To my surprise, Annabel doesn’t collapse at this. She remains steady, eyes on Poppy, as if she’s simply telling her about the weather.
I want to tell Poppy she’s wrong, but I can’t. Just like I can’t ever tell Annabel that Andrew tried it with me once, at one of Tanya’s parties a year after they got married. I was coming out of the women’s toilets in a club that has long since shut down due to a drugs bust, and he was leaning against the wall waiting for me, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me close to him as I walked by. I still remember his hot and sticky breath on my neck, his insistence we find somewhere quiet, that he knows I’ve always wanted him too.
Poppy glances at me, and I’m convinced it’s all over. She gives me a small smile, then turns back to Annabel, and I exhale with relief.
“What’s your point?” Annabel says.
Poppy looks startled. “What do you mean?”
Tanya doesn’t know what to do with herself, face agog. She keeps trying to catch my eye and it takes everything in me to ignore her.
“Is this all you’ve got?” Annabel says. “Evidence of Andrew cheating on me?”
“So you knew?” Esther says. “Annabel . . . is that why you’ve been . . .”
“Shut up, Esther,” Annabel snaps.
What’s that about?
She turns again to Poppy and smirks. “I’m afraid your little game has backfired. I already knew about Andrew. Typical man. But what do I care? He’s wealthy. He was my ticket out of my depressing life. He still comes home to me at the end of the day. I’m the one he married.”
She can’t know everything. My stomach feels like it’s about to flip over I’m so nervous. Still, though. I can’t help but admire her. There’s still Annabel Hannigan in there somewhere, queen bee of our school and not someone to be messed with.
Poppy is uncertain, watching Annabel closely. Annabel’s phone is still in her hand, and I’m sure there’s going to be something awful in there.
“You might have been aware,” Poppy says eventually. “But what about everyone else? How would you feel if they all knew about Andrew’s dirty little secret?”
She throws Annabel’s phone to her then, a quick movement that gives Annabel barely any time to react.
“Thankfully, you all have great data plans on your phones, so the lack of Wi-Fi wasn’t an issue,” Poppy says. “Of course, with the signal being as patchy as it is, I had to spend a long time uploading everything, but it worked. It’s a shame that meant all your data has run out. But I’ve taken screenshots of everything I did so we don’t have to worry about you not being able to take a look.”
“What have you done?” Annabel asks, opening her phone.
“I’d have a look at screenshots from your Instagram, your Twitter, and your Facebook,” Poppy says. “A lot of family members on your Facebook, aren’t there? The kind of people you don’t want to see your dirty laundry. Or Andrew’s dirty laundry.”
Annabel actually laughs. “Jesus Christ, you’re crazy.”
“What has she done?” Esther grabs the phone and then gasps and covers her mouth with one hand. Her tone shifts to pure venom, aimed at Poppy. “You absolute psychopath.”
Tanya, panicked, hurries to take a look, and in the commotion, I’m able to get close enough to peer over Tanya’s shoulder and see for myself what Poppy has done.
Annabel’s profile page. There’s a new photo album, entitled: My Darling Husband.
Oh, Jesus.
The caption is worse.
Andrew and I have been married for three wonderful years. And in those three years I have been fortunate enough to find out that he has shared this time with me and at least fifty other women. Enjoy a little slideshow of Hubbie Dearest.
The photo album makes me sick. How did she even get these photographs? Andrew in bars, his hands on women’s thighs and smiling seductively. His face buried in their necks. Kissing them in hotel lobbies. Leading them to hotel rooms, hand on their asses. I scan through each picture, panic in my throat, but each image is a stranger, a smiling curvaceous blonde or brunette. I didn’t know. I didn’t know he was seeing all these women.
“So what?” Annabel says. “Was it you who took all these pictures? You realise all you’ve done is turn me into the innocent victim? Andrew is the bad guy here, not me.”
She keeps flicking through the screenshots; the images never seem to end, and finally Poppy smiles again.
“I’d finish looking through everything before you continue being so cocky,” she says.
Oh shit. Why is she looking at me?
Annabel carries on, still confident, and then all of a sudden she drops the phone in shock, sending it clattering to the ground, screen cracking right down the middle.
