But Bel wasn’t the kind of girl to take no for an answer. She opened her evening bag and pulled out a small square of folded paper.
‘I didn’t ask you to write this,’ she said. ‘So what gives?’
It was the letter from the baseball game.
‘I’m an overachiever?’ I replied, my hand reflexively reaching for my throat as the letter opened on its own in the palm of her hand, unfurling like a lotus flower. ‘You can ask Suzanne, always going above and beyond with my homework. It’s a back-up letter, in case you needed another.’
‘Sorry, Pheebs,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘No, that’s definitely it.’ My words tumbled over themselves as the music grew louder in the background. ‘I was writing something else and I thought, what if Bel needs another love letter? So I scribbled it down. Really, just bashed it out, barely even thought about it at all. I can’t even remember what I wrote.’
‘I ended things with Ren.’
Bel folded the letter back into its neat, safe square and pressed it into my hands as I stared back at her, too stunned to speak. ‘It should be easy, right?’ she said. ‘That’s what people say. If we were meant to be together it would feel natural, like when I got my first iPhone. I knew how to use it without even reading the instructions. What’s the word?’
‘Intuitive,’ I suggested, still so shocked.
‘I knew you’d know,’ Bel said happily. ‘Me and Ren, we have nothing to say to each other. I still think he’s hot and nice and everything, but the only thing we have in common is you. Why drag it out when he has a chance at something really special with someone else?’
The throb of the music got louder and louder, the dance floor bouncing beneath our feet.
‘I can’t imagine he’ll be short of offers once word gets out he’s on the market,’ I said, burning up at the thought of a stranger standing in his back garden, running their hands through his hair. Somehow it was much worse than the thought of Ren and Bel.
‘I’m talking about you, dummy,’ she said, laughing out loud. ‘I should have seen it right away but I was too busy fantasizing about a version of a guy that doesn’t exist. Ren isn’t my fairy-tale ending, he’s yours.’
A wave of warmth washed over me, followed by the cold rush of icy shock.
‘I figured it out after the game,’ she explained, plucking a glass of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray in exchange for a smile so devastating, he almost fell over. ‘I knew you didn’t write that letter for me and I was so mad.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said automatically. ‘Really sorry.’
‘Don’t be!’ She used her barrel-shaped clutch bag to tap me on the top of the head like a poorly behaved dog. ‘Jeez, is that your default setting?’
‘Yes?’ I replied. ‘Sorry.’
‘There she goes again,’ she huffed happily. ‘I wasn’t mad at you, I was mad at me. It hit me while I was looking for my chicken sandwich; you and Ren are a better match. I don’t care about birds or baseball or hiking, and he doesn’t care about acting or fitness or any of the real housewives franchises, not even Beverly Hills and they’re local!’
‘Well, no one’s perfect.’ I leaned against the wall to steady myself. Was this really happening?
‘The two of you are the same person. You have thesame weird sense of humour, you both love books and you really enjoy talking about your grandparents, which personally I think is a little odd but if you’re going to live in the past, you might as well live in it together. You do like him, right?’
‘I do,’ I confessed. The band doubled their tempo and the room began to spin. ‘I like Ren.’
The understatement of the century.
‘Here’s the thing I realized yesterday,’ Bel said before draining her glass of champagne and dumping it on a ledge behind her. ‘I was watching TV andTwilightwas on and pow, it all made sense.’
Like Ren said, she really was unpredictable.
‘Twilightmade it make sense? You think Ren’s a vampire?’
‘No!’ she exclaimed, excitement animating her beautiful face. ‘Ren’s Bella. The beautiful little idiot who doesn’t know how gorgeous she is while everyone else falls over themselves trying to hit it.’
‘Not as pale though,’ I pointed out. ‘Or as clumsy. Or insufferable.’
‘She’s the worst,’ Bel agreed before prodding me in the shoulder. ‘You’re Edward.’
‘I’m the vampire?’
