The Best of Friends by Alex Day (accelerated reader books .txt) 📕

the curtains. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why it happened. But I do know it was wonderful.

Dan must have sensed me stirring because I feel him turn over and roll towards me, and then his hands are on my body, caressing me, arousing me. I feel eighteen again, reborn into a time before Justin, before Charlie, before I knew how terribly, badly wrong love can go. How terribly, badly wrong a life can go.

It’s as if I’ve wiped the slate clean and been given the gift of starting over.

Dan’s love-making is slower this morning, not the desperate, fervent act of the night before but studied and considered. It’s just as good, if not better. I can’t believe that I’m over forty and I’ve never made love like this before, had no idea how incredible it can be. Charlotte admitted that she and Dan don’t have sex anymore – and when I only had Justin, and memories of Charlie to pin my own experience on, I could understand that. But now, now I’ve been with Dan, I don’t get it at all, don’t know how someone could voluntarily turn their back on this, could find it not to their liking.

It reveals to me the emptiness of Charlotte and Dan’s relationship, the extent to which all fires have been well and truly extinguished. Charlotte may be using her solitude in Corsica to rethink what’s gone wrong but she’s going to find it’s too little, too late. Dan and Charlotte’s marriage, it seems to me, is based on keeping up appearances and clinging onto life’s comforts, not on any real affection. And this convinces me, as Dan brings me to orgasm, that what he and I are doing is not so very bad. That we could be, that in fact we are, very, very good.

Dan suggests breakfast but in the kitchen he gazes helplessly at the six-burner hob, so I step in and make scrambled eggs on toast. Surrounded by all Charlotte’s things, her choices of crockery and cutlery, her children’s pictures on her walls, her collection of magnets on the fridge door, I can’t stop thinking about her. Only continually reminding myself that there’s no love in their union anymore, that their partnership is a hollow shell, enables me to sit at Charlotte’s table as if I am mistress of the house. I doubt she’ll enjoy getting divorced any more than the next person, but for her it won’t be like it was for me. Dan is rich and generous; she’ll get a fabulous settlement and she’ll be free of the man who irritates her so much. She’ll be able to find someone she does want to have sex with.

Dan asks if I’d like that swim.

‘The pool is well up to temperature,’ he says, flicking his eyes towards an electronic gadget on the wall that displays a reading of 28 degrees.

‘Charlotte likes the water really warm,’ he explains, adding, ‘costs a bloody fortune, as I alluded to last night.’

Then he breaks off as a dark shroud of doubt descends upon his face. Being confronted by all the wasted years, by the fact that now he has the chance to be with someone who truly loves him, must be challenging. I can understand that.

At this precise moment, his phone rings. ‘Charlotte’ flashes onto the screen as the noise gets louder and louder, more and more persistent. We both sit and stare at it until, eventually, it rings out.

Slowly, very slowly, Dan reaches out, picks up his phone and puts it in his pocket. He looks stricken, panicked.

‘I can’t talk to her right now.’

‘No.’ I try to exude sympathy through my tone and body language.

There’s silence for a moment. I imagine what he might say. ‘I can’t tell her over the phone, but I’ll do it as soon as she’s back,’ or, ‘I’ll need to prepare the boys for what’s coming; I can’t let them suffer.’

‘When you’ve finished your drink, I’ll drop you home,’ Dan continues, not looking at me, making sure not to meet my gaze.

He drains his glass and thrums his fingers on the table before continuing. ‘And then we must never mention this again, Susannah. Do you understand?’

Now, he looks at me. Stares straight into my eyes. ‘Charlotte must never, ever find out about this.’

I’m too stunned to reply.

Chapter 25

Susannah

Dan has gone to Corsica.

I stare at the message on my phone, dumbfounded. It’s not from him; he’s made no contact with me at all. Instead, it’s from Charlotte, telling me how pleased and excited she is that he’s on his way, how she’s going to make new efforts to put the past behind them, to make everything right. Absence has made the heart grow fonder and she sees everywhere she’s gone wrong, how everything was confused and muddled but now is crystal clear.

She loves Dan. He loves her. Naomi is nothing. She thanks me for looking after him. She appreciates it.

I let the phone drop from my hand. Despite what he said on Saturday, I had still held out hope that, once he’d had time to think about it, and get over the idea of telling her, once he’d spoken to her and been reminded of all that’s wrong with their relationship, he’d rethink his decision. Would call me, contrite and apologetic, invite me round, pull me into bed, confess that he can’t live without me.

But no.

After all his leading comments, his generous, loving gestures, the outpourings of his heart and his come-ons that I fell for, hook, line, and sinker, the fact is that I’ve been spurned, used, and tossed aside in the worst possible way. And his reaction to the whole thing is to fly off for a lovely holiday reunion with her.

I phone in sick to work. Naomi will just have to manage without me for a few days. Lying on my bed, I go over and over in my head the evening we spent together, and the wonderful night and morning that