Chapter 34

34

Hi Darling! Sorry missed your call. Things manic here. Hope you’re well!

I hang up Leanne’s dress before diving into the shower, where I find myself fixating on my previous realisation that while I know I will die again in two days, and I know that it will be at 6:00 p.m., I have zero clue how on earth it will happen.

It could come about under any circumstances. It won’t be choking, because since the last time, I have chewed and swallowed my food so slowly and thoughtfully that it’s taken me twice as long to finish a meal. On the flip side, my digestion has improved considerably. I could fall down the stairs. I could slip on a sneaky bathroom floor shower spill. There could be a gas explosion. Or Mum might actually call me back and the shock of it would incite some sort of cardiac event. I’m basically living Final Destination right now.

I step out of the shower with extra care and take tiny, vigilant steps into my bedroom. I could be walking down the street and have an air-conditioning unit drop onto my head. Or maybe I fall down a manhole because I’m too busy thinking about not dying to see that there is a manhole in my path. Fuck. I could get murdered. I could get murdered by Mrs. Ernestine. And then she could find all my library books about how to hide a body, and no-one would be any the wiser.

“Merritt!” I call out frantically, wrapping myself in my dressing gown. “Merritt, I need some reassurance! Some sort of guarantee about the way this is gonna go down! What is death’s design for me?”

A big gust of wind makes my curtains flap, and then there she is, faint and iridescent at first and then fully solid, standing at the foot of my bed wearing a white flippy dress covered with cherries, her face glaring at mine.

“You actually answered me!” I exclaim.

“What did I tell you?”

I grit my teeth. “I’m sorry, I know I’m not supposed to contact you, but I’m freaking out right now. Are you going to have me murdered? Is Mrs. Ernestine gonna murder me? Because I’m telling you, she’s got it in her.”

Merritt looks around her, eyes panicky. “Every time you call out to me, my phone beeps. One beep for every sentence! We don’t have silent mode in Evermore, so it’s bringing me even more heat. You cannot do that. They think I’m in the bathroom right now. I’m pretty sure Eric is waiting for me outside to catch me out, and if that happens, then all bets are off, Delphie.”

“You still need the loo in Evermore?” I muse. “Seems unfair.”

“So that’s it?” she says, ignoring my question. “You’re just going to give up on Jonah? Pas fantastique!”

“What else am I supposed to do, Merritt? He was quite clear. He has a girlfriend. He was scared of me. I chased him.”

“In Twilight, Bella was literally in danger of her blood being guzzled not only by Edward but also by his whole family and his enemies too, of which there were an excessive amount! And she still found a way to make it work, because soulmates. And here you are giving it one in-person meeting that didn’t go the way you anticipated and then nothing? All done and dusted? Maybe you and Jonah are not instalove—more a slow burn like Josh and Lucy in The Hating Game? But there won’t be anything to slow burn if you don’t spark the initial flame.”

“This isn’t a romance novel, Merritt. It’s my life. And he straight up doesn’t like me. I know you said he’s my soulmate, but…” I get a vision of Jonah, the dislike in his eyes as he ran away from me. Let’s face it, the terror.

“That pesky fear of rejection. You would literally rather die than make yourself vulnerable even one more time? If you let that happen, you’re a hopeless eejit. Imagine if Bridget Jones had never let herself be vulnerable? She probably would have ended up in a toxic marriage with Daniel Cleaver! My god.”

I frown. “I already did make myself vulnerable. I got on a podium and danced. I showed my labia majora outline to the entirety of Kensington Gardens. I auditioned for a role in Murder in the Pretty Village. I had to interact with the couple who made my school life an absolute nightmare, and I continued to look like an idiot in front of them. It all failed, Merritt! If I have two days left on Earth, I don’t want to spend them gambling on something that has almost zero chance of succeeding. And going back to Jonah? That’s what it would be. Another humiliation. This week has been a full nightmare.”

Merritt shakes her head. “A full nightmare? Has it? Has it really? The whole week. Just a nightmare? Think about it, babe.”

