Chapter 1

I heard them the moment I stepped into the house.

They were loud.

I stood in the doorway, closed my eyes, listened, and tried to guess the girl. It had become a little game of mine.

A girl has to entertain herself somehow.

The moan that floated down the stairs was high pitched and dramatic, with that particular performance quality. It was too easy.

"Yep. That's definitely Daisy."

My boyfriend was upstairs. With Daisy. Again.

Daisy was the most frequent. Then Hannah. Then Paige, who only showed up occasionally and always smelled like the same vanilla perfume that I'd started associating with Liam's guilty face. Sometimes there were new ones, but he usually cycled back to his usuals. Creatures of habit, the both of them.

From upstairs, Daisy confirmed my suspicions at a volume that suggested she either genuinely lost her mind or had never heard of neighbours.

She was always so extra.

He wasn't even that good.

I set my bag down by the door. Took off my shoes. Put them neatly to the side because I was raised right, unlike some people in this house.

I had fifteen interviews in six weeks. Fifteen. And nothing to show for it except a growing collection of we've decided to go in a different direction emails and a blouse I'd ironed so many times the collar was starting to give up on life.

And the reason I had no job in the first place — the reason I'd been scrambling for six weeks with nothing — was currently upstairs being extra with Daisy.

Liam had decided, eight months ago, that my job at the bakery was inappropriate.

His exact words: "Working somewhere like that makes men think you're too sweet and easy going."

Whatever the actual fuck that meant.

I'd tried to argue. I'd tried to explain that a bakery was a bakery and not, in fact, a statement about my romantic availability. But arguing with Liam was rarely worth the outcome.

And I'd needed the roof over my head. And my mum's medication wasn't cheap. And my brother's school fees weren't going to pay themselves.

So I quit the bakery.

And now I was standing in the hallway of a house I didn't own listening to a woman whose last name I didn't know perform an enthusiasm I was not convinced was genuine.

I contemplated going upstairs to confront him.

Honestly, I think he liked it. The confrontation. The drama. Something in Liam needed the games — needed the catching and the crying and the whole performance of remorse. Maybe it made him feel wanted. Maybe it made him feel real. I had stopped trying to psychoanalyse it somewhere around girl number four.

But I was exhausted.

Another moan from upstairs.

Lord.

Against my better instincts and my own personal sanity I went upstairs anyway, because this was the arrangement and I knew the arrangement and the arrangement kept my family fed and housed and medicated and that was what mattered.

It was simple, really.

Open the door. Watch him and whoever the girl of the day was scramble. Watch him cry. Cry with him, or at least approximate crying convincingly. Keep the roof over my head. Keep my family safe.

Simple or atleast it was.

Liam was not like other men, and I was not stupid. Unlike other girls, I had gone into this with my eyes open — eventually. There was never a time he wasn't like this. Not once in three years had he been faithful. But also not once in three years had he used my family's situation against me. Not once had he used my past actions to judge me. And he made sure my mother's rent was paid. And he made sure my brother stayed in school. And he made sure none of the people I loved had to worry about the things that used to keep me up at night.

And in return, I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t leave. I didn’t make scenes unless he needed one.

Honestly, anything was better than standing by the roadside, waiting to be picked up and used like trash.

So I stayed.

Maybe I was pretty stupid.

But what's love if my family isn't loved as well?

I pushed open the bedroom door.

"Liam," I said, with my overly practised glossy eyes I had probably used a million times already.

Daisy looked up first.

She had the decency to look horrified — shoved Liam off her and grabbed the sheet with both hands, eyes wide, doing the mental calculation of how bad this was in real time.

Bitch, bye.

Liam was next.

He looked up sharply. And for a second, he didn’t move.

Then, like someone had pressed play on a remote, the twenty-eight year old man in the bed started his waterworks.

Fuck my life.