She doesn’t know. That’s the first thing. I keep waiting for it to feel heavier than it does. It doesn’t, not really, which is probably the worst part of this and also the most honest.
Mia and Ollie had been on and off since spring. Not engaged. Not even living together. Just that annoying middle bit where she started using “we” in the Tesco shop and he still left his trainers by our front door like he paid rent. He was round a lot. Nice enough. Tall. That sort of lazy south-west London voice that sounds richer than it is. Worked in media sales or something equally vague. I used to take the piss out of him in the kitchen and he used to laugh like he didn’t mind being the joke.
I minded him more than I let on. That’s on me.
The row
They blew up on a Thursday. Classic timing. I was in my room doing my face for absolutely no one when I heard her voice go sharp in the hall. Sophie had headphones on and pretended not to exist, which is her whole personality when things get messy.
I caught pieces. You never listen. You checked my phone. I didn’t even do anything. Then the front door. Then Mia in the kitchen crying into a mug like it had personally betrayed her.
I did the friend bit. I sat with her. I said he was a mug. I said she could do better. I meant some of it. I also kept thinking about the way he’d looked at me the week before when Mia went to the loo, that half-second too long, like he’d already run the maths.
She went to bed early. Sophie went out. I sat on the sofa in an old shirt with my phone face down because I knew what was coming and I wanted to pretend I didn’t.
He texted at 11.41.
You up.
No question mark. Of course no question mark.
I went round
I could have ignored it. I didn’t.
I told myself I was going for the story. That’s my favourite lie. I put on the jeans that make my arse look deliberate and a black top I can take off without a struggle. Lip gloss. The usual. Looked in the hall mirror longer than I needed to. Then I got an Uber to his in Fulham because the District line at that hour makes me feel tragic.
His flat is one of those new builds that smells of paint and someone else’s money. He opened the door in a grey T-shirt and that face men do when they know they’re about to get away with something. No small talk. He just said my name like a test.
Chels.
I walked in. I put my bag down. I looked at him and thought, this is going to ruin something and I’m still going to do it.
We didn’t even make it to a sofa first. He kissed me against the wall by the kitchen and it was messier than I expected. Teeth. His hand straight under my top like he’d been waiting to stop being polite. I bit his bottom lip because I wanted him to know I wasn’t there to be gentle about it.
He tasted like beer and gum. I remember that more than I want to.
It got filthy quicker than it should have
I had his jeans open before he’d turned a light on properly. He was already hard. I wrapped my hand around him and he made this low sound that I will not be repeating to Mia, ever, even when I do tell her.
I went down on him in the hallway. Knees on that cheap wood flooring that looks expensive until you’re on it. He held my hair back with one hand and watched me like he couldn’t believe it was actually happening. I can take him deeper than she could. I know that now. He told me. He shouldn’t have told me. I liked that he did.
Look, I’m good at that. I’ve always been good at that. It’s not a personality. It’s just a fact. He came close once and pulled me up by the arm like he didn’t want it over yet.
Bedroom after that. His sheets were cleaner than I expected. I laughed at that and he asked what was funny and I said nothing, which was a lie, because I was thinking about Mia’s fake-tan sheets and how she’d hate this lighting.
He fucked me on my back first. Hard. No preamble. I was wet enough that it didn’t matter. One hand on my throat, not enough to scare me, just enough to make my head go quiet. I told him harder and he listened, which is rarer than people admit.
Then he turned me over. Pulled my hips up. I know how I look like that and I let him have the view. He slapped my arse once, then again when I didn’t complain. I reached back and spread myself for him because I wanted it sloppy and I wanted him to remember it.
He asked if he could put it in my arse.
I said yes. Of course I said yes. That’s the other fact about me.
Spit and patience and then not much patience at all. It hurt in the way I like, that stretch that makes you swear and then lean back into it. He went slow until I told him to stop being careful. After that he wasn’t careful. I came with my face in his pillow and my hand between my legs and he came not long after, pulling out and finishing on my back like a man who’d watched too much porn and still wanted to be polite about the mess.
We lay there breathing like we’d run for a bus. His heating clicked on. Very glamorous.
Then we did it again twenty minutes later, slower, which was almost worse. The second time feels more like a choice.
I left before it could turn into a conversation
He asked if I wanted water. I said I wanted a cigarette and I don’t even smoke anymore. I cleaned up in his bathroom and caught my face in the mirror. Makeup wrecked. Hair like I’d been in a fight. I looked exactly like the person I am when nobody’s watching.
I put my clothes on. He sat on the edge of the bed watching me like he might say something meaningful. He didn’t. He said, this stays here, yeah?
I said, obviously.
Then I got another Uber home at 3.10 and sat in the back with my thighs still aching and my phone full of nothing from Mia, which felt like a gift and a countdown at the same time.
Sophie was asleep. Mia’s door was shut. I stood in the kitchen and drank orange juice from the carton like a child. I thought about texting him and didn’t. I thought about getting in the shower and didn’t do that either for a minute, because I could still smell him on me and some ugly little part of me wanted to keep it till morning.
The next day was the real performance
Mia made coffee and talked about him like he was already an anecdote. She said he was emotionally unavailable. She said she knew it was over weeks ago. She said she was fine.
I nodded. I said men are exhausting. I said she was better off. I reapplied lipstick at the table so I wouldn’t have to hold her eye for too long.
He texted me at lunch. One line. Last night was insane.
I left him on read for two hours and then sent a selfie from the bathroom that was mostly mouth. I am not a good person. I am, however, consistent.
We haven’t done it again. That’s the bit people always want to hear, like once is a slip and twice is a character. I don’t know if that’s true. I do know I still think about the hallway. I think about his hand in my hair. I think about how easy it was to walk into his flat and take something that wasn’t mine.
Will I tell her
Not today.
Not because I’m protecting her. Let’s not dress this up. I’m protecting the version of the story I still get to control. Right now I’m the friend who sat on the kitchen floor and handed her kitchen roll. If I tell her now, I become the other woman in our own flat and the whole thing turns into shouting and packed bags and Sophie doing that tight little smile she does when she’s picked a side.
I’ll tell her when it makes a better story. That’s the ugly sentence and I’m leaving it in. Maybe after a few drinks. Maybe if he opens his mouth first. Maybe if she starts talking about getting back with him, because I am not sitting through that reunion knowing what his cock feels like.
Until then I live with it. I look at her over the toaster. I laugh at her jokes. I let her borrow my jumper. And when she says she hopes he catches feelings for some random girl and gets his heart stamped on, I smile like I’m on her team.
I am on my team. I always have been.
That’s the confession. I shagged Mia’s ex first. It was messy and good and I would probably do it again if he texted at the wrong time and I had already done my makeup. I can live with being a terrible friend. What I can’t live with is being boring about it.