My heart fell out of my body, landing with a wet splat on the terminal floor.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything as Chess towed a clearly unwilling Jonah away, fingers fastened around his wrist like a manacle. She yanked him to a halt in front of the bookshop – the same bookshop where he must have boughtCodename Charmingfor me – and jabbed her finger into his chest, once, twice, three times.
She was facing away from me, and her voice didn’t carry, but it didn’t matter. Her body language and Jonah’s facial expression did not require years of study in close reading to interpret.
Chess curled her fingers into Jonah’s lapels and yanked him into her, like a mafia boss in a movie seizing someone by the collar and telling them that if they didn’t deliver in one hour, they’d be thrown off a bridge in concrete shoes.
I had done the same thing yesterday. The celebrant had told us to kiss, and I had clutched at his lapels as the weight of what I’d just done collapsed onto me –I got married, and Chess wasn’t there– and his lips had brushed against mine, and even though it felt like the ground had turned to the ocean beneath my feet, Jonah had held me up.
I’d crushed the rose of his boutonniere when I’d grabbed at his lapels. I had not taken enough care, interested only in what I wanted, what I needed, and the delicate flower had been ruined.
Chess let him go suddenly. Jonah stumbled back a few steps, face white, and she turned on her heel.
I thought she was going to walk straight past me – she didn’t slow down – but then she stopped abruptly, looking at me.
I couldn’t say anything. After sending her flurries of messages all day, now I was completely frozen.
‘Good luck, Sadie,’ she said.
And then she was gone.
She was nearly out of sight by the time I managed to galvanise myself into action, the book in its paper bag falling to the floor. ‘Chessie, wait!’
She stopped.
I wanted so badly for her to say something. Anything. Even something combative –don’t you have a plane to catch?– would be something, a place to start.
She didn’t say anything.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m so, so, so sorry.’
Nothing. Nothing and nothing and nothing, nothing to use as a springboard, nothing to cling to, nothing left.
‘Chessie, please.’
Francesca Shaw, who always had something to say, said nothing.
Panicked, I scrabbled in my handbag. ‘Please,’ I said, pressing my original copy ofCodename Charminginto her hands, the one I’d brought to read on the plane. ‘You’ll really like this author. This one has fake dating but when she’s done that before there’s always been a really good reason so maybe it’ll be okay.’
Chess said nothing. She held the book like I’d handed her a too-hot cup of coffee and it was burning her fingers.
‘I’ll send you more. As many as you want. Every day.’
‘No.’
One word. One syllable. A knife, directly into my heart.
‘I’m so sorry, Chess.’ It was a plea. ‘I love you so much. I didn’t mean it.’
She put the book into her handbag, snapping the clasp shut decisively.
‘I know you’re sorry,’ she said. ‘And I love you too. To the end of the universe and back again. Always.’
I had one split second of molten, golden relief before she looked me in the eye.
‘But you meant it, Sadie,’ she said. ‘And I need some time to work out what that means for me. Alone.’
I don’t know how long I stood there, frozen, staring after her as she disappeared into the distance, before there were gentle fingers on the small of my back. ‘Come on,’ Jonah said, propelling me forward, out of the path of a family with an absurd number of wheelie bags. ‘Let’s sit down.’
