One Click

by Andrea Mara

  Ruth walked back to the couch, three books in hand. “That’s not unreasonable though – nobody likes to talk about their ex.”

  Cleo shook her head. “No, there’s more to it than that – mentioning her name at all sets him off – it’s weird. None of it helps me with my break-up speech though – I can’t say ‘I’m dumping you because you get agitated when I mention Shannon’.”

  “Well, give me all the reasons you are dumping him, and let’s find one that works?”

  “Sure. So, he’s secretive, but wants to know everything about my day to the point of interrogation. He doesn’t like hanging out with my friends,” She looked at Ruth. “Sorry. He was incredibly rude to my mother, and is refusing to have her over for Thanksgiving. He is not the intriguing man I thought I met in the bar – he’s possessive, cloying, and actually not very interesting at all once you scratch the surface. At this point, the thought of touching him makes my skin crawl. How’s that?”

  Ruth let out a low whistle. “Right, we might leave out the bit about making your skin crawl . . . how about we focus in on the situation with your mom? You could explain that you two are exceptionally close and, when he didn’t quite bond with her, it made you realise the relationship wasn’t going to last.”

  Cleo nodded. “That’s good actually. Oh God, the sooner he’s gone, the better. I feel like I’ve just woken up. Did you see this all along?”

  Ruth did a head-tilt before speaking and Cleo knew the answer.

  “Well, I didn’t love him the night we met, and maybe because Shannon is a friend of a friend, I kinda felt for her in all this too.” She paused, but looked like she wanted to say something else.

  “Go on, spill, I can take it.”

  “I didn’t want to say it to you before, but I’ve heard Shannon isn’t doing so well. She’s drinking a lot apparently, and staying home alone, and I heard something about an overdependence on prescription drugs.”

  “Oh God, I feel bad now. I never really thought about it from her side, and when Marcus implied the break-up was coming long before it happened, I just took him at his word. I should never have gone near him, should I?”

  Ruth shook her head and threw up her hands. “Hey, it is what it is. You couldn’t have known, and you’re getting out now anyway. What time will he be home?”

  Cleo looked at the clock above the fireplace. “Six o’clock. Six hours to go. Maybe we should get out somewhere to distract ourselves?”

  “Sorry but I have to go home and get some work done. My boss doesn’t really believe in wisdom-tooth pain. Will you call me when it’s done? Do you want me to come over tonight?”

  “Oh do, please. If you could come about nine, hopefully he’ll be long gone by then?”

  “But where will he stay tonight?”

  Cleo shrugged. “I’m sure he has friends he can crash with. I can’t bear the thought of having him here even one more night.” She shivered, dreading what was ahead, but certain now that it was the right thing to do.

  Chapter 15

  The long hand ticked toward the top of the clock as Cleo watched, feeling sicker by the second. It was too early for vodka, but she’d poured one anyway, and it sat untouched, glittering on the coffee table.

  Two minutes past six. She closed her eyes, willing him to walk through the door, but dreading the turn of the key. Why had she ever let it get this far?

  Half past six came and went, still no sign. She checked her phone, no messages, though he rarely let her know when he was working late.

  Seven o’clock. The ice in the vodka was long gone now, absorbed into a watery, tepid drink she didn’t want. Her legs were stiff when she stood up to pour it down the sink, so she walked around the room, tracing her finger on the brick around the fireplace, running her hand over the books. The bamboo palm needed watering and it gave her something to do for two more minutes. She checked her phone again. A message from Ruth to say she hoped it was going okay, and one in Norwood Girls about meeting up the following night, but nothing from Marcus.

  At eight, she switched on the TV. Local news had a story about a child left alone in an apartment while her parents went to Miami, and a woman who’d fallen from a fourteenth-floor window. How completely depressing – she switched channels until she found a rerun of Parks and Recreation but it didn’t help. She couldn’t get her mind off what was to come and, the longer it took, the sicker she felt.

  Finally, at half past eight, the key turned in the door. Cleo’s stomach flopped. She took a deep breath, ready to make a speech, but when Marcus walked in it was clear something was wrong. His face was pale, his eyes agitated, flitting around the room. He had a laptop she hadn’t seen before under his arm, a rose-gold coloured Mac.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, not moving from the sofa. “Did you get a new laptop?”

  “I’m fine, I just need to do a few things.” He picked up his old laptop from the kitchen table, walked into the bedroom with both devices, and shut the door behind him.

  Cleo wondered if she should follow him, but something about his demeanour made her stay on the couch. Fifteen minutes later, he came out of the bedroom, and sat down beside her. His face was still pale, with a slick sheen to it, but he seemed calm. More than calm. Something had changed.

  “So, Cleo. How was your day?”

  She swallowed. “It was fine. Marcus, we need to talk.”

  He raised his eyebrows and waited.

  “It’s about us. I don’t think it’s working.”

  “Really?”

  She swallowed again. “Yes, I’ve been feeling that way for a while, but this thing about my mom and Thanksgiving really made me see things clearly. I don’t think we’re right for one another.”

