One, one two, one, one two.

Justin hadn’t even realised that he was mirroring the rhythm he’d watched Olivia tap out. As soon as he did he immediately folded his hands together to stop his fingers.

Repeatedly he wondered what the significance of it was. All he knew was that it was an anxiety triggered tic. Olivia hadn’t volunteered the information however and he was not going to try and dig it out of her if she didn’t feel like sharing.

His mind was very much full of Liv that morning. Foolishly he’d thought that giving her the good news the night before and getting back in her good graces would stop him obsessing but it was in fact worse. Now the whole thing was real. It was all very well to talk about grand plans and being a proper couple, but now he’d committed to following through. There would be no more hiding. Fears nagged at him, making him wonder how it might change things between them when they were no longer in the position of saviour and in-need-of-saving. What if everything he currently blamed on Vanessa’s malevolent influence actually turned out to simply be him? What if it turned out that he was no better a partner than he’d been in the midst of this mess?

Maybe that was why she hadn’t been able to tell him such things yet. Currently they had a very one-sided dynamic where he was always leaning on her. It wouldn’t be surprising if she’d avoided offloading on him.

He slumped back further on the couch, tipping his head towards the ceiling. He had his laptop open in front of him and was supposed to be fulfilling his management’s quota for social media posts. A very full e-mail inbox also demanded his attention. The concentration to do anything about either of those was eluding him. Yet one more thing he was spacing on… this constant feeling that he was letting people down and not his best self was really starting to wear on him.

Monday had crawled by even slower than usual because he was so anxious for Thursday to finally roll around. Tuesday was thus far doing the same. He wanted to be the good friend, the guy people laughed with and didn’t avoid because his miserable visage brought them down. It was only fair that his girlfriend should be able to rely on him as much as vice versa. He was desperate for Thursday to arrive and give him a chance to try to be that guy; he used to be that guy and he liked that guy way better.  

“Justin!”

He tried not to physically cringe at the shrill voice coming from the next room. She had said she was going to the gym, why was she still there? He’d invited Trace over and he did not want her here.

“Yeah?” He answered wearily.

“Did you book New York yet?”

“Uhh… sorry, slipped my mind.”

He hadn’t booked it because he had no intention of going. These things tended to be non-refundable.

“God, I ask you to do one freakin’ thing! I don’t know why I bother; shit never gets done around here unless I do it. It’s like you’re fucking oblivious.”

A lot of retorts were bubbling up on his tongue. There was a long list of thankless tasks with his name on them which she never acknowledged.

Thursday. Thursday was approaching. All he had to do was ride it out until then, there was no point taking up arms against her now.

“Sorry,” he lied.

“You should be frickin’ sorry. You space on like the one thing I ask you to do, you didn’t make any effort at that party last night… what exactly do I have to do to get you to step up?”

He had explicitly said he didn’t want a big party. Still, he supposed he should be grateful that she’d at least invited a decent number of his actual friends for once. On more than one occasion she’d organised festivities that were allegedly for him and yet barely even managed to include Trace. The year he’d expressed the desire for a big ‘family’ Christmas she hadn’t bothered to invite his parents.

The only thing to do was ignore her completely. “What time are you likely to be back from the gym? You said I needed to give you a ride somewhere after?”

“Oh, so he’s not a total amnesiac! Wonders never cease! I’ll be back at about three; I have to stop by the bank first.”

That was a lie. She was stopping by a private detective. To hell with waiting, she wanted to catch Justin out now. Vanessa was sure his current belligerence was related to this affair.

“Okay. I’ll make sure I’m here.”

If he personally dropped her off then he could be personally sure the coast was clear and he could go over to Chris’s. She didn’t like it when he went to group dinners, said he regressed and became immature around them. Now he wondered if that was code for her not liking the way being around the guys brought him back to his old self, the confident one who knew who he was and was less inclined to take her shit. Or maybe she was simply aware that none of them liked her.

“You better.”

He didn’t relax until he heard the front door finally slam.

Justin shook his head as if he could somehow clear the cobwebs from his foggy mind by doing so. Not for the first time he wondered how he could have been so oblivious to the constant stream of undermining comments she made about him. Before he was done registering one blow she’d landed another two or three. How had he sat there and not heard her? He’d managed to absorb and internalise it all without ever really registering what she was doing or the corrosive effect she had on his sense of self. How did that work? Now he could see it he resented it more than he’d ever resented anything in his life. He really did hate his wife with every cell of his body.

