I put in is green.’

That’s somehow quite reassuring. At least something hasn’t changed. ‘Then no thanks. Just a tea.’

I know it’s a bad idea, but I need to look at Ethan’s Facebook. He’s coming over, but not for an hour, and I just need to reassure myself that … that … I don’t know, that he’s still my Ethan. And maybe that there aren’t any pictures of him with Ceci.

I open the laptop. The chat page on Grandma’s dating site is open on the screen.

OldCountryBoy says: Hi, Eileen. I just wanted to check whether you have had a chance to send me the money? I’m raring to go on the website! xxxxx



‘Shit,’ I mutter. The page has timed out; I log in again after a few false starts, trying to remember the username and password I set up for Grandma.