  He looked at her coolly. There was no sense of surprise and none of the hurt she’d expected to see. And suddenly she knew she really wanted to see something predictable like hurt.

  “So I think it’s best if you move out. Maybe you could stay with a friend tonight? I’m sorry, I thought you’d be home earlier and have more time to sort something . . .” Don’t cave now, don’t invite him to stay.

  Finally he spoke. “Is it really about your mother, Cleo? Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

  Shit, did he think she was cheating on him? “No, nothing else. We’re simply not suited. I’m sorry.”

  He moved a little closer to her on the sofa, and put his hand on her knee. Her stomach did a somersault.

  “Anything about how long I take to get ready?”

  Her skin went cold.

  “Or being possessive and cloying?”

  She slid along the couch to move away from him, nausea rising in her stomach. How could he know?

  “What about being rude to your mom? Or – ” his hand shot out and grabbed her by the hair.

  She screamed as he stood up and yanked her off the couch. He pulled her across the room by her hair, then slammed her face against the bookshelf. She slipped to her knees, stunned and dizzy.

  “Or about my lack of reading? About not having any books on your precious bookshelf?” He spat the words, hissing in her face, still holding her hair.

  She wanted to speak but the pain was too great. Something wet slipped into her mouth – blood?

  “You think you’re so smart, Cleo. You think because you read lots of books and design your little logos that you’re some kind of artist. But take a look at yourself.” He pulled her hair again, yanking her head up. “You work in a fucking bar. You wear short skirts and sleep with your customers. You can dress it up any way you like, but you’re nothing more than a cheap fucking whore!”

  Cleo screamed when he slammed her face against the shelf again.

  “You should be more careful when you decide to have a laugh at my expense. See this bookshelf you’re so proud of? If you ever thought to clean the fucking thing, you’d have spotted there’s a camera behind the books. The feed uploads to my laptop each day, and wow did I see some interesting stuff tonight. But I
knew you wouldn’t clean the shelves. Cleo the artist, too full of her own importance to do some basic dusting. But not too good to fuck her customers, or to have a good laugh about how to break up with her boyfriend.”

  He still had her by the hair, and for a moment he stopped talking. Then very deliberately, he swung back his fist and punched her in the face. The pain was like nothing she’d ever experienced, crunching, stinging, blinding. Too stunned to scream, she slipped sideways, then she was on her back on the floor, looking up at him.

  His face came closer – he was kneeling now. And before she knew what was happening, his hands were around her throat. She reached up to grab his wrists but couldn’t prise them off. Pinpricks of light danced in her eyes and the air she desperately wanted to breathe wasn’t there any more. She kept pulling but couldn’t loosen his grip. In his eyes, there was nothing – not love, not hate, just nothing. This couldn’t be happening, she couldn’t end like this, lying on her apartment floor. The room started to swim and the walls were closing in, and then out of the corner of her eye, she saw it. She took her hand off his wrist to grab the Romanesque candlestick and with everything she had left in her body she smashed it down on the side of his head. As if in slow motion, she watched his face change. Rage gave way to surprise and his fingers unlocked from her throat, then so slowly it didn’t seem real, he slipped to the floor beside her and lay still.

  It took Cleo a moment to grab her breath, then she was scrambling, turning, crawling across the apartment floor, not stopping to look back. At the door, she pulled herself up to her knees, just as someone knocked on the other side. When she pulled it open, still on her knees, Ruth was standing there with a smile and a bottle of wine.

  “Oh God, oh my God …” Ruth’s smile faded to horror, her eyes taking in Cleo’s battered face. “Cleo, what happened? Did he do this? Don’t try to answer …”

  She knelt down to pull Cleo into her arms.

  “He’s still in there – I hit him – he might be dead,” Cleo whispered, too shocked to cry.

  Gently, Ruth put her sitting in the hallway and, with the bottle of wine still in her hand, went in to look. She was back almost immediately.

  “He’s unconscious. Even if he wakes, I don’t think he’ll be able to move any time soon.” She pulled out her phone to call 911. “Ambulance and police,” she confirmed, giving Cleo’s address.

  “He heard us,” Cleo whispered, when Ruth finished the call and sank down beside her. “He had a camera in the bookcase the whole time. He watched it on his laptop when he came home and heard everything I said to you today.”

  “Shush, we can talk when you’ve been seen by the paramedics.”

  “Is it bad?”

  Ruth put her arm around her shoulder, and Cleo saw blood pool on her white shirt. “It’s not so bad,” she said, but she was crying.

  “Am I in trouble, Ruth? Will they think I tried to kill him?”

  “I don’t think so, Cleo. Not when they see your face. And not when they watch the footage on the camera he’s got, right?” She hugged her. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about now.”

