Chapter 86

86

Roxi

‘Do you miss posting on social media?’ asked Owen suddenly. He picked at a plate of blackberries and blueberries as Roxi placed the tablet she was surfing face up on the sofa. Never hold a conversation with the world in your hands, their Relationship Responder Adrian had advised them. As much as she wanted to forget about the whole experience, some of his advice stuck to her like burned pasta at the bottom of a pan.

‘No, I don’t really miss it,’ she lied. ‘It was fun while it lasted.’

‘Not even a little bit?’

‘That part of my life is over.’

‘But it meant so much to you.’

‘Not as much as my family does.’

Owen’s gratified expression told her it had been the right thing to say and he returned to watching his football match on the television.

Roxi didn’t mention that while she had placed blocks on her phone and tablet preventing her from accessing her former accounts, she had only suspended them and not closed them completely. She was not yet ready to take that final step. Her former career was now a ghost roaming the halls of the internet, waiting for her to return or to act as an exorcist and hit the delete button.

‘I still keep getting invitations to be a talking head,’ she added. ‘I turned down another request for a podcast interview this morning.’

‘Really?’ said Owen, surprised. ‘I assumed interest in you would’ve faded by now.’

‘I guess I made more of a lasting impression than I thought.’

‘I’m sure they’ll forget about you soon enough.’

He hadn’t said it unkindly, but it still smarted.

‘I’m going to put those away,’ she said, pointing to a basket of freshly laundered clothing in the corner of the room. All this time to fill meant a t-shirt barely graced the bottom of the wash bin before it ended up in a spin cycle. The swap from Influencer to housewife made her weep if she thought too much about it.

What she actually wanted was a few moments of respite from her husband, even if it was while they were still under the same roof. Since Adrian had left and they were Unlevelled, Owen had stuck to her like a limpet on the hull of the Titanic. His reasoning was that to remain close emotionally, they had to remain close physically. He had even condensed his working week from five to four days so that he could spend long weekends with his family. If it were up to Roxi, she’d have asked his employers to increase them to include Saturdays and Sundays. Upstairs, she placed a balled-up pair of freshly laundered trainer socks into her mouth, covered her face with a towel and screamed until her throat was hoarse.

Roxi had naively assumed that, with no online distractions, she could become the wife and mother everyone in that house wanted her to be. But that role and her family’s love didn’t fulfil her. To her shame, it didn’t even come close. She yearned for her old life so much that sometimes it made her nauseous. Some nights she found herself padding silently down the staircase and into the garage to sit inside Owen’s car. She had perfected sobbing so silently that her tears couldn’t be picked up by her recordable tech.

She frequently asked herself why she couldn’t be like other women. Why couldn’t she live in the moment instead of always wanting more? Millions of single people would kill for a husband and children like hers. She had even killed at the thought of losing them. Now, this perpetual suppression and claustrophobia was suffocating her. And she couldn’t find a way past it.

When Darcy had turned thirteen a fortnight earlier, she’d asked for her mum’s help in creating new social media platforms. It was like inviting a recently sober alcoholic on a pub crawl. It was intoxicating helping her with content creation, editing, lighting, promotion and watching her subscriber numbers steadily rise. Mother and daughter finally had something to bond over. The notification sounds returned her to a time when she had been at her happiest. Antoinette Cooper had been right when she’d suggested to Owen that Roxi’s need for social media was an addiction. But going cold turkey hadn’t ended the cravings. She briefly considered that it might be just about enough to live vicariously through Darcy. However, she knew she’d be fooling herself.

The front door sensors beeped, alerting her to company, and she suddenly became self-conscious of the footwear in her mouth.

‘Can you answer that?’ she yelled to Owen as she removed them. ‘It’ll be the courier picking up the products that were sent last week.’ She hadn’t bothered to open the boxes; it would hurt too much knowing there was nothing she could do with whatever gems were inside.

A moment later Owen called back, urging her to join him downstairs. His tone unnerved her and she hoped to God that Adrian hadn’t returned. It was only when she saw the figures huddled by the front door that she understood Owen’s edginess. Half a dozen men and women, some uniformed and others without, had her in their eyeline. For a split second, she treasured the attention. And then, from the window directly above the door, she noticed three marked vehicles lined up along the road outside.

‘It’s the police,’ Owen said, his voice taut. ‘They have a warrant to search the house.’