I Knew You Were Trouble

Chapter Thirty-Three

London, England

June, four months later

I’m eating toast for breakfast. Dad is back from getting milk at the local shop. He comes through the door to my flat holding a tote bag, in his other hand, a copy of a magazine.

He’s stayed with me, on and off, in my spare room, making a couple of trips back and forth to LA, and we’re rebuilding our relationship.

He sits down opposite me and holds my gaze as he slides the magazine across the table. I stiffen.

‘Saw two girls fawning over this at the store,’ he says. ‘Didn’t want you to get caught by surprise if you go out… so I thought I’d buy you a copy. It might mention the documentary.’

I leave it where it is, looking down at the cover of a well-known men’s magazine.

Dad swallows. ‘Are y’alright?’

The picture has him bathed in a neon blue tint, like the surface of a swimming pool. The text, in neon yellow, says the word AIDAN in bold lettering. Taken from the waist up, the image shows him shirtless, looking directly at the camera in a piercing stare, the light giving him a seductive blue glow that matches his eyes. Looking at a photograph of him turns my insides to liquid. He has two new arm tattoos I’ve not seen before. He must have got them in the aftermath of the tour, which came to an end in April.

I pick it up gingerly. ‘Should I read it?’

‘Up to you, Pumpkin. You’ve been doing so well these past months. I’d hate for you to take a backward step.’

During his stay, over several weeks, he helped me go through every piece of Rebel Heart footage and come up with the narrative for the documentary. He even coaxed the legendary Rocky Jones out of retirement to become my editor. He’s cooked most of my meals, and taken care of me. He brought me back from the brink.

‘Maybe I shouldn’t read it,’ I say, moving the magazine away again.

‘It’s only natural that you’d want to,’ he says. ‘You love him. Love will make you do irrational things. Love is a riptide, Lexi. It will pull you under and have you gasping for air. Love can suffocate you. Me and your mother didn’t work out because love took us in different directions. You can’t control how it happens sometimes.’

‘But what about me?’ I blurt without thinking. ‘You left me too, not only her.’

We haven’t talked about it. Him leaving.

His eyes well with tears. ‘It was the hardest decision I’ve had to make in my life, Lex. Leaving you behind broke my heart, and I broke your mother’s heart in the process. For a long while, I found it difficult to live with what I’d done. Your mother was a wonderful woman, Lexi, but she and I never repaired our relationship. I always hoped maybe we would. When she died, I was determined to take care of you, even if you didn’t really want me to. At least now I can try to make amends, in the smallest way. Nothing will ever make up for what I did, I know that.’

I get to my feet, walk around the table and put my arms around him. We stand there for some time. ‘Thank you for coming here,’ I whisper.

Later, I read the magazine interview with Aidan, which took place on the Miami leg of the tour. The black-and-white pictures inside make him look thinner. According to the article, Aidan is ‘resolutely single’. When I’m finished, I feel sad and numb, but I’m resigned to the fact that we’ll never be together again. I put the magazine into the recycling bin before moments later pulling it out again and sliding it under my bed.

I never did get two grey ticks on my phone.

I’ve stopped waiting to see them.

‘It’s finished,’ I announce in mid-July, sitting with Duncan at a pub in Bloomsbury, seeing him for the first time in almost ten weeks. ‘Well, I say finished. We’ve got some sound issues to sort out, the opening credits to get right, some of the graphics… I’m almost there. Rocky’s done his bit. Now I’m fine-tuning with the production team.’

He grins at me. ‘Lex, that’s amazing. I can’t wait to see it. You look worlds better. Did you choose a title yet?’

‘I’m thinking of calling it “Heartbeats”. What do you think? Too cheesy?’

‘I like it. “Heartbeats”,’ he echoes.

‘I may not even get to choose the title. I have to fly to California with Simone in a couple of weeks to present it to the Silverpix executives and people from the management and record companies. Should give me enough time to make it look half-polished. Then they’ll probably want to change it all.’

‘Hey, you did what they asked, right?’

I nod. ‘I did what they asked. Now we can go back to poverty and marginalised voices and living out of a tent.’

