She was walking down the garden to her summer house when her phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen. It was a message from Max.
Her heart thumped a little faster as she unlocked her phone, and scrolled to her messages. She could recall swapping details with Max weeks ago — just in case, he’d told her — but he’d never used her number until today.
Max Fitzroy: Just so you know, I headed to Berlin a few days early. I’m sure I don’t need to extrapolate on why. It was perfectly obvious this morning.
Two thoughts occurred to Bo rapidly. The first was that Max was messaging her from a Nokia 3310, and how many buttons had he needed to press to write the word “extrapolate”? The second, and more pressing concern, was Max’s use of the phrase “It was perfectly obvious this morning”.
Bo felt sick. So, Maxhadfigured out her feelings for him that morning. Of course he had. He wasn’t an idiot, the very opposite, in fact. Her love for him had been written so clearly on her face, had been so obvious in the possessive kisses she’d given him and gentle touches she’d placed on his skin, and it had terrified him. No wonder he took off to Berlin at a moment’s notice. Bo thought he would run for the hills, but instead he’d run for the airport and then crossed three countries to get away from her. If that wasn’t a confidence killer, what was?
For a moment, Bo stood in the garden, holding her phone with a grip so tight it was a wonder the screen hadn’t shattered in her hand. She felt empty and ill and shaky, and suddenly, with blinding clarity, she understood the meaning of the word ‘heartsore’. That’s what she was: heartsore. It was exactly what she was feeling. Max had taken her heart and shattered it, and she’d let him do it too. She thought she’d loved Oliver, once upon a time, but no. No, that hadn’t been love. That had been attraction and jealousy masquerading as love. What she felt for Max was so much more, and so different to the childishinfatuation she’d felt for Oliver and his admittedly rock-hard abs. Oliver hadn’t broken her heart, he’d broken her pride, running off with Phoebe the way he had. But Max? Max had broken her heart, well and truly. The first man she’d ever really loved, the first man she’d ever really trusted, and he didn’t want her. Had never wanted her, in fact, as anything other than as a fleeting affair.
Tears pricked at her eyes and blindly she grappled with her phone. It wasn’t to message Max back — God no, not that, never that. He didn’t want her, and she understood that, loud and clear. Messaging him back would look desperate in the extreme, and she still had some degree of pride left. Still had just enough common sense left to realize that Max didn’t want her, and that no amount of sending messages to his fucking Nokia would change his mind.
Instead, she opened Willa’s contact details and tapped out a reply to the last unread WhatsApp she’d sent. She knew Willa wasn’t reading her messages, had told herself again and again to move on, but it was Willa. She couldn’t move on, and Willa was the only person she wanted to talk to. The only person who would understand.
Bo: Just in case you’re reading these messages, you should probably know that I’ve fallen in love with Mr Two out of Ten. More fool me, right? He found out and left, so there’s that too.
And then, just because she wanted to.
Bo: I miss you. Please call me back.
She waited a moment for the tick to appear indicating that the messages had sent, and then another moment for the second tick to say they’d been delivered. Chewing on her lip, she hoped and prayed the ticks would turn blue. Wished that Willa,wherever she was, would read her messages and call her back. Both ticks stayed resolutely grey however, and Bo wiped at her eyes, recognizing this as the moment of rejection that it was.
Sadly, she unlocked the door to her little home, before curling up on her bed clutching Max’s purple shirt — that lurid, retina-damaging shirt he’d gifted her all those weeks ago — in her hands. It still kind of smelled like him. Bringing it to her face, she could still sense him in the fabric, could still see him in her doorway wearing it. It was still awful; it was still ugly in the extreme. But it was still his too.
It was then that her phone began to ring. Without even thinking, Bo accepted the call, miserably whispering ‘hello’ as she took in another lungful of Max’s purple shirt.
“Bo?”
Bo sat bolt upright in her bed, her heart thumping wildly.
“Bo?” Willa asked again. “Are you all right?”
“No,” Bo replied honestly. Suddenly, she was on the verge of a flood of tears, and her best friend’s familiar voice the only thing holding them back. “No, I’m really not.”
“Okay then.” Bo heard Willa take a deep breath. “Hold tight. I’m on my way.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Willa looked good in that way she always did. Her hair was glossy and dark, her make-up immaculate, and she looked like she’d recently caught the sun. Bo, by comparison, looked lovesick and forlorn, her hair a mess, her face tear-stained and full of woe.
“You look worse than you did after Oliver left you,” Willa remarked as she kicked off her shoes, handing Bo a bottle of wine.
“And you look like you’ve caught the sun,” Bo remarked back, looking at Willa’s browned skin, at the delicate freckles that were evident across her nose and cheeks.
“Monte Carlo,” Willa explained. “Umm, Scarrow took me. After we finished shooting the film. It was a kind of, uh, celebration.”
Bo watched as Willa took a deep breath, before extending out her left hand. A diamond the size of Bo’s fist glinted back up at her, and Bo’s mouth fell open in shock.
“Willa,”she exclaimed. “What the fuck?”
Willa gave a graceful shrug. “Scarrow asked me to marry him. I said yes.”
Bo pursed her lips to stop any words from leaving them.
For a moment, she just stared, her mind both wordlessly empty and overwhelmingly full all at once. Willa was engaged.Engaged.And she hadn’t said a word. Not a call, not a text. Not even one of those chaotic voice notes she sometimes left that started out with one thought before ending oddly on another.
They’d been friends for years, and before this, there’d been no secrets between them. This — Willa’s engagement — was huge though. Life-changing.
