Chapter 29

29

I’m with him. Standing in front of him. The two of us in a small storeroom, just off the main ballroom. He looked surprised when I asked him to come with me but did it anyway. To his mind, I’m a complete stranger. My stomach sinks.

He looks around the room, I do the same. It’s lined with shelves stocked with candles and candlesticks, lightbulbs of every size and shape, and a couple of chandelier pieces in need of repair.

“A whole room just for the light-related paraphernalia,” I remark, my voice a little shaky.

“How the other half live,” he adds, resting his attention on me.

“My name is Delphie,” I say.

“Jonah.” He holds out his hand to shake mine. I do and a swoosh of heat warms my stomach as I recall the first time he touched me, how we just stood there holding hands like it was the most natural thing in the world. He smiles. He doesn’t much seem to mind that I’ve dragged him away from the party. I wonder what he thinks is happening right now. I should probably explain myself.

“Are you here tonight to dance?” I ask instead, putting off the conversation I actually need to have. “For a gig?”

He frowns slightly. “How did you know I was a dancer?”

“Oh! Yes so…Someone mentioned it out in the ballroom. Some guy? He said you shared an agent…”

“There’s another Alabaster Disaster here tonight, is there?” He laughs. “Sorry. In-joke—my agent’s a little less than effective these days. No. I’m here off the clock. As a plus-one.”

Oh! Maurice must have had the Post-it note not because Jonah was hired here tonight, but because he wasn’t available to be hired anywhere else. “Who are you supposed to be?” I ask.

Jonah laughs and brushes a tiny bit of lint from the chest of his flannel shirt. “It’s a bit of a niche reference, to be honest. Have you seen the film Beetlejuice?”

I shake my head.

“It’s this Tim Burton movie from the eighties. I love it. When the girl I’m seeing invited me to accompany her here tonight, I wanted us to dress as Adam and Barbara from the film. Like I said, niche.”

“The…the girl you’re seeing?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty new, but going well, I think! I…Why did you want to speak to me? I’m intrigued. It’s not every day a mysterious Daisy Buchanan hurries me away to light-related paraphernalia rooms.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry for dragging you in here like a total weirdo. It’s so busy out there, though. You must think this is all very strange.”

He laughs lightly. “You seemed pretty angry back there. I wasn’t about to say no to you. Although I am, you know, curious.” He leans back against the wall. “Why did you want to talk to me?”

Because he is perfect. Perfect and gentle and soulmate-y. I take a deep breath, opening my mouth to explain why I need to speak to him. But then I halt. Despite thinking about it nonstop, I actually have no clue where to begin explaining any of this. How the buggering hell do you start a conversation so big? So earthshaking? I can’t exactly tell him that we’ve already met but he doesn’t remember because we were both dead at the time. But I can’t start off too slowly either, because it’s taken me this long to find him, and I no longer have the time to get to know him a little better first. I just need him to kiss me. As soon as possible. Then later down the line I can explain things at a pace that won’t potentially melt his brain, maybe even go on a first date…

I lift my chin and stare Jonah right in the eye. I look more than “Good Very Good” tonight. I look pretty. Maybe even beautiful. And if Jonah was attracted to me in my nightie and pickle-green socks, freshly dead, then surely, surely he won’t mind if I just, you know, kiss him. And if it’s a good kiss—which, despite my lack of experience, it has to be, because soulmates—he will kiss me back. It will be instinctive, nothing at all like the terrible kiss I had with Jonny Terry when I was eighteen. And…well, I don’t need to think further along than that. I just need him to kiss me back. That’s what Merritt wanted. For him to kiss me. There’s nothing else as important as that.

Okay. I’ve made my decision. There’s no point in waiting any longer. I reach out my hands to take his, just like we did in Evermore. I frown as the spark that ignited my body the first time I touched him is absent. Then I look into his eyes, and my stomach dips as I realise they are not interested and a little horny like they were when we met in the waiting room, but flicking from left to right as if looking for help. I peer down at our hands and find that his are just hanging limply in mine. I drop them.

“Um…I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I thought…I thought we had…and I just wanted to…” I trail off.

