‘You stay out here with me, darling,’ said Lucy. ‘Let’s eat chocolate.’

Tess took Felicity to her old bedroom. It was the only door with a lock. They stood next to her bed, looking at each other. Tess’s heart hammered. She hadn’t realised that you could spend your whole life looking at the people you loved in an oblique, half-hearted way, as if you were deliberately blurring your vision, until something like this happened, and then just looking at that person could be terrifying.

‘What’s going on?’ said Tess.

‘It’s over,’ said Felicity.

‘Over?’

‘Well, it never got started really. Once you and Liam were gone it just –’

‘Wasn’t as thrilling any more?’

‘Can I sit down?’ said Felicity. ‘My legs are shaking.’

Tess’s legs were shaking too.

She shrugged. ‘Sure. Sit.’

There was nowhere to sit but the bed or the floor. Felicity sank to the floor. She sat cross-legged with her back against the chest of drawers. Tess sat also, with her back against the bed.

‘Still the same rug.’ Felicity put her hand on the blue and white rug.

‘Yep.’ Tess looked at Felicity’s slim legs and fine-boned wrists. She thought of the little fat girl who had sat in that exact same position so many times throughout their childhood. Her beautiful green almond eyes shining out from her plump face. Tess had always known there was a fairy princess trapped in there. Perhaps Tess had liked the fact that she was trapped.

‘You look beautiful,’ said Tess. For some reason, it just had to be said.

‘Don’t,’ said Felicity.

‘I wasn’t trying to make a point.’

‘I know.’

They sat in silence for a few moments.

‘So tell me,’ said Tess finally.

‘He’s not in love with me,’ said Felicity. ‘I don’t think he was ever in love with me. It was a crush. The whole thing was pathetic, really. I knew straightaway. As soon as you and Liam were gone, I knew that nothing was going to happen.’

‘But –’ Tess lifted her hands helplessly. She felt a rush of humiliation. The events of the past week all seemed so stupid.

‘It wasn’t just a crush for me,’ said Felicity. She lifted her chin. ‘It was real for me. I love him. I’ve loved him for years.’

‘Is that right?’ said Tess dully, but it wasn’t a surprise. Not really. Maybe she’d always known it. In fact, maybe she’d even liked the fact that she’d sensed Felicity was in love with Will, because it had made Will seem all the more desirable, and because it had been perfectly safe. There had been no way that Will could have been sexually attracted to Felicity. Had Tess never really seen her cousin at all? Had she been just like everyone else who hadn’t seen past Felicity’s weight?

She said, ‘But all those years. Spending so much time with us. It must have been horrible.’ It was as though she’d thought that Felicity’s fatness cushioned her feelings, as though she believed that Felicity must surely know and accept that no ordinary man could really love her! And yet Tess would have killed anyone who might have said that out loud.

‘It was just how I felt.’ Felicity pleated the fabric of her jeans between her fingers. ‘I knew he just thought of me as a friend. I knew Will liked me. Loved me even, like a sister. It was enough to spend time with him.’

‘You should have –’ began Tess.

‘What? Told you? How could I tell you? What could you have done except feel sorry for me? What I should have done was gone off and got my own life, instead of just being your faithful fat sidekick.’

‘I never thought of you like that!’ Tess was stung.

‘I’m not saying you thought of me like that. It was more that I saw myself as your sidekick. As if I wasn’t thin enough to have a real life. But then I lost weight and I started to notice men looking at me. I know as good feminists we’re not meant to like it, being objectified, but when you’ve never experienced it, it’s like, I don’t know, cocaine. I loved it. I felt so powerful. It was like in those movies when the superhero first discovers their powers. And then I thought, I wonder if I could get Will to notice me now, like those other men notice me – and then, well then . . .’

She stopped. She’d got caught up in the telling of her story and forgotten that it wasn’t really an appropriate one for Tess to hear. Tess had only had a few days of not being able to talk to Felicity, whereas Felicity had all those years of not being able to share the biggest thing on her mind.

‘And then he noticed you,’ finished Tess. ‘You tried out your superpowers and they worked.’

Felicity gave a pretty, self-deprecating shrug. It was funny how all her gestures were different now. Tess was sure she’d never seen that particular shrug before – sort of French and flirty.

‘I think Will felt so bad about feeling, you know, a little bit attracted to me, he convinced himself that he was in love with me,’ said Felicity. ‘Once you and Liam were gone, everything changed. I think he lost interest in me the moment you walked out the door.’

‘The moment I walked out the door,’ repeated Tess.

‘Yup.’

‘Bullshit.’

Felicity lifted her head. ‘It’s true.’

‘No, it’s not.’

It seemed as though Felicity was trying to absolve Will of all wrongdoing, to imply that he’d been briefly led astray, as if what had happened was no different than the betrayal of a drunken kiss at an office party.

Tess thought of Will’s dead-white face on Monday evening. He wasn’t that shallow or stupid. His feelings for Felicity had been real enough for him to begin the process of dismantling his whole life.

It was Liam, she thought. The moment Tess walked out the door with Liam, Will finally understood what he was sacrificing. If there was no child involved, this conversation wouldn’t be taking place. He loved Tess, presumably he did, but right now he was in love with Felicity, and everyone knew which was the more powerful feeling. It wasn’t a fair fight. It was why marriages fell apart. It was why, if you valued your marriage, you kept a barricade around yourself and your feelings and your thoughts. You didn’t let your eyes linger. You didn’t stay for the second drink. You kept the flirting safe. You just didn’t go there. At some point Will had made a choice to look at Felicity with the eyes of a single man. That was the moment he had betrayed Tess.

‘Obviously I’m not asking for your forgiveness,’ said Felicity.

Yes, you are, thought Tess. But you’re not getting it.

‘Because I could have done it,’ said Felicity. ‘I want you to know that. For some reason it’s really important to me that you know that I was serious. I felt terrible, but not so terrible that I couldn’t have done it. I could have lived with myself.’

Tess stared at her, appalled.

‘I just want to be totally honest with you,’ said Felicity.

‘Thanks, I guess.’

Felicity dropped her eyes first. ‘Anyway. I thought the best thing would be for me to just leave the country, to get as far away as possible. So you and Will can work things out. He wanted to talk to you first, but I thought it would make more sense if –’

‘So where is he now?’ said Tess. There was a strident note to her voice. Felicity’s knowledge of Will’s whereabouts and plans was infuriating. ‘Is he in Sydney? Did you fly up together?’

‘Well, yes, we did, but –’ began Felicity.

‘That must have been very traumatic for you both. Your last moments together. Did you hold hands on the plane?’

The flicker in Felicity’s eyes was indisputable.

‘You did, didn’t you?’ said Tess. She could just imagine it. The agony. The star-crossed lovers clinging to each other, wondering if they should keep on running, fly to Paris!, or do the right thing, the boring thing. Tess was the boring thing.

‘I don’t want him,’ she told Felicity. She couldn’t stand her role as the stodgy, wronged wife. She wanted Felicity to know that there was nothing stodgy about Tess O’Leary. ‘You can have him. Keep him! I’ve been sleeping with Connor Whitby.’