I blink. “I…” I trail off, realising that while I’ve been frustrated and angry this week, I’ve also been nervous and excited and amused and full of anticipation. Perhaps in certain moments, something close to happy. “Maybe not the whole week…”

She folds her arms. “If you’re going to give up on Jonah, why don’t you just come back with me now then? Before Eric discovers what I’ve been up to and rats me out. At least that way you know you’ll be in Evermore and not somewhere else.”

I think of Mr. Yoon and how he’ll need someone to settle him back in at home tomorrow. I have to write Cooper a list of dos and don’ts. I have to chase up the council and see about getting Mr. Yoon an assessment.

“I…I can’t. It’s just two days. I’ve got things to do. I need to, you know, get my affairs in order. Please. Just hold them off for two more days. I promise not to call you again. And when I come back, I’ll be your guinea pig, like we agreed.”

“Great. That’s great, Delphie, because this guy arrived yesterday and he’s looking for love.” She flicks her fingers, and a mirage pops up in front of my wardrobe. It’s a hologram of a sweet-looking fifty-year-old man, dressed in a woolly jumper.

“He’s called Roger Pecker, and he was a farmer back on Earth. And he was mad into it, farming. Like, obsessed with farming. He especially likes explaining the benefits of using a chisel plough over a mouldboard plough. You would think he had nothing left to say on the matter, but he does. He has a lot more. He’s been single for twenty years, so he’ll be keen to tell you all about himself, I expect. So that’s what you can look forward to if you don’t kiss Jonah and save your damn life.”

“You seem angry with me. I thought you wanted a guinea pig?”

Merritt looks at the floor. “I wanted a happy ever after. I wanted…” She trails off and stamps her feet.

I shake my head. “Happy ever afters don’t happen in real life. You work solely with dead people. Surely you know that?”

Merritt’s mouth sets in a grim line, and she twists one of the many rings on her fingers, biting her lip.

There’s a knock at my door. Merritt jumps. Wow, she really is on edge.

“Two days,” I say, putting my hands together. “You can run circles around those guys I thought? Around Eric? You can hold him off. I’ve made peace with it. I’ll even date Roger Pecker, no complaints.”

Merritt looks like she’s about to say something else but then stops herself. Instead, she throws her hands up in exasperation. She lifts her chin. “Please just try, Delphie. And no. I can’t promise that Mrs. Ernestine won’t murder you, so maybe watch out!”

She’s kidding.

Right?

Before I can confirm she’s kidding, she has shimmered and popped off back to Evermore.

I open the door to find Cooper standing there, hair damp, wearing a black T-shirt with a photo of Jack Nicholson kissing Helen Hunt. Underneath it says, Good Times, Noodle Salad.

“Nice,” I say, pointing to it.

“It was a gift.”

“I like it. Are you…?”

“Yeah, I was thinking…?”

We laugh. I take a breath. “How can I help you, Cooper?”

He laughs too. “You could allow me to take you to dinner this evening.”

“Excuse me?”

“This evening. Dinner. With me.” He thumbs at his own chest.

I brush my hair back behind my ear. “You mean…like a date?”

“I do.”

“I thought you didn’t date?”

“I don’t.”

I grin. I’ve never been on a date before. And the last time I went out to a restaurant in London was in 2015, and that restaurant was the Paddington branch of Chicken Cottage. I think of what Mr. Yoon said.

It’s nice to see you looking happy.

I might not have much choice in how long I stay alive. But I do have some say in how much life I can pack into the days I have left. How much happiness I can experience. I have zero to lose now.

I nod. “Okay, yes. You can take me to dinner.”

He smiles then, the tiny gap between his front teeth visible. It’s a real smile. An excellent smile. A not-at-all-despicable smile. I think about the first time I saw him downstairs after he moved in. When he bowed to me in the hall with those glittering eyes. How my stomach had flipped with distant, impossible-seeming possibility. And then, when he told me to fuck off that morning, immediately feeling like an idiot for thinking of him at all. Now I know it was because his beloved twin sister had just died. Of course he told me, a grumpy woman at the door, complaining about his music, to fuck off. But I didn’t think about that. All I thought was that this man was simply confirming everything I already knew about people. They were all terrible.

I wonder if I had tried again to make conversation, if we’d have found ourselves in the same scenario as this, only with more time to see what came of it.

“I’ll see you at seven,” Cooper says before turning on his heel and striding back down the hall.

I guess we’ll never know.