‘Tents are looking a bit shite when you’ve stayed at the hotels we have,’ Duncan laughs.

‘Will you come with me?’ I ask.

‘To where? California?’

‘You’re such an important part of this. You deserve to be there. Plus, Silverpix will fund the cost of the flight.’

He gives a shrug. ‘Sure. See if I can get some time off work.’

I’m sick with nerves when I get out of the taxi outside Paige McArthur’s dance academy. She has – reluctantly – agreed to meet me after her three o’clock class.

When I walk through the door of the studio, I’m met with a gaggle of excitable three- and four-year-old girls wearing tutus.

‘ Byeeee everyone,’ Paige shouts cheerfully as parents struggle to put clothes back onto their giddy, wriggling youngsters, before they head back outside. ‘See you next time!’

I stop still when I see Paige, reminded of how uncanny the resemblance to her twin brother really is. Seeing her sends an invisible dagger slicing through my chest, despite me having watched Aidan on screen every day for the last four months. Everything is different in the flesh. I feel as though I need to keep things efficient, for my own sanity.

Paige sees me, her face collapsing into an uncharacteristic frown. The pair of us wait until the last of the children have left the building, both keeping our distance until the room is silent.

‘Hi, Paige,’ I say with the best smile I can muster. ‘It’s nice to see you.’

‘Hi. I’m afraid I don’t have long,’ she clips, glancing at her watch, and I’m thankful.

‘I won’t keep you.’

She looks me up and down. ‘Come on through.’

She leads me into a small office. ‘What can I do for you?’ she asks, her voice devoid of any emotion, crossing her arms over her chest.

‘I wanted to come and see you before I go to California. I fly to San Francisco tomorrow. I’m presenting the documentary to all the various stakeholders in Silicon Valley.’

‘It’s finished?’ Paige asks. ‘Oh. I mean, I don’t exactly approve of your filming methods, but congrats, I suppose.’

I look to the floor.

‘You said on the phone you had something to give me?’ she says.

I step forward, unzipping my bag, pulling out the items. ‘Um. A few things, actually. This is Aidan’s gift. I wonder if you could maybe drop it back into his room for me?’ I hold out the box containing the bangle that Aidan bought me in Dubai.

‘Lexi, I really don’t think Aidan wants you to return any gifts. He bought it for you.’

‘It cost a lot of money. It doesn’t feel right… keeping it.’

‘Fine,’ she huffs, taking it. I watch her put the box in a drawer. ‘Anything else?’

‘Will you be seeing Aidan in person anytime soon?’ I ask, pushing down the tremor in my voice that appears whenever I say his name out loud.

‘He’s coming here in a couple of days,’ Paige responds. ‘They’re flying in from New York tonight or tomorrow I think, sometime soon. They’ve being working on a new album. They released a new track last week; did you not see the video?’

‘Uh, no, I try not to—’

She looks down. ‘Right. Of course.’

I want to ask questions but I’m scared of getting tangled up in my own emotions. I hold up two USB thumb drives in two different colours for Paige, blue and green. ‘The reason I asked is that this contains my version of the documentary. The one that I’m presenting in California. I don’t know if the boys will get to see it otherwise, as I’m expecting the suits to request changes. I would like the band to see my attempt at telling their story.’

Paige nods and takes the two thumb drives. ‘And what’s on the other one?’

I take a breath. I deliberated at my flat about whether or not to hand it over. ‘The green one is for Aidan only. It’s an unedited copy of Miller’s interview. At least, the short interview that we actually managed to complete. I thought I’d switched the camera off before the end but it turns out it was still recording. I want Aidan to know what Miller said to me.’

Paige looks down at the green thumb drive and pulls a disgusted face. ‘I can already imagine.’

‘Not a lot of Miller’s interview ended up in the final cut.’

‘Why am I not surprised?’

‘Could you please pass them along for me?’

‘Of course. I’ll give them to him personally when he gets here.’

I swallow tightly. ‘Thank you. That’s everything. I’ll let you get on with your day.’

