‘An apartment,’ I counter. ‘Somewhere of my own.’
Her brow puckers slightly. I feel like Sam would never willingly turn down a hotel in favour of self-catering. But Sam hasn’t had to move back in with her parents after her life exploded so Sam doesn’t truly understand how appealing the promise of solitude really is.
‘How long do you want?’
‘A month.’ It’s a joke at first. A challenge of sorts, to see how serious she really is about all of this but Sam doesn’t even blink.
‘Fine. I’ll even pay for extra legroom on the plane.’
I feel the clammy panic set in. ‘You spoil me,’ I manage, my voice devoid of any emotion.
Sam notices. Her job is to read between the lines. She softens a little. ‘This book means a lot to me too, Ava, as do you. I care about this.’
I soften. ‘I know. I… I just never thought I’d go there again, that’s all.’
‘You know I’m the last one to want to make you uncomfortable. I appreciated that when I took on this project, that it is so personal, and losing him – the rawness of it all – is what made me fall in love with you as a writer, but something good can come out of it all. You can be a writer. You can have a book that people read. This can be something special, it’s just going to have to take that little bit more to get it there.’ Her phone buzzes. Our conversation has been punctuated with sporadic pings from emails and texts and missed calls. She turns it over and winces. ‘I’ve got to take this. Why don’t you take five to think it over?’ she offers. I nod as she gets up from her seat, phone already on her ear as she leaves.
When the door closes behind her, I reach into my bag for my own phone for some sort of distraction, hoping on its cracked screen there would be a reason not to take her up on her offer. But the only reason that would fly would probably be resurrection, and I think that may be off the cards. Instead of my phone, my fingers find fabric. My diary peeks out at me, green and covered with pink and blue paisley prints, half-filled and slightly beaten up.
I take it out, brush my fingers over the cover and then turn to the inside page. It’s an exquisite torture, seeing my name in his handwriting in the top right-hand corner. The wordsjust write somethingcapitalised and underlined below. It was supposed to be an incentive to start doing the thing I had been saying I would for the first five years of our relationship. It hadn’t worked in the way he intended; those pages had remained completely empty until the ninth of May, three years ago.
The day Etienne Grenaud, my husband, died.
The door to the restaurant opens and I can see Sam cutting through the tables towards me. I close the page, go to slip my diary back into my bag, but it’s too late.
‘What’s this?’ She gestures to the book I am now hiding under the table.
‘It’s nothing.’ I try to play it off but the look on her face tells me that she doesn’t believe me. I shrug. ‘Just a diary.’ It’s not a lie. Inside this cover is every single thought, idea and revelation I have had about losing Ettie since the day his heart stopped. It isn’t the blog I started a few months after he died that has racked up enough followers to lead Sam to signing me; it isn’t even coherent in places, it is just a companion. I put it back in my bag gently and then when I note Sam’s raised eyebrow I smile softly at her. ‘When you upload every single one of your weaknesses to an ever-growing following you have to have a place for everything else to go.’
She leans forward, eyes sparkling. ‘Now that’s something I’d like to read.’
‘And I’d like it noted that it is to be burnt before that ever happens.’ I place it safely back into my bag.
‘Fair enough.’ She raises her glass to mine and we clink them together before taking large sips and I know she’s waiting for my answer.
I try to think of an excuse – that if she could just give me a month, I could bring about an epiphany right here in London; I could find God, go on a retreat, start meditating. But it’s useless because I know she’s right. As much as it pains me to admit it, she has managed to find the glaringly obvious plot-hole in my life. That despite the blog and the book detailing every part of my grief process, I’m not even close to getting over Ettie.
I swig back the rest of my wine, take one last fleeting look at my diary and nod. ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’
Chapter 2
‘One day you’re goingto stay for breakfast,’ Archie says as I slip out from under his arm and the quilt.
‘Cornflakes and a carton of old orange juice? I’ll take my chances on the street, thanks.’ I start to hunt out my clothes that are scattered over various corners of his bedroom. I had arrived without warning, knocking on his door, slightly tipsy. I knew he’d be home; knew he would let me in, knew he would want me, and that was exactly what I needed to try to process Sam’s meeting.
The first time I slept with Archie, I was blind drunk. I had to be, otherwise I wouldn’t have gone through with it. He was a friend’s younger brother, a friend who can no longer look me in the eye. I had just signed my book contract; we spoke about Ettie and I cried and then took him a little by surprise when I launched myself at him in the taxi on the way home. I was awful, emotionally and physically, lay there not doing much and vomited into his pot plant when we were finished.
Things have improved in recent months.
He yawns. It’s seven o’clock; I have no need to be up this early apart from the fact that if I linger it means this is something more.
He props himself up on the pillows, rubs his eyes. ‘I’m actually a very good cook. Not that you’ll ever let me show you.’
I start to wrestle my jeans back into submission. ‘It’s nothing personal.’
‘It’s hard to not take it personally when I’m naked in my bed and you can’t get your clothes on fast enough.’ He passes it off as a quick joke, but I know there’s truth there. ‘I mean you were the one who turned up at my door last night.’
I go over to him in the bed, press a kiss into his cheek and run a hand through his hair. ‘I love it when you get all paranoid and sensitive.’
