I blink and gulp as the vision fades.
The man is smiling and speaking to me, but I cannot hear him. It feels as though I’m underwater. His tear-stained face from my vision will stay with me for ages. He nods and walks towards the door. Reaching for another boiled sweet, I shove it in my mouth and survey the bookshop as the sight of it always calms my agitated state.
Nestled on a cobbled side street off the main road, Miranda’s bookshop, feels like stepping into a good friend’s living room, complete with quirky bookcases, sagging armchairs, and colourful rugs. It smells of old paper, fresh coffee, and vanilla-scented air spray. Wooden shelves line every wall, tightly packed with books of every hue. There are several display tables, curated entirely by Miranda’s whims, such as ‘Books that will make you feel like a hot mess’ and ‘Hot people doing bad things’. A string of fairy lights zigzags across the ceiling all year round, and the till is cluttered with pastel notebooks, glittery pens, and bookish stickers.
My eyes wander around the shop. They spot a customer flicking through a non-fiction book on dogs, an elderly man reaching for a cookery book, and a woman ordering her three teenage children to look for the romance book she’s pointing to on her phone screen. The sound of the bookshop rushes back to me. I smile as one of her children moans at being in a bookshop with his mother and siblings looking for a romance book. His mother snaps and reminds him of the hours she has spent watching him play football. She reminds him of how much this book means a lot to her.
Two women approach the till, each carrying books. I go to great lengths to avoid physical contact and pretend I have a cold, so I don’t pass on any germs. They ignore me, and I listen to their conversation about Psychic Medium Cynthia, who, according to one of the women, never disappoints. ‘Cynthia can contact anyone on the other side,’ explains the woman. ‘She has a team of helpful spirit guides who track down deceased loved ones or unearth family secrets that were taken to the grave. That woman knew what my shady Uncle Malcolm was hiding before he died.’
Her friend blinks in surprise. ‘You’ve never told me about shady Uncle Malcolm. Do we need to go for a glass of wine and have a chat about him?’
As they walk away talking about shady Uncle Malcolm and what he was doing before he had a fatal heart attack, an idea forms in my mind. Cynthia could contact Mum and Dad. They would surely give me the answers I’ve spent years searching for. The thought of speaking to Mum and Dad again after all this time makes me feel a little odd, and my mind tries to replay the memory of sitting in the back of the car, but I block it out.
Miranda gives me a break from the till, and I take the opportunity to hide away in my favourite place, the science fiction and fantasy section. It is both a magical and chaotic corner of the bookshop. Miranda has hung an old replica sword to the wall and added a note in old handwriting that reads,Please do not duel unless you’re arguing over a book. The walls are lined with tall bookcases, crammed with epic fantasies, spell books, and sleek dystopian thrillers. I always think the air in this section of the shop feels a little cooler, which, combined with Miranda’s twinkly lights, gives it an out-of-this-world vibe.
While I am there, I do some internet sleuthing about Psychic Medium Cynthia. After I’ve requested an appointment for tomorrow, Miranda calls me back to the till so she can make an important business call in the back room. What she really means is that she wants to chat with her online fashion stylist on Zoom about her latest clothing purchase.
I head for the till and serve two customers. As the last one walks away with their vegan cookery book, the doorbell jingles. I glance up and freeze.
Sam.
He’s standing inside the door, looking just as he did a year ago. Still distractingly attractive with his olive skin, dark curly hair, and muscular arms that could effortlessly carry me out of a burning building if I needed rescuing.
2
‘Nelly,’ he says with a surprised warmth, stepping closer to the till like we’re old friends and not cautionary tales.
As I force out a smile, I grip a pencil so hard that it snaps.
He runs a hand through his hair. ‘I was passing by. Thought I’d pop in.’
‘Lovely,’ I mumble, avoiding his gaze.
When Miranda broke her leg last year, she hired Sam to help me. At that time, he was between bookshop jobs. Sam and I got along immediately, and I fell hopelessly in love with him from afar.
Sam made me want to believe in love. When we laughed and joked while stacking bookshelves, or when he held my gaze a little longer than necessary, he made all my worries disappear. He used to write me funny handwritten notes and leave them in romance books for me to find. Considering what I know about love, spending time in the bookshop’s romance section is challenging. Sam’s notes gave me a new source of happiness, and being among romance books stopped being such a struggle.
To my surprise, Sam admitted he felt the same way about me. He did it through one of his notes. It read,I can’t stop thinking about you, Nelly xx. I remember my heart pounding wildly. He was watching me when I looked up. I blushed, and he smiled.
The rest of my shift was spent imagining what he looked like… naked. My emotions were running wild, yet there was an undercurrent of anxiety. I was worried about what I would see when we touched, and I was also agonising over something else that has been making me feel uneasy for years. I don’t like to admit it aloud. Not because it feels shameful, but because it feels out of step with how life is meant to unfold. I am thirty-three and still a virgin. I blame my teenage years. From what I observed from the girls at secondary school, having sex seemed only to speed up one’s inevitable heartbreak. When I touched the girls’ arms at school, I saw how their love would end. Shortly after losing their virginity to their boyfriends, two of them would discover that their beloved boyfriends were two-timing them, and in Elaine Smith’s case, she would find out that her boyfriend mocked her body parts in his biology class. This made me put an imaginary lock on my knickers and steer clear of sex and love.
Sam was going to be different, I told myself. After a lot of ruminating, I concluded that being a virgin would work to my advantage with Sam. What helped was remembering what Miranda, my boss and regular over-sharer, once told me her partner, Frank, likes to whisper in bed: ‘Can we pretend you are a virgin?’
From Miranda’s experience, being a virgin would give me added appeal. It could make Sam love me more. Later that evening, as we closed the bookshop, Sam reached out and grabbed my hand. I squeaked as I wasn’t ready for the monumental touch.
That was the crucial moment.
Until then, I had never envisioned a positive form of love. Everyone for whom I’ve had strong feelings – fancied or loved from a distance – had eventually hurt me in some way.
I held my breath and prayed to see a happy future for us. The familiar flash of bright light behind my eyes made me gasp, and when it faded, I realised how our love story would come to an end. I saw him and his ex-girlfriend caught in a passionate embrace in the back room of the bookshop. I recognised her face; she was a regular. Although Sam assured me they were over, I had a nagging doubt that they still liked each other. I looked devastated, in my vision, standing in the doorway and watching them kiss. Our love story would end with him cheating on me.
Looking back, I should have suppressed my emotions and told him I wanted to remain friends, but I got carried away. I told myself that Sam and I were different. He was going to be the exception. In a moment of madness, I convinced myself that breaking a curse was just a matter of maintaining a positive mental attitude. So, I vowed not to flinch when I heard him mention her name, or question why she spent every lunch hour wandering aimlessly around the bookshop. I ignored the painful reminders from the past and my curse’s unfailing accuracy. Sam was the start of a new chapter in my life.
For three perfect weeks, we had passionate embraces in the back room before we opened, and we slow-danced after he’d put the closed sign on the door.
On that grey Thursday, the sight of him leading his ex-girlfriend by the hand into the back office caused an earthquake inside me. Just like my vision predicted, I left the till unattended, sprinted into the back room, and burst in on them kissing. After Sam, I vowed never to fall in love again. I promised myself no more crushes, daydreams, or hoping.
‘You look well,’ he says, bringing me back into the present.
