The Road Trip by Beth O'Leary (grave mercy .txt) 📕

they give him hundreds of pounds as a birthday gift. I buy him a cafetière, which sits on our sideboard at home, looking a bit shit in comparison.

The restaurant is intimidatingly quiet. The food’s tiny and every course seems to involve a foam.

‘Mmm, delicious foam, said nobody ever,’ I say, swirling my fork through a particularly large green bubble of it.

Dylan snorts into his glass of water. ‘It’s haute cuisine, darling,’ he says, putting on his poshest voice. His natural voice, really. I hear it when he’s on the phone to his mum. Who I have still not met. Another simmering not-yet-argument. My parents offered him the option of moving into their home back in January, that’s how well they know him, and I’ve still not even spoken to his mum and dad.

‘How’s your, err, quaffled tripe?’

Dylan laughs so hard he nearly sprays me with water. I start giggling too, checking the other tables to make sure nobody’s staring. The restaurant is full of sixty-year-old men with attractive women in their forties. So clichéd. I do a scan of the tables: affair, third marriage, affair, escort, that one’s going to kill him in his sleep for the life insurance pay-out . . .

‘It’s griddled duck’s liver,’ Dylan corrects me, clearing his throat. His eyes flash with laughter. ‘And you are a philistine.’

‘Is that on the dessert menu?’

He smiles, a wicked slow smile that nobody gets to see but me. ‘I hope so.’

His phone beeps. I raise my eyebrows. We said no phones.

‘Sorry!’ He wriggles it out of his trouser pocket. ‘I’ll turn it off.’ He checks the screen and his face freezes.

‘All OK?’ I say.

‘I . . .’ He clicks through to read a full message.

I watch him, a forkful of grilled lettuce halfway to my mouth.

‘Marcus is . . . he sounds like he’s in trouble.’

My heart sinks. Marcus. Of course. He knows it’s our anniversary. What else would he do but get himself into some sort of trouble?

‘What’s happened?’ I ask, trying to keep my voice neutral.

Dylan’s shoulders are tensed. ‘He’s been drinking too much.’

I know this. We’ve talked about it a lot. Since moving to that weird jacuzzi house on the edge of Chichester, Marcus has spiralled. More drugs, more alcohol, more blackouts. Even Cherry’s worried about him, and Cherry is pretty relaxed when it comes to personal crises. She needs rescuing from drug-fuelled house parties now and then, but lately Marcus needs rescuing from roadside ditches.

‘I think he’s really drunk.’

I wait for Dylan to show me the message. He doesn’t.

‘OK? And you think he’s in trouble?’

‘It’s hard to understand the message,’ he says, frowning. Still not showing me.

My phone beeps. I wince. Clearly I’ve not put mine on silent either. But Dylan doesn’t even notice.

I’mon to you xx

From Marcus. I go cold.

‘What the hell is this?’ I show Dylan the message, and as I hold it out, the phone buzzes again in my hand.

Dylan sees the next message before I do. As I turn the phone back towards me I feel him watching me, the way he sometimes does. A little warily. Like he thinks I’m someone else pretending to be Addie.

Ive seen you with him. don’t think ii wont tell Dylan.

What the fuck?

‘I have no idea what he’s on about,’ I say immediately, looking up at Dylan. ‘But you’re right. He’s clearly drunk. This message is so . . . creepy.’

‘I’m going to go and get him,’ Dylan says, moving his napkin from his lap to the table.

‘What? Now?’

He hasn’t even finished his scrambled chicken entrails, or whatever.

‘Yeah, now,’ Dylan says shortly, already scraping back his chair. The beautiful women all look first. Alert to drama.

‘But . . .’

‘I’ll see you back at home.’

I have to put the meal on my credit card. Dylan ordered some stupidly expensive bottle of wine and even though we didn’t get as far as pudding, the bill is over a hundred and fifty pounds. Seeing the number makes my eyes sting with panicked tears. I can’t stand to see the rest of Dylan’s plateful going to waste, so I eat the scraps of his bullshit foamy dinner on my own and drink the wine. It’s all totally humiliating.

When I get home, Dylan’s on the sofa. He’s slumped and soft-eyed but I’m raging.

‘Sorry,’ he begins.

‘What for? The fact you ditched me at our anniversary dinner or that I just bankrupted myself to pay for it?’

‘Oh, shit,’ he says after a moment. ‘I didn’t think about . . .’

‘Of course you didn’t. Your precious Marcus was in trouble, wasn’t he?’ I move past as he tries to intercept me. ‘No, no,’ I say, and brush past him up the stairs.

‘Addie, come on, let’s talk,’ he says, as he always does. But I know the best way to punish him, now. He hates my silence.

‘I’m going to bed. Alone,’ I say. ‘You can sleep on the sofa. Or with Marcus. Whichever you prefer.’

When I come down in the morning he isn’t on the sofa. He isn’t anywhere. I sit down in the space where he was last night and try to remember to breathe. He’s left me. He’s gone, because I said that thing about sleeping with Marcus, or because I told him I wouldn’t talk, or because I’m the sort of girlfriend who gets angry when he goes to help his friend.

But – ugh. What about all the other times I said it was fine? When we went for a weekend away in the Cotswolds and he left early for Marcus. When he didn’t even make it to my sister’s birthday party because Marcus passed out somewhere. When I asked for a cosy night in and he said, Sorry, Marcus really wants some quality time.

It’s crossed my mind that Marcus might love Dylan. But he’s only ever shown an interest in women, and there’s nothing sexual in how he looks at Dyl. They’re just . . . bonded in some way I can’t understand.

The door clicks open and I sit up fast.

‘Dylan?’

‘Hey,’ he says quietly. He drops his