I turn to leave. Paige stares at me. She has his same piercing eyes. ‘I flew down to Buenos Aires back in April,’ she says. ‘He was falling apart. It was like he couldn’t hold onto to all the pain and anger anymore.’

I look to the floor, unsure how to respond. ‘Is he alright now?’ I ask.

‘He’s doing a lot better. Things could have been very different if you’d just been honest with him. In the end, you were another Lucy, all over again.’

‘I don’t understand.’

She looks confused. ‘You said… what did he tell you? At New Year? About Lucy.’

I try to think back. ‘He said she was his girlfriend. That he lost his virginity to her.’

‘What else did he say?’

‘Nothing.’

Paige shakes her head, flustered. ‘I knew it,’ she tuts to herself.

‘You knew what?’

She stares at me for a moment. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

Paige shows me her bedroom, which is above her studio. There are framed photographs of her with the band, posters, album covers and pictures of her and Aidan as children.

We settle into her sofa in the corner of the room. Paige has lost her frosty veneer.

‘At New Year, I instructed him specifically that, if he really liked you, that he had to tell you everything about Lucy Garrity. And clearly he just ignored me, like always.’

She sips her tea, shaking her head. ‘Something happened when Aidan first joined Rebel Heart,’ she begins, leaning her head against the back of the sofa. ‘After all the auditions, all of the attention, his world had been turned upside down. Everybody knew his name, and everybody wanted a piece of him. Of all of them. It freaked him out at the start. Lucy Garrity was Aidan’s girlfriend at the time. She went to school with us; she was in our class. She was his first love. She was his biggest champion throughout the process. At least, we all thought she was.’

‘What happened?’

‘She got a taste of fame, I think. And… she liked it.’

I sip my tea.

‘The cracks started to show,’ Paige continues. ‘They never saw one another. He was tied up with forming the band, all of that insanity. Rightly, she felt sidelined, and she didn’t like not having his full attention. The press was desperate for any snippet of information on any of Rebel Heart; it was like they were going through each of their lives with a fine-tooth comb, trying to sniff out dirt. Before the release of their debut album, Aidan was here, at home with us, and so was she. She got him talking about everything. It later turned out that a journalist had wired Lucy up with a hidden camera. So… details of the album… the cover, the track list, the track titles, the design, everything… all of which the record company was going to great lengths to keep under wraps… all of that got released via this journalist, who’d paid Lucy a hefty sum of cash for her trouble. Everything got leaked. He felt completely betrayed and humiliated. Then, to make matters worse, when he broke up with her, she sold her story to a different newspaper, a tabloid, for an even higher fee, going into detail about losing her virginity to Aidey in our wood barn and selling private pictures of him. He was angry and embarrassed. He didn’t want to trust anyone after that.’

I listen intently, lost for words. The story gives some explanation to Aidan’s level of anger at me filming the band covertly.

‘So, when he told me what you’d done…’ Paige says, before pausing. ‘I think there was a certain level of déjà vu involved. Lucy did a real number on him.’

‘I know he felt I’d betrayed his trust,’ I choke out.

‘You did,’ Paige states plainly. ‘Whether you meant to or not. But his reaction… I wanted you to know…it came from a dark place in his past. He never wanted to go through that experience again.’

I shake my head, get to my feet. ‘I didn’t know. I mean, I researched, but… I must have missed all that somehow.’

‘It was a long time ago and their team have tried to bury it as much as possible. Plus, as I now know… he didn’t tell you the full story. Maybe if you’d known… you would have done things differently.’

Tears prick my eyes. I no longer want to get on a plane to San Francisco. I want to go back to the McArthur family pub and wait for him to come back to his home, and instead beg his forgiveness.

‘Have you spoken to him? At all?’

I shake my head. ‘I sent him a message telling him I loved him and that I was sorry. I got no reply. I understand now. How it must have made him feel. Thank you for telling me.’

‘I’ll make sure he sees it. Your documentary.’

Paige gets to her feet. She wraps me in an embrace. I hold onto her, trying to stop the tears. ‘Best of luck, Lexi,’ she whispers.

When I leave her studio, I wonder if I’ll ever see her again.