And maybe this is the answer. Maybe she’ll write her own ending to the book. The characters who were exchanging coy looks as they waited for help from the emergency services, looking for any distraction from their fear, their hunger, the sharp pain from their injuries. Maybe she’ll write them a happy ending, one in which they hash out their differences and discuss how to resolve conflict like grown-ups. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make it into the book; it can just be a message to Alex.See, this is how it’s done.This is how adults communicate. This is how I wishwewould communicate. See how they sayI love youby the end of the story? By the way, why haven’t we said that to each other yet?
In their book, many beautiful things have come from the wreckage of the crashed plane. Reconciled spouses, a renewed faith in God for one character, and fresh determination to live life differently and with purpose for others – to pursue that art career, to write that book, to go back to college and finish that degree. And now, this love story.
Everyone’s life is a plane wreck in some small or big way – Alex with his anxiety, and his pain from having not been looked after the way he would have wanted as a child. Even Jess, though she’s buried it and run from it and papered over it with fun and with books and with Netflix – she hasn’t exactly emerged unscathed from her childhood, from growing up without a dad and with an often absent mum. But out of the wreckage of their two lives, maybe hope can emerge. Hope, and love.
She just needs to get the ending right.
Chapter Forty-Two
Alex
The journey from Alex’s flat to Nathan’s office is becoming a little too familiar for Alex’s liking. Not that he minds seeing his old university friend – in fact, he’d like to see more of him, but preferably over some bottles of wine and a cheese plate rather than in a sterile office, with the stress of a looming deadline hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles. He probably should have figured out ahead of time that mixing work and play, friendship and business, would come back to bite him, but here we are. Specifically, here we are at the exit to the Northern Line, having carefully avoided the dirty seats by standing all the way from Hampstead to London Bridge. Alex promises himself a browse of Borough Market on the way back, a stop at Monmouth Coffee to pick up a bag of their Ethiopian blend, and a chorizo roll from Brindisa. The thought of these things fortifies him. This isn’t necessarily going to be an easy meeting, and he needs to know a reward awaits him when it’s over.
‘So,’ Nathan says, indicating the armchairs in the corner. The armchairs that Alex has spent far toomuch time sitting in these past few months. Perhaps more time than he has spent in his therapist’s office, which is saying something. The hours there have felt interminable. The hours here, too.
‘So,’ Alex says back. ‘You summoned me?’
‘I did. Because you’re not replying to my emails.’
‘I must have missed them in my inbox.’
‘You’re a terrible liar.’
‘I’m a fiction writer, Nathan. Lying’s what I do for a living.’
Nathan sighs. He clearly has no patience for this today. ‘So, anyway. I summoned you, yes. Because Jess has sent me what she says is a finished copy of the novel. But I thought it was a little odd that she sent it to me without reference to you, especially as she’d previously indicated that she’d taken it as far as she could. It sounded like maybe you’d washed your hands of the book and left her to finish it.’
‘That’s not the case at all.’
‘Glad to hear it.’ Nathan catches Alex’s eye and refuses to look away. Alex considers it a challenge – one in the face of which he refuses to back down – and holds Nathan’s gaze. He can tell Nathan is waiting for him to say more, but Alex has always outdone his friend in stubbornness. He’s always outdone most people in stubbornness.
‘So I take it you’ve seen the ending she’s written, then?’
‘Why are you so sure Jess was the one to write it?’
Nathan twirls his wedding ring one way, and then the other. ‘Because it’s my job to scrutinise writers’styles? And also because … Well, if you haven’t read it, I don’t want to spoil it.’
‘What makes you think I haven’t read it?’
‘Because if you had, you wouldn’t be so nonchalant about the whole thing.’
Alex readies his air quotes. ‘I’m notnonchalantabout her having sent it to you without checking with me first, I’ll tell you that much.’
‘When was the last time you had a conversation with her?’
Alex does the mental maths. ‘Oh, a few weeks ago.’
‘As I suspected.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I think you should read her ending and then judge for yourself.’
Nathan opens his drawer and places a thick wad of paper on the desk. He takes a few sheets from the top of the pile and slides them over to Alex. ‘I’ll wait,’ he says.
This all sounds very ominous.
Alex feels self-conscious; it’s one thing having people listen to you read out loud – something he is used to – but it’s quite another to have someone watch you as you silently take something in, trying to keep your features under control so that they don’t betray the stomach-clenching emotions passing through you.
