I mean, Charlie’spregnant.
I just don’t know if I can deal with all this without a drink. Maybe I could go to the pub and have a lime and soda, or something? I need to be somewhere warm and busy, withpeoplearound. Yeah, I might do that—better than kicking around alone here, right, waiting for Charlie to come home?
To be honest, I might just go and have one drink at the pub—I think I could handle one these days, and it would make this all feel a hell of a lot easier.
Bye for now,
Charlie Jones
From:Charlie Jones
To:Charlie Jones
Subject:Re: Day fifty-eight sober (cont.)
Hello! Hi!
OMG, she writes back!
That last email of yours had me freaked, my friend, so here I am, replying. I know, I know, we had a rule, but that was designed to snap us out of the weird codependent thing and we’re totally snapped out now, so I’m declaring replies permitted. New lives are all very well, but sometimes you need an old buddy who gets the context, you know?!
Because holy shit, you have a lot going on over there.
But you’re so strong. I know you’ve got this. Look at the subject line of this email. You made it this far. Can you really bear the thought of going back to zero? If you’re reading this in the pub: get out. Go, now, walk out the door into the fresh air, take yourselfdown to the beach, and remember that you only need to stay sober for another five minutes, and then another, and so on. You can do anything for five minutes.
Listen, I’ve been thinking for a while about coming out to the island. And guess what: you’ve freaked me out enough that I’ve only gone and decided to actually do it! I’ve booked a flight. I’ve booked a ferry. That’s right, Mr.Jones (LOL, still so weird)—I’m coming to see you!!
Stay strong, my friend. You’ve got this.
With love,
Charlie x
Guildford, nine weeks earlier
One day, Charlie returned home from Vintage, Please to find that Oliver had let himself into her flat.
This was not in itself unusual. They still had keys to each other’s places, still hung out most nights, might let themselves in if the other person wasn’t home yet.
More surprising was the state of chaos around him.
He was sitting on the floor at the end of her bed. Half the clothes from her wardrobe were strewn across the duvet; he’d upended some old shoeboxes, sending the heels she’d worn in her twenties splaying across the bedroom carpet like snapshots of old nights out.
“What the hell?” she said, standing in the doorway. “Oliver?”
“Brianna called me,” he said. “I’m freaking out about you.”
For the last month, Charlie and Oliver had settled into a sweet, platonic friendship that was in some ways more intense than their relationship had ever been—sometimes they would still sleep in bed together, or hold hands, and often they would cry in each other’s arms. He knew about the job she had been offered on the Isle of Ormer, and he’d encouraged her to go. It had been a long time since he’d fretted about her the way he used to, when they were a couple. So what the hell was this about?
“What did Bri say to you?” Charlie asked carefully.
“I can help you,” Oliver said. “You can talk to me, Charlie.”
“I know I can,” she said. “What did Brianna say?”
“She said…to look around the flat for anything you might be trying to hide from us.”
Charlie was shocked to feel a spike of fear—until that moment she’d genuinely felt she had nothing to keep from him. His steady, beseeching gaze told her he saw that truth in her face. She smoothed down her canary yellow dress, busying herself picking up high heels. Her head was suddenly buzzing. It was very important that she did not think too hard about this.
