13. Thirteen

13

PRESENT

I ’m still sitting at my desk, staring at the blank screen I’m using to write down my story ideas for Vivienne — or not write them down, as the case may be — thirty minutes later, when the office door opens, and Elliot appears, walking right in without even asking.

Great .

“I brought you a coffee,” he says, placing a steaming takeaway mug in front of me. “I figured you could probably use one. Your friend Levi made it for me. No cinnamon, though; I remember how much you hate it.”

At least he remembers something , then.

I bite back the words on the tip of my tongue, and pick up the coffee cup, noticing he’s holding one of his own, too. “Your dad said I’d probably find you in here,” he says, looking around the tiny room, which he knew only as a storage cupboard. “He said it’s your office? Are you writing, then? Is that why you need an office now?”

His eyes land on the laptop, and I snap it quickly closed, even though there’s nothing to see.

“No,” I say quickly. “It’s just bookstore stuff. Invoices, you know. Staff rotas. That kind of thing. The store’s been doing much better since … well, you know. There’s a lot more admin to take care of.”

There’s an awkward silence as the memory of our previous conversation about the bookstore doing better — and why — hovers dangerously above our heads before disappearing again.

“Oh. Right. That’s a shame,” Elliot says, taking a sip of his drink and wincing slightly as the sugar hits his taste buds. “Not that the store’s doing well, obviously,” he adds hurriedly. “That’s amazing. Seriously. It’s just … I thought you might be working on that novel you always wanted to write. Or something else, maybe?”

“Nope,” I reply briskly, turning away and pretending to tidy the already-immaculate desk. “I still have the same problem with that. No stories, remember? Nothing to tell. Although, I guess I could just do what you did, and make something up?”

Elliot shuffles his feet awkwardly, and I briefly consider throwing myself face-first into my coffee: I suspect the scalding heat of it would be marginally less painful than the look on his face right now.

Why did I say that? Why couldn’t I just let it go for once?

“Look,” he begins, “About that. I didn’t know it would affect you so much; what I wrote. I didn’t know it would make you a … what was it you called it? A ‘laughingstock’? It didn’t cross my mind that it might embarrass you. I didn’t even think anyone would read it, if I’m honest. I definitely didn’t imagine all of this.”

He pulls at the collar of his shirt as if it’s in danger of strangling him. He’s not sounding nearly as self-confident now that it’s just me and him. It makes me like him more.

“No. No, I don’t suppose you did,” I reply, softening. “It’s… quite something.”

“I suppose that’s one way of describing it.”

He gives a wry chuckle that takes him another step closer to the Elliot I remember.

“That plastic globe thing outside,” he says. “I was not expecting that. And I went by the Rose Tavern, but it’s been re-named, apparently? Now it’s—”

“The Globe,” I confirm, cringing inwardly. “There are a lot of things around here named after snow globes now. I’m amazed they didn’t just rename the town Hollybrooke and be done with it. Nice name, by the way.”

I’m being sarcastic, which is something the old Elliot would’ve known right away. This one, however, just grins, as if it’s a joke we’re both in on.

“I know; it’s cheesy as all get-out. But I have a soft spot for the name Holly, for some reason. I really wanted to use it.”

He smiles again, and it somehow manages to reverse time, and send him spiraling back an entire decade until he’s back to being the aspiring writer in the big scarf, who told me he’d never forget me.

“You didn’t say that earlier, though?” I reply evenly. “When Levi asked you if anyone inspired you to write the book? You just said it was about your great-grandfather. You didn’t mention me at all.”

I try my best not to sound too needy — or just plain whiny — as I say it, but the look of surprise on Elliot’s face suggests I haven’t succeeded.

“I didn’t think you’d want me to,” he replies, making it sound like a question. “When I saw you earlier, you seemed so angry about it; about the book, and the attention you’d got from it. I didn’t want to make things worse for you by admitting Evie was based on you — especially not in front of the press that were there. Not to mention Maisie Poole, who made me sign five copies for her. Hey, is it just me, or has she not changed at all ?”

