“Oh dear,” the professor said, and I heard him laugh lightly.
“I’m going for this internship at Scope Films. I don’t want to be held back by her.” I could picture his shoulders rise in a shrug as he casually tossed my reputation under a bus.
“Hmm,” the professor muttered. “I’ve always wondered what you’d be capable of, on your own, Noah.”
“I just know I could really nail this,” he said excitedly.
“Youcango it alone, of course, but we’d need to speak to Mara.”
“Can I tell Mara?” he said. “She can get... emotional.”
“Okay, but tell her to come and see me after.”
“She hates my idea anyway. I’m sure she’ll be relieved.”
“The two of you are certainly born of different tastes.”
“That’s for sure,” Noah replies. They both laugh.
“Want to share?”
And I sat there listening as he toldouridea to the professor. But as he was telling it, he leaned into my idea more. A taxi driver falls for a feisty barista over many months as he takes her to and from work at the same time every day. A road accident upends their livesand reveals a series of strange connections. He’d made a couple of small changes. He’d made it more “art film.” But still. My concept. My fucking idea.
I was crushed. They’d branded me a talentless, insecure girl with an obsession over Noah, and there was no way to plead my case.Iwas holdinghimback. Noah broke up with me that night, and I just sat there nodding, unable to find the words to fight back. We were separated for the project, and there was no way to write the story I’d wanted to without it looking like I’d copied him.
I turned up at his halls a few days later, drunk and distressed. The fight spilled out into the residence, to the amusement of the other students, and I can still feel that cold chill of realization that I was proving his story right. I handed in a hastily redrafted idea, but with only a few weeks to go, and my head awash with the confusion of it all, my script wasn’t complete. I failed my finals.
The professor had tried to speak to me, but I’d shunned him. My heart couldn’t bear to sit through a sanitized version of what I’d heard with my own ears. I was devastated. How had I misjudged Noah so badly? I thought he cared about me, wanted what was best for me. And worse—how had I dared to think that I could really make it?
I looked around my little flat as the memories washed over me, feeling still seasick from the waves of humiliation. But I also felt that small ball of anger in my stomach. I had never let that anger go; it remained like a buried fury. The white-hot injustice of it still seared me from the inside.
In the years that followed, I became extremely cautious of myself and of other people. I kept my circle small. I second-guessed myself all the time, and it ground my life to a halt. I had ceasedtrusting myself, my instincts, my decision-making. I tried therapy briefly. I did yoga breathing. I drilled further into astrology for answers. I leaned on Charlie to keep me upright.
And now, fate had taken me to Budapest. Forced me to go alone. Guided me to that small street. And into that shop. The reading was so spot-on. So real. And then in walked Joe. It had to mean even more than a chance at a happy ending. It had to be the push I needed to make all these changes. Pull my life together, and this is what is possible.
Enough is enough. It was time to learn to trust myself again. It was time to pull on some new clothes and a big smile and try to get out there again.
I am wiser now.
And then I glance down at my horoscope again.
You need a clear plan.
Idolike a plan. And if there is one thing a planner loves, it’s a list.
I reach into my notebook, turning the page to a fresh one. Then I peer across at the calendar on my phone. Eleven weeks and five days.
PROJECT MARA: ME, BUT BETTER
In Order of Urgency
Nails—ASAP
