She could confirm what I already suspect—that I'm just a traumatized teenager playing at being a writer.
"I'll think about it," I say instead.
Feels like that's all I seem to be doing lately.
Thinking instead of doing.
“I’m holding you to that.”
The day passesin a blur of manuscripts and phone calls, authors with fragile egos and agents with steel spines.I lose myself in other people's words, in stories that exist safely on the page where happy endings are possible.
By the time I leave the office, the sky has deepened to that particular shade of London twilight—not quite blue, not quite gray, but something in between that feels like secrets.
The tube is crowded with evening commuters, everyone studiously avoiding eye contact while pressed together like reluctant intimates.
I find a seat and pull out my headphones, scrolling through my playlist until I find something that matches my mood.
The song that comes on is one I haven't heard in years—Fleetwood Mac's"Thrown Down."I’d almost forgotten it even existed.It's tender and melancholic, and the haunting melody fills my ears.The song speaks to the emotional turmoil of relationships where mistakes have built barriers between two people—those invisible barricades that make forgiveness feel impossible even when love remains.
There's something achingly familiar about it.
I look up through the tube window as we emerge above ground, catching glimpses of the London sky.The moon is visible, pale and nearly full, hanging like a question mark over the city.
I can't help but laugh at myself.
Here I am, listening to a song and staring at the moon like some kind of romantic comedy protagonist.
I roll my eyes at the cliché, I can’t stop wondering if he ever looks up at this same moon and thinks of me.The song keeps playing and suddenly I’m eleven again, lying on the bedroom floor at the lake house while he changed the track on that old discman, talking to me about the meaning behind every lyric—pretending to care, but really just wanting to hear his own voice when he spoke about something he loved.
If somewhere in Spain, he’s standing under this same night sky, does he remember the girl who came along for everything, who would have followed him anywhere until life decided otherwise?
The train pulls into my station, jolting me back to reality.I pocket my phone and push through the crowd, emerging onto streets that still feel foreign despite months of walking them.
I head home to Camilla and leftover takeaway, humming along to the song still playing in my head.
Before stepping inside, I glance up one last time at the moon—full, impossible, constant—and wonder if he’s looking at it too.
I think that’s the cruelest thing about growing up.
It isn’t losing your innocence—it’s realizing that love doesn’t always survive transformation, that sometimes the people who knew you best become strangers to who you’re becoming.
But maybe, if we’re both looking up at the same impossible sky, carrying the same ache across different time zones, we’re still sharing something.
Even if we’re no longer sharing everything.
CHAPTER2
CITY OF SECOND CHANCES
NORA
My phone buzzes justas I'm walking up the steps to Dr.Henshaw's office.Camilla's name flashes across the screen with a message that makes me pause:
Camilla
Meet me at Mondea's after work - I have BIG news!xx
Camilla