He blinks rapidly, and I have to bite my tongue not to laugh at the comical expression on his face.

“Rumor has it she has a portrait in the attic,” I say, deadpan. “Either that or she’s a vampire. It’s definitely one of the two. Possibly both, knowing Maisie. She’s nothing if not thorough.”

This time his smile is one of relief tempered with caution.

“And you?” he asks softly. “What’s your secret? Because you look exactly the same, Holly. Exactly . I felt like I’d gone back in time when I bumped into you the other day. It was … yeah.”

I really want to know what ‘it’ was — ‘yeah’ doesn’t really give me much to go on here — but I’m too thrown by the unexpected compliment to ask.

“Oh, I’m definitely a vampire,” I reply seriously. “I survive on the blood of the people who’ve crossed me.”

“That would’ve made one hell of a plot twist,” he says, chuckling. “Shoulda used that one for sure. Unless I’m one of the people who’ve crossed you, obviously. Which I kind of think I am, given your reaction to me not mentioning you earlier. Either that or this coffee’s much worse than I thought, and that’s why you’re annoyed with me?”

He takes another sip and pulls a face.

“Oh, the coffee’s terrible,” I assure him. “And you’re not totally wrong about me not wanting to be outed as Evie Snow, either. I don’t… I don’t really know why I was annoyed out there when you didn’t mention me. I don’t want that. I’ve never wanted that. I’ve never wanted to be connected to the book.”

“Has it really been that bad for you?” Elliot asks. “Being Evie? I’m sorry, Holly. That’s not what I wanted. Really, it’s not. I didn’t think for a second that the book would make life difficult for you.”

“But … she’s so awful ,” I say, before I can stop myself. “I don’t even know why he falls for her; she’s just… urgh .”

I almost knock my drink over as I wave my hands expansively to emphasize my point. Whatever my point’s supposed to be.

Elliot rubs his jaw thoughtfully, in a way that suggests my feedback is critical to him.

“You don’t like Evie?” he says, his tone light. “You think she’s awful? Or ‘urgh’ even?”

“ Everyone thinks she’s awful,” I correct him. “ Everyone thinks she’s ‘urgh’ . That’s why everyone laughs at me. Well, everyone who knows she’s supposed to be me, anyway. And that includes Maisie Poole, so, you know… everyone .”

Elliot shrugs.

“ I like her,” he says simply. “I like her a lot. And I don’t think she’s ‘awful’ at all. I don’t think it’s strange in the slightest that he falls for her. I think she’s feisty. I think she’s brave. I think she’s hurt, and damaged, and I think sometimes she does things because she doesn’t want to be hurt any more than she already is.”

I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry.

“Anyway,” he goes on, before I can reply. “It’s done now. I can’t go back and change it, as much as I’d like to. So I’m sorry you hated the book, but trust me; you’re not the only one who was disappointed in it.”

I swallow again. It seems to be the only thing I’m capable of doing right now. Because one thing’s for sure; I have no idea what to say to him. My mind is a blank page; one that I can’t help wishing someone else would write on, just to tell me how to feel about everything he’s just said

I don’t know how I feel anymore.

Not about Elliot, not about his book, not about anything.

And I really thought I did. When I came storming into this office earlier, I had Elliot firmly cast as the villain in this story; the Machiavellian, scheming liar who gas-lit me into thinking he loved me, then wrote a book that guaranteed I’d spend the rest of my life as a joke.

But now I’ve been completely wrong-footed. The Elliot standing in front of me isn’t the two-dimensional character he’s been in my head all these years. He’s a real, whole person; one with thoughts and feelings that I absolutely haven’t taken into account, because it was too easy to just resent him instead.

“I didn’t say I hated it,” I tell him, my voice almost a whisper. “I didn’t… I don’t hate it.”

“Oh, yeah? You could’ve fooled me.”

