Do you ever check your partner's phone?
Should you?
Are you prepared for the consequences?
Everything but the Truth is Gillian McAllister's stunning breakthrough thriller about deceit, betrayal and one woman's compulsive need to uncover the truth.
Read an exclusive extract from the first chapter of Everything but the Truth by Gillian McAllister now!
'It ended with an accusation I never thought I’d make'
It ended with an accusation I never thought I’d make, thrown across the room at him like a grenade. And after the ending, there was the rest: the door slamming, waking alone with the knowledge of what I’d done, unable to stop replaying the look he gave me.
But it began with love. That part was easy.
I loved the way he was forever appearing in photographs on Facebook, caught self-consciously in the background at parties, like a grumpy meerkat looking towards the camera. I loved his hypochondria. How often he rang the doctor and said, ‘It’s me,’ in his embarrassed, Scottish way.
I loved the person he was trying to be: a tidy, early person who occasionally threw out all of his clothes in the name of minimalism and then had to go and sheepishly buy more socks. I loved, too, the person he tried not to be: the man who was always late, tucking his
T-shirt into his jeans as he waited at the train station, trying to flatten his hair that spiked up at the back when he didn’t have time to gel it. I loved the things he did without thinking: putting a hand out to stop his younger brother from crossing the road; using the last of the milk for my tea and not his. I loved the way he came home from the gym, intimidated by the ‘big men’.
And I loved his body, of course. His small ears. The curved edges of his smile like pencil etchings on his face. How nice his forearms looked in a shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
And the rest. The tiny, insignificant things. That he couldn’t whistle.
I loved his politics and his religious views – ‘I don’t believe in God, but I’m terrified of him’ – and the way he couldn’t sit still. I loved the way he was the only person still buying Wagon Wheels and I loved the way he dipped them in tea and called it breakfast.
And I loved the way he looked at me. Heavy lidded.
A special, dimpled smile. Just for me. I loved that more than anything. That look came before everything.
Before the baby.
And before the lies.
Everything you do Say by Gillian McAllister is out now.