“Option one: he really regrets kissing you, and he doesn’t know how to tell you, so he’s ghosted you. That’s my top theory.”
“And… option two?” I swallow nervously, hoping it’s at least better than option one.
“Option two,” says Chloe importantly, “Is that you made an absolute tit of yourself, either in the bar, or in his hotel room afterwards, and now he doesn’t want a bar of you. That works too. I’m sure that’s not it, though,” she adds quickly, remembering she’s supposed to be sucking up to me right now. “So it’s probably option one.”
“Option three,” I put in defensively. “Something really important came up and he’s had to go off and deal with it, but he is, even now, making his way back to tell me he can’t live without me?”
Chloe twirls a strand of blonde hair around her finger as she considers this.
“Nah,” she says, getting to her feet. “Too far-fetched. I’m going to get ready for dinner. You coming?”
Dinner. Our designated table for two, with the romantic sea view. Surely he’ll be there, like he always is, and we can talk, like two adults who’ve just realized how much they like each other, and just need to work out the technicalities of what happens next?
Or isthattoo far-fetched too?
“Listen, Chloe,” I say as I gather my things to head back to my room. “About tonight. You wouldn’t mind if I ate with Alex, would you? Just the two of us, I mean.”
“Sure,” says Chloe eagerly, still trying to claw her way back into my good books. “Absolutely no problem. I’ll see you at the karaoke, anyway.”
My stomach plummets abruptly to my feet.
The karaoke. I’d forgotten about that, too. But, of course, I don’thaveto do it, do I? It’s not compulsory. This isn’t high school. Orprison.
I reassure myself with these thoughts as I walk back to my room. I try knocking on Alex’s door again as I pass, but there’s still no answer,so I let myself into my own, where I shower and change into the gold dress.
It’s perfect.
I have to admit, Chloe might be a pain in the proverbial, but she does have good taste. The dress somehow manages to be one hundred percentme… but better. Looking into the mirror after my shower is like looking at one of those ‘before and after’ photos, which is weird, because I’m just wearing my usual makeup and hair. But the gold dress makes my skin look luminous and clear, and the fabric skims my body, before flaring out dramatically, in a way that makes me want to do a twirl in it. I feel amazing. Well, as long as I don’t think about the karaoke, obviously. That makes me feel like I could throw up. It’s Alex I’m thinking about, though, as I head downstairs to the restaurant, smiling expectantly as I round the corner which leads to our table.
Ouremptytable.
Our Alex-free table.
So… justmytable tonight, I guess.
Right.
I manage to keep the smile frozen in place as I slide into my seat, but it starts to falter by the time ten minutes have passed and there’s still no sign of him.
Maybe he’s just running late?
I pick at my starter, and then at my main course. When he still hasn’t arrived by the time I’m done, though, I decide to skip dessert altogether, rather than sitting here like Miss Havisham, waiting for him to turn up. Because there may well be some good reason why he’s avoided me all day, but I’m definitely not going to find out what it is by sitting here on my own, in a dress that suddenly feels wasted on the hotel buffet.
No, I’m going to have to go and find Alex if I want to know what’s going on; and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Hangxiety be damned: you don’t kiss someone like that — not to mention cuddling up to them all night — and then just ghost them. That’s not okay. And I might have accepted Jamie turning out to be a complete and utter let-down, but I refuse to believe it about Alex. He’s just not that kind of guy; I know it.
“Sorry, can’t stop,” I say breezily as I pass the Fairy Godfolk’s table (Chloe’s sitting at the head of it, like the guest of honor) as I leave the terrace. “I’ll see you all later, though.”
“You better,” calls Rita warningly. “We’ve put your name down for the karaoke later, so you better be there, young lady!”
I give a quick wave of acknowledgment. I’ll worry about the karaoke later. For now, all I want to do is find Alex and talk to him. Even if it turns out that one of Chloe’s two equally awful scenarios was right, and he wants nothing more to do with me, I’d rather know. The last thing I want is to have to go home tomorrow and spend the rest of my life wondering what went wrong, and what I should’ve done to fix it.
I don’t want Alex to become Jamie the Second, in other words: just one more regret that I’ll one day look back on and realize it’s too late to fix.
The thought carries me along as I stride through the hotel lobby and into the elevator. For once in my life — well, twice, if you count the decision to come here in the first place — I’m taking control of my life, rather than just meekly going along with whatever other people want it to be. I’m confronting my problems head-on, rather than avoiding them. Taking the direct approach, rather than my usual roundabout kind of angle. I’m sashaying out of the elevator and along the corridor like an absolute bad-ass, then I’m raising my hand andrapping on Alex’s door with a confidence that I’m not yet used to, but think I could grow to like.
The one thing that could ruin this moment, of course, would be him not actually being in the room to open the door to me, but nope: my luck holds. The door opens, and I march through it, tossing my hair behind my shoulder, as I walk past Alex and into the room.
“Right,” I announce firmly, my stomach fluttering with nerves. “I think we should talk, don’t you?”