There was no point in sitting here dwelling on everything though, the best thing to do was keep busy. There was a to-do list, it would serve plenty well as a distraction, he was sure he could come up with some inane tweets. Anything was better than brooding over Vanessa all day.

He scrolled through his mentions, trying to come up with something witty to respond to a few of them. There were a lot of requests for re-tweets and birthday wishes which he mostly ignored on principle. He only bothered responding to the ones which were creative.

Then he made the mistake of checking what the people he followed were up to. Immediately he spotted Olivia’s name and was right back to obsessing. Since everybody in the cast had followed each other for promotion purposes having her on his list was no cause for his wife to suspect anything, but he had forced himself to resist all urges to send her messages. Instead he fixated like a stalker, paying far too much attention to what she appeared to be up to. It was stupid. He didn’t even normally like Twitter; it was purely a PR tool for him. It was also pointless because Olivia’s posts were usually inane stuff about where she was shopping or pictures of her next meal. For such a skinny woman she took a lot of pictures of food.

Currently she appeared to be in conversation with Casey, the actress who had played his girlfriend in the movie they’d done.

@LivvyLawson OMG I just heard our song! Miss our make up trailer duets #discodivas

Olivia’s response was bright and breezy. @the1andonlyCasey Haha, we out-Beyonce Beyonce! So tuneful! #missyoutoo #karaokereunionsoon?

@LivvyLawson Haha remember when @jtimberlake tried to bribe us to stop? Maybe we should invite him since he loves our singing so much

@LivvyLawson Especially if we did one of his #Sexyneverleft #Iwasherethewholetime

Justin tried not to have a conniption. It was ridiculous; in no way could Casey’s bad jokes be construed as any kind of hint that he and Olivia were especially close. It was guilt and paranoia working. As far as he could tell this would be the first time his name had been anywhere near hers publicly since the movie promotion had ended. Nobody would think much of it, and if anything it was exactly the kind of exchange that fans (and therefore the PR team) ate up. As if to prove it to himself he decided to respond.

@the1andonlyCasey @LivvyLawson Sorry but I’m washing my hair. Leave my poor songs alone, will ya #shatteredeardrums

There, that hadn’t been so hard. The sky hadn’t fallen, and Vanessa (who most certainly scrutinised his posts on social media, she’d told him off for various comments before) remained silent.

The response didn’t take long to arrive, with his iPhone and his computer both beeping the alert at him about five minutes later. Apparently Casey was bored.

@jtimberlake @LivvyLawson I have a Sonny and Cher duet with your name all over it #IGotUBabe #Trackersreunion @CooperTrooper you in too?

Now she wanted to drag poor innocent Cooper (their director) into it?

The sad thing was that his immediate instinct was to think Vanessa wouldn’t like him going out and he’d have to say no. He had to actively work to halt that thought, and then he became angry at its very existence. Why should he care any more? All he had to do was schedule it for some time after the end of the week when she wouldn’t get a say. Her issues with him having female friends were about to cease being his problem. He had to get out of the habit of mentally kowtowing to her before she’d even opened her mouth to bark the order. It was like he’d been brainwashed.

That realisation drove him to his second reply. Vanessa could go jump, he was going to do what he wanted to do for once.

@the1andonlyCasey @LivvyLawson @CooperTrooper If I’m coming (and I ain’t sayin’ I am) I am not singing

The palpitations threatened to return when the next response came from Olivia.

@jtimberlake @the1andonlyCasey @CooperTrooper That’s what they all say before the tequila

Immediately he decided that was quite enough tweeting for one day.

Far from taking his mind off of it, now he was dreaming up all manner of things which he would be able to do with impunity once he no longer had an unreasonable spouse kicking up a stink about them. Karaoke parties with his former co-stars were merely the tip of the iceberg. Hell, at the moment he couldn’t even change his hair without it being a massive drama. The problem with the dreaming was that Justin knew even after he’d left, such things would still be some time in the future. In the short term there was going to be a lot of legal wrangling and fighting and stressing out while he extricated himself.

It would be so much easier if he could just make Vanessa go away.