There’s an edge to his voice that I’ve never heard in it before. It reminds me of how much I don’t know about him; how I never really did know him. How can you know someone in the space of three weeks? Why did I ever think I did?

“I don’t hate it,” I say carefully, “I just don’t understand it, is all. I don’t understand why you made so much of it up. You were the one who was so set on figuring out the truth. Remember how hard we tried to find the mystery woman from the photo?”

“I remember. The visit to the library. Maisie and her Hercule Poirot novels. Hey, I walked past the library a couple days ago,” he adds, grinning at the memory. “I see it’s had a bit of a makeover, too. It didn’t smell musty at all. Maisie must be delighted.”

“It’s the snow globe effect,” I tell him, remembering what Elsie said in the coffee shop a few days ago. “It makes everything better — unless you’re actually in the book, then it just makes everything much, much weirder. But don’t change the subject. Why’d you spend all that time trying to find her if you were just going to make it all up, anyway?”

Elliot shrugs.

“It was fun,” he says at last. “Wasn’t it? It gave us something else to focus on. It made us a team.”

“And we wouldn’t have been one without that? Wait: what am I saying? Of course we wouldn’t. You don’t become a ‘team’ in 23 days, do you? You don’t really become anything in 23 days. We weren’t even a couple; not really. It was barely even a relationship.”

I put my drink down so quickly the coffee sloshes out of the lid and onto my hand. I think I get it now; why he changed so many of the details that ended up in his book. He did it because the ‘mystery woman’ was better as a blank slate. She was more useful that way, because if he didn’t know who she really was, he could turn her into whoever he wanted her to be. And I guess the same goes for me. Twenty-three days wasn’t enough for him to know me, let alone love me. So he had to pretend.

“I don’t know what you want me to say to that, Holly,” Elliot says, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Do you want me to argue with you? Do you want me to apologize?”

I want to say yes to this. Yes to all of it. Because I do. I want him to tell me I’m wrong; that we were every bit the ‘team’ I thought we were, and I want him to apologize for not living up to the imagined version of himself that existed only in my head. Imagination is always better than reality, though, isn’t it? And, unfortunately for us, no one’s writing this script for us, so we’re having to make it up as we go along.

“Holly, are you in there?”

The door swings open and Dad’s head appears, his hair now doing a passable impression of Albert Einstein’s.

“Oh!” he says, looking surprised to see Elliot standing in the corner of the room, as if he’s haunting it. “I thought you’d gone, Elliot? Your publicist has been looking for you.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” says Elliot, sounding normal again. “Tell her I’m on my way, would you?”

Dad’s head disappears again, and Elliot and I face each other, neither of sure what happens next.

“For what it’s worth,” he says. “I am sorry. I didn’t mean for the book to ruin your life. I really didn’t.”

“It didn’t. I’ve had a perfectly nice life, thanks,” I say stiffly. “It’s been… nice.”

“Nice? Is that all?”

Elliot gives a low chuckle.

“I’ll leave you to get on with your nice life, then,” he says, crossing to the office door, which he tugs open with much more force than it actually requires. Then he stops suddenly and turns back to face me.

“ Do you still have it?” he asks, framed in the doorway. “The snow globe? I’ve always wondered.”

I look up at him from my position at the desk.

“No,” I say quietly. “No, I don’t. I got rid of it years ago.”

“Right. I should’ve guessed.”

There’s nothing I can say to that, so I just sit there at my desk and watch as the door swings closed behind him. Then, once I’m sure he’s definitely not coming back, I open the desk drawer beside me and rummage around in it for a minute until I find the thing I’m looking for lurking at the back.

I pull it out and place it on the desk in front of me, checking the door first to make sure it’s definitely closed.

The snow globe still looks exactly the same as it did ten years ago. The tiny buildings are still recognizably Bramblebury, the snow still swirls around them, and the little couple still stand there, locked in their eternal kiss.

Everything’s the same.

And yet every single thing is different.