“Annabel?” Esther bends down and picks it up, then she recoils too at what she’s looking at.
“You bitch!” Out of nowhere, Annabel darts forward and slaps me in the face. “I should have known! Of course you did!”
I reel back as a sharp sting floods my cheek, clutching at it.
“Annabel, don’t!” Esther cries. She and Tanya rush over to pull her off.
“Annabel!” Tanya steps in front of her as she tries to go for me again. The breakfast table is abandoned, the five of us all standing now, half on the decking, half on the lawn.
“Feisty as always, Annabel,” Poppy says gleefully.
“You slept with him! You slept with Andrew!” Annabel screams.
Esther thrusts the phone into my hands and I can see what they’ve all seen. Shit. It’s worse than the others. Me and Andrew at restaurants. In bars. In hotels. And then, last of all, kissing on the doorstep of their house, his hands in my hair and my arms around his waist.
Oh God.
“She’s been fucking your husband, Annabel,” Poppy tells her. “Remember that time Chloe was burgled and came to stay at yours? She brought it up on this very trip. Well, she and Andrew have been fucking ever since.”
“How do you even know that?” I whisper. Has she been spying on us? What else does she know?
“Oh, that’s what you’re worried about, is it?” Annabel shouts. “Not the fact that you’ve been screwing around with my husband when you’re meant to be my friend?”
Everyone is looking at me in horror.
I have to try and explain. “It was a mistake. I didn’t mean for it to happen. We were alone in the house one evening, and it just . . . we . . .”
“My God.” Annabel shakes her head. “In my house? When I was being kind and letting you stay? You jumped into bed with my husband?”
Esther’s eyes widen. “Oh, Chloe, you didn’t.”
Annabel keeps pacing back and forth, and any second I think she’s going to go for more again. “How many times?”
God, hundreds? Andrew is pretty fantastic.
“I don’t know,” I say instead.
“Fuck.” Her face screws up in pain, and for a second I do actually feel bad.
“I’m sorry. I really am.” It’s not my fault he kept messaging me, calling me, telling me he couldn’t bear to go a week without me in his arms. How was I meant to resist?
“But you didn’t stop it, did you?” Annabel says. “When was the last time?”
I might as well be honest. She’ll probably find out from Andrew. “Before the hen party. Last weekend.”
“Jesus Christ. That’s sooner than Andrew was with me.” Annabel throws her head back and laughs. “My God.”
“I’m ending it. I’ll end it when we get home.” Will I? I don’t know, but it’s probably the right thing to say.
“Oh, don’t bother. You’ve always been a selfish bitch but this is a new low,” she snarls over her shoulder. “You couldn’t just let me have someone, could you? You’ve always been pathetic. Always been an attention seeker. You couldn’t bear it that I had him first. Couldn’t bear that someone might find me more attractive than you.”
Here we go. “That’s not true.”
“I bet you were much more shocked than I was to find out he’d been sleeping with a load of women,” she says. “I bet you thought you were the only one. Special.”
Well. I didn’t know he was. But I’m not about to tell her that.
She must see something in my face though because she grins triumphantly. “I thought so,” Annabel says. “Should that make me feel better? That you’re even dumber than I am when it comes to Andrew? Because it doesn’t. You’re my friend, Chloe. Or at least you’re meant to be. And this is how you treat me?”
“Oh, because you’ve always treated the rest of us so well!” I snap. It’s about time she heard it. “Kindness and being caring, that’s what you’re known for, is it?”
“Don’t even try it, you pathetic little—”
“This has gone far enough,” Esther says. She moves in front of us both, holding her palms out. “We can sort this mess when we get home. Stop it. And you.” She fixes her stern gaze on Poppy. “Give the rest of us our phones back and we’re calling Robin and getting the hell out of here.”
“Yes, give me my phone back,” I say.
Poppy opens the box again, taking another phone out.
Mine. I recognise it immediately, the white case with stickers of my Instagram handle on the back. I reach for it, but Poppy pulls away.
“I’m surprised the rest of you haven’t figured out the obvious,” Poppy says.