  LAUREN

  Chapter 16

  I’m early and Cleo isn’t here yet. I take a table by the window and order a skinny cappuccino, waving away the menu. It feels odd to be meeting Cleo back in Dublin, but I haven’t been able to get her story out of my head all week. And how I’d misjudged her. Taking her photo, envying her life, assuming I knew what that might be like, and yet less than a year ago she was literally fighting to save that life. My marriage break-up seems so amicable in comparison, and I’ve promised myself to lay off the self-pity. Dave can be childish, but he’s not violent. Jesus, not that that should be any kind of benchmark. Man held up as shining example because he never beat his wife.

  My thoughts are interrupted by Cleo’s arrival. She’s just as striking as she was in Italy or perhaps more so now we’re back in Dublin on a grey, rainy September morning. She stands out among the crowds of Saturday-morning coffee-drinkers – taller than most, her auburn hair swishing down her back, her bemused smile hiding so much.

  I rise to greet her and she pulls me into a small hug, like we’re old friends, and not people who met under the shade of an apology. To that end, I apologise again for taking the photo but she brushes it away.

  “No, I need to apologise to you – if I’m right, and this is about Marcus, then you’re caught up in something that has nothing to do with you.”

  “But if I hadn’t posted the photo, none of this would have happened,” I pointed out, as the waitress arrives with my cappuccino.

  “I’ll take an espresso,” Cleo says to her, then turns back to me. “Well, let’s just say we’re in this together now, and we’ll figure it out.”

  I nod, and take a breath before speaking. “Can I ask you something? Why didn’t you guess it was Marcus when I told you about the messages in Italy? I think it’s the first thing I’d have thought of if it was me?”

  She shakes her head. “Oh, but it’s not Marcus, I know that. The part I told you is just the first half of the story – there’s more to it. That’s why I suggested we meet up in person.”

  “How can you be so sure it’s not Marcus?”

  “Because Marcus is dead.”

  She says it so calmly.

  I stare at her.

  “But wasn’t he still alive when your friend called the police that night?”

  Her espresso arrives and she nods at the waitress. “Oh, for sure I didn’t kill him.” She raises the cup to her lips and sips. “He recovered and was arrested and held in custody – he didn’t make bail. Then back in January, he was stabbed during a fight in prison. He was dead by the time they found him – bled to death in the prison library, beside the crime-fiction bookshelf. Kind of apt, I guess.”

  My mouth drops open – at the story, and at the ease with which she tells it.

  “Hey, it may sound cold, but he’s no great loss to society. I can’t say for sure, but I imagine I’m not the first person he beat senseless.”

  “You think maybe he was abusing his ex – what was her name?”

  “Shannon. I don’t know, but it’s possible. What I didn’t know that night, as I sat there planning my break-up speech, is that Shannon took her own life.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah. On the same day Marcus attacked me, she jumped from her fourteenth-floor apartment.”

  “Oh my God! So do you think that had something to do with why Marcus attacked you? He’d heard about Shannon and lost it?”

  Cleo drains her espresso and raises her hand to ask for another. “Perhaps. But also because he heard for the first time what I really thought of him. I know now that’s what he was doing when he took his laptop into the bedroom after he came home that night – he watched the tape from that morning. God, when I think about what I said that day, sitting with Ruth. Stuff nobody should hear about themselves, ever. Up until then, all my bitching was done online, so he had no idea.”

  I’m still trying to take it all in, and wondering what I got myself into when I posted that bloody photo. My world is very simple compared to this New York story of violence and prison and death. Two deaths. Jesus.

  “I guess he must have had some idea you were talking about him, or why would he have put up the camera?”

  “Yeah,” Cleo says, “when the cops looked at footage on his laptop, it went back to October. He installed the camera after we fought about me working in a bar. So, basic trust issues, I guess. Ironic given he was the one who cheated on Shannon. That poor girl.”

  I watch as her face clouds over but just as quickly it’s gone. I get the sense she’s sorry for Shannon but in a detached way – like hearing something bad about a friend of a friend, without feeling personally touched. She’s made of tougher stuff than I am, and probably all the better for it.

  My phone is ringing on the table – my mother. I reject the call and turn it over. “Sorry, just my mum. She rings
me fourteen times a day so I have to screen.”

  “Are you close?” Cleo asks.

  “I suppose. Well, she phones me a lot and likes to have input in every aspect of my life. Not close in the way you and your mum are.”

  Cleo nods. “Yeah, we’re very close. My dad died before I was born, so it’s always been just the two of us. She doesn’t like to talk about it, she never mentions him. I’ve asked for photos but she says there are none, so I don’t even know what he looked like . . . They weren’t married but she gave me his surname and that’s really my only link to him. ”

  “I’m so sorry, Cleo. My dad passed away too, but I was nineteen. I can’t imagine never having known him. Your poor mother. And poor you.”

  “Yes, but I don’t feel I’ve ever missed out – she’s like a mom and dad rolled into one. We’re closer than ever since the attack. As soon as I came out of hospital, I moved in with her, and I haven’t been back to my apartment since. Ruth and Jude boxed up all my belongings and brought them to my mom’s, and Ruth took any of Marcus’s stuff that the police didn’t take. Actually, I guess she still has it. I should probably take it . . .”

  She doesn’t sound like she really will, but who could blame her?