Jonah starts to fidget with the collar of his flannel shirt. “You’re very pretty. Incredibly so. But as I said, I’m seeing someone. She’s just out in the ballroom—” He cuts himself off and looks towards the door awkwardly. My heart starts to judder with panic. He can’t go! If he goes then it will all be over!

“No! Stay! Your date will wait, this is important!”

“Excuse me?” His voice is now openly sharp.

Why did I say that? And why is my voice now coming out as a squeak? I sound absolutely batshit.

Jonah’s eyes widen. He looks scared? Shit. No. I don’t want to scare him. I need to start over again. Try a different tack. A gentler, less crazy, less tipsy approach. But he’s now backing away from me.

I need more time with him. He needs to get to know me. But I won’t get more time unless he…

“Just kiss me!” I shout in a panic, leaning forward again. He sidesteps so that my lips hit nothing but air.

Jonah looks around himself in dread, reaching behind him for the door handle, jerking it open and running backwards out into the corridor and down towards the ballroom.

“Jonah, no!” I call out. “You don’t understand! Let me explain!”

I follow him out of the room, stumbling on these stupid shoes. I kick them off and start to run after him. I can’t lose him. Not again. Not after everything. I don’t have time!

I chase him into the ballroom, where the band are now playing some swoony Harry Connick Jr. song, the beautiful guests whirling elegantly about the ballroom floor. Jonah disappears into the crowd. No, no, no. I can’t lose him again! It’s been so hard to find him. This is my only chance!

“Jonah!” I cry out, my voice emerging as a screech. It’s a noise so blood-curdling it makes the band stop playing.

“Not this lass again,” someone mutters beside me. The crowd clears and there’s Jonah, right in the middle of the dance floor. I scurry over to him. The other guests are watching us.

“I…I don’t know what you want, but whatever it is I’m not interested.” He holds up his palms like he’s trying to calm me down.

“You are interested, though,” I say. “Just let me explain…”

“Yeah, maybe another time.” He takes another step backwards.

“There isn’t time for another time!” I throw my arms up in frustration. “You’re never where you’re supposed to be! You didn’t show up at the life drawing and then by the time I got to the Shard—”

I cut myself off as Jonah’s mouth drops open. He looks genuinely terrified. Beside him, a pretty, dark-haired woman in a floral dress grabs his hand, looking at me curiously.

“Nooooo,” I murmur, except it’s not so much a murmur as a whine.

Shit. I am making this much, much worse.

“What’s going on here?” It’s Gen. Her dress is still stained but dry, hair perfect as ever. “Are you okay, Jonah?” she asks. She knows him?

“How do you two know each other?” I frown between the two of them.

Gen frowns back at me. “Jonah is my dear friend. He’s danced at many of my events.”

“I’ve double-checked and she’s definitely not on the list.” Ryan lumbers up, pointing at an iPad. “She’s an interlooper,” he adds. “Is that how you say it, babe? Interlooper? Or is it interloperer?”

Gen ignores him. She smoothly signals for the band to start playing again and gently shoos the crowd away from us. Jonah is staring at me, complete confusion crumpling his beautiful face. Beside him, his companion squeezes his hand.

My eyes fill with tears again. I wipe them away furiously. On the periphery of my vision, I see Cooper approaching.

“Have you come here for some sort of revenge?” Gen asks with a frown. “Just move on and forgive me already! I was an idiot in school. And so was Ryan. We were lost. Trying to find our way. Secondary school is a jungle, you know?”

“You’ve literally just used what you did to me and twisted it onstage so that you were a victim! Take some responsibility, Gen.”

“I’m supporting Ditch the Bullies! I am taking responsibility!”

“You never reached out to me. All these years you could have gotten in touch. Apologised.” My voice breaks. “Why didn’t you?”

She looks tired. For a moment my defences weaken, and I see the girl I used to play with. The one who let me use her roller skates when mine broke. The one who I giggled with until two in the morning when she slept over at my house. And that makes me remember the girl I used to be. Unafraid and open.

She blows the air out from her cheeks. “I had totally forgotten you even existed, to be honest, Delphie. And anyway, I was a total shit to everyone back then, not just to you.”

“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 take a 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.”