“Babe, we weren’t that bad,” Ryan pipes up, adjusting his tight baseball trousers. “At least not from what I remember. I don’t fully remember. You’re Delphie, right? Red hair? You’re the one that did that drawing?” He sniggers and Gen elbows him.
“You’d forgotten?” I stutter. “You had forgotten I existed?” A punch to the gut.
I have thought about Gen and Ryan every single day since I walked out of school for the last time.
I look between the two of them. Gen’s phone buzzes and she pulls it out of her tiny silver bag, glancing at it briefly before looking back at me.
“I have to announce the next act. So will you forgive us?”
I open my mouth, but once again nothing comes out. I’m empty. I’m done. I turn to apologise to Jonah, to try to fix things, but he’s disappeared once more. Probably run for safety or gone to kiss that other woman instead of me.
“Are you ready to leave, Delphie?” Cooper says airily from beside me. He takes my arm. “I’m bored.”
Gen gasps. “Oh wow, you’re R. L. Cooper?” She smiles widely as if our own interaction is now a distant memory. “I’m Gen—Gen Hartley. We met at Harrogate Crime Writing Festival two years ago: I was running a charity event with the author Peter Johnson, for the Royal Literary Fund.”
“I have zero recollection,” Cooper says, giving her the smile that seems to make all the other women swoon. It does the same with Gen. She glows pink, her tongue poking out a bit.
“Of course, you must have had so many people fawning over you that day.” She bites her lip. “Ooh, could I quickly takea pic for my Instagram?” She hands her phone to Ryan and hisses at him to take a picture. He nods dumbly, ready to obey without question, just like he always did.
Cooper shakes his head, his smile even wider. He lowers his voice and leans in close to Gen. “Gosh, I’m so flattered, Gemma, but I’m afraid I’d rather scoop out my own eyeballs than spend another moment talking to you. Do have a wonderful evening, both of you.” He nods to Ryan, who gives a thumbs-up back. “Come on, Delphie. Let’s go.”
30
It’s only when we get outside that I realise I’ve abandoned my shoes inside Derwent Manor. Luckily we’re in the middle of a heat wave and the grassy country lanes are as dry as dust. It is, however, disconcerting now that the sun has set into pitch black. I could step in anything.
Cooper uses his phone torch to light the way.
“Are you okay?” he asks as we pass by the field that is now empty of sheep.
I don’t think I am.
Not because of seeing Gen and Ryan, which would have been bad enough on its own, but because I can now firmly surmise that I have unequivocally failed at this chance Merritt gave me. I lost him. I lost Jonah. He looked at me like I was someone to be afraid of. He didn’t kiss me. He’s never going to kiss me. Which means not only have I lost the potential love of my life but I’m going to die again in three days. And while I never thought my life was particularly special, these past few days have turned everything I thought I knew on its head. Things have been stressful and weird and scary andoverwhelming. Yet somehow, I’ve felt more alive than I ever thought possible.
“I’m fine,” I say, although I can feel the tears that seem to come so easily now popping up to say hello. God knows what will happen to Mr. Yoon.
“I’m starting to think that finding this Jonah was about more than informing him of an STD?”
“There never was an STD!” I snap as a soft twig breaks beneath my bare foot. “I’ve never even…I just…I said that in the moment because I didn’t know you. I did think there was something real between Jonah and me…and I needed there to be…Ineededhim to be…” I trail off. It’s too difficult to explain and especially to someone like Cooper. I sigh heavily. “I’ve just fucked it up, like everything else.”
“I’m sure it’s not so bad.”
“Cooper, I just chased after a man and humiliated the pair of us in front of a room full of people.”
“I’m sure he was flattered by your determination.”
“Oh please.”
Cooper’s voice softens. “Sometimes when people want to go, it’s easier to just let them.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I say, wiping away another uninvited tear. “And especially not with you. I just want to go home.”
“I understand.”
We continue trundling along the country lane in miserable silence, when suddenly there’s a weird rustling sound from above. Both of us stop walking and look skywards. We are rewarded for our curiosity with a massive splatter of rain bucketing all over us. An abrupt crackle of lightning illuminates the shock on our faces, immediately backed up by a rollicking clapof thunder. Now? It’s going to rain and thunder and lightning fuckingnow? It’s been the hottest summer since records began, it hasn’t rained in a whole month. But it suddenly decides to when I’m stuck on a country lane, barefooted, crestfallen, embarrassed, and marked by death?
I laugh. I laugh and I cry and I shake my head. “Perfect!” I yell at the sky over the roar of the thunder. “Genuinely. Your timing is fucking sublime!”
“Delphie, come on!” Cooper shouts over to me, his hair already drenched. “Don’t just bloody stand there!”
