“But then I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of meeting you,” I reply in a tone that mimics his. “And anyway, I couldn’t tell him I liked him, because he might not have liked me back. And that would’ve broken my heart.”
“So you chose to miss out on the possibility of this great love affair, just so you didn’t have to risk having your heart broken?”
“Well, it wasn’tjustbecause of that. But partly, yeah. I suppose that sounds ridiculous to you.”
There’s another silence — a longer one this time.
“No,” he says eventually. “No, I get that. It’s the fact that you’ve suddenly decided to risk it allnowthat’s the puzzling part. What changed? And please don’t say it was the Wise Old Crone, I’m begging you.”
I give a gasp of indignation, even though thatiswhat I was about to say.
“I think it was the KPIs,” I tell him instead.
“The what?”
“The KPIs,” I reply. “Key Performance Indicators. They’re an incredibly boring set of statistics that no one should have to waste theirlives thinking about. But Ididend up spending my life thinking about KPIs, and I think that was the final straw, really.”
I tell him about the message from Linda on New Year’s Eve, and how she’d expected me to drop everything for the sake of some dull report that I’m 86% sure no one ever reads, anyway.
“And I realized that I might not have become a beauty therapist, like Chloe, but I did almost die of boredom anyway, in a meaningless job that felt a bit like being on a treadmill, day after day,” I finish, tipping the last of the salted peanuts into my mouth.
“So you told Linda to screw her KPIs, and jumped in a taxi to the airport,” Alex says, rubbing his chin as if he’s trying to make sense of this. “Quite a ballsy move, really.”
“You’ve changed your tune,” I say, surprised. “I thought it was risky and ridiculous?”
“Oh, it was,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean it can’t be brave, too.”
“Really?” I feel my cheeks turn red at the unexpected compliment.
Thank goodness it’s too dark for him to see me properly now.
“I, er, didn’t do thatexactly, though,” I admit, feeling like a bit of a fraud. “I didn’t book the taxi untilhoursafter I got her message. Or tell her to screw anything. And Ididcall her to let her know I wouldn’t be in.”
“Just take the compliment, Summer,” he says warningly.
“Right. Sorry.”
We lapse into a silence that suddenly feels awkward. I turn the diary around nervously in my hands, wondering if I should just get up and leave.
“So,didyou ever get to sing on stage?”
I glance over at him.
“Not unless you count the school choir,” I say. “No, I gave up on that idea years ago. Not everyone can be the next Taylor Swift, as Chloe said.”
“Maybe not. You could be the first Summer Whatever-your-last-name-is, though.”
“I doubt it, somehow. And it’s Brookes, by the way. Summer Brookes. I can’t believe I’ve told you all this… thisstuffabout me, and you don’t even know my last name, or… or what my first pet’s name was. That’s weird, really, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” he shrugs. “We’re making polite conversation, not trying to hack each other’s accounts. And you don’t know any of that stuff about me, either. That’s how holidays work. You meet people, then you never see them again. Not much point in getting to know everything about them, is there? Here, let me see that.”
He leans over the wall separating us and takes the diary out of my hand, opening it at the front page.
“Why did you cross out ‘jump out of a plane?’” he asks, scanning the text.
“Because I don’twantto jump out of a plane,” I reply quickly.
“You don’twantto?”
