I tell Ash about the day with my parents and how we stumbled upon the filming and how transfixed I was, that that was the day I knew what I wanted to do with my life. “And I just thought, myGod. He could have been there on set when I was there watching them. Like it was meant to be.”
“Okay, so what was the bad stuff?” Ash asks.
“The bad stuff was kind of less obvious. Like he’d make little comments about what I was doing and I just found myself second-guessing everything.”
“Example?”
“One time there was a party and most of our class were going and I sent him a text asking if he wanted to go together and meet there, and he replied, ‘Are you coming, then?’ It sounds innocuous when I say it, but it would send me into a tailspin. And he knew it. I’d reply, ‘Yes, is that okay?’ even though it wasn’t his party to invite me to. And he’d reply, ‘Up to you.’ It was so confusing. I’d say to him, ‘Why are you being weird?’ and he would shrug his stupid narrow shoulders and roll a cigarette and tell me to chill out.”
Ash glances across at me. “What the fuck?”
“I was younger then,” I say, frowning. “Looking back, I was extremely naïve. I arrived ready to be with my people at last. To befull Mara. Mara Unleashed. And, well... in movie terms, I bombed.”
Ash laughs. “I bet that’s not true.”
“Well, I failed, without an internship, and without a boyfriend and made a fool of myself in front of half my year.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ash says. “Don’t you want to try again?”
“I am,” I say. “Joe.”
“I mean with university,” he replies, sighing.
I consider it for a moment. “I’m sure the course is different now. The technology moves so quickly. The theory I’d be okay with. I don’t know.” I shrug. “It’s too late.”
“I’mliterallyback at university now and I’m a year older than you,” says Ash.
“Yeah, but no offense, you can be an old scientist, but I’m not sure I can be an old film-set intern. It’s so complicated. I’d have to start again.”
I try to push the picture of eighteen-year-old Mara out of my head. God, I feel sorry for my younger self. I was desperate to find my place and fit in. I threw everything at it until that day I heard the way Noah spoke about me to the professor. And then the cheating. It was a dark year, that following year. Dark and difficult to climb back from. I sometimes feel like only the skin and bones escaped, but my real self is still somewhere in the darkness.
Except I don’t feel that way right now.
Lately it’s started to grate on me that I left myself behind. Why did I think I couldn’t try again? Like Ash is. Why did I let that whole experience completely crush me? I spent that whole decade in London scared of being myself except when I was with Charlie. Scared to try anything new, with anyone new. I’d never imagineda decade could pass where I had done almost nothing. Nothing that Ireallywanted.
“Tell me your story,” I say. “Kate?”
“Kate,” he repeats with a sigh. “My story is far less interesting, I’m afraid. Six years together. Engagement. Then I told her I wanted to go back to university, and she dumped me.”
“Supportive,” I say, stunned.
“She wanted to get married and buy a house, and I was like, I’m not ready, I want to be a student again,” he says. “I get it. I feel bad. I feel like I wasted her time.”
“You’re not even a little bit bitter?”
“Sure. In my darkest hours and all that... ,” he says. “But I feel like I’ve moved on now.”
By noon, we’re at a truck stop somewhere near Coventry. Ash is eating a greasy-looking sausage roll, which he claims is “the same temperature as foot fungus,” and I am calling Lynn to make sure all the election preparations are done for the weekend.
“Don’t say a word,” I whisper to Ash as she answers, her tone brisk.
“Samira already told me you were going on a mini-break with Ash,” she says, “and I said, for someone who claims to have no life, she has an awful lot of pottery and art classes and mini-breaks.”
“Is nothing private—” I begin, but she jumps straight in.
“Then Samira said you were the best help we had on this election and that ‘beggars can’t be choosers.’ Then Ryan said thatbeggars can’t be choosersshould be your new Tinder bio. He gave us all doughnuts again this morning. Really, he brings in a lot of doughnuts. Samira’s favorites too, I notice. I don’t want to gossip, but do you get the feeling that those two—”
“Yes,” I say, interrupting. “But let’s not say it out loud and make it a thing until they’re ready.”
