Chapter 37 #2
One more for luck—Skye. My fingers hesitate over the keyboard. The booking goes through flawlessly.
I slump back in my chair, finally exhaling properly. I don’t feel completely steady, but it seems okay. I can’t do any more than that.
“You know what?” I announce to my empty desk. “I deserve that retreat.”
I close my laptop, shove it into my bag, and text Roy:
Pub?
His response is instant:
Obviously. Already here. I’ve got you a wine.
Make it large.
Already did. Also got you crisps.
I could cry.
The retreat center is exactly what you’d expect from somewhere called “The Meadow Vale Wellness Sanctuary.”
Twenty of us sit in a circle in what used to be a barn, now converted into a “meditation space.” I’m trying not to think about the spiders that still live in these beams.
They confiscated our phones at reception.
The panic I felt handing mine over was genuinely alarming.
When did I become someone who can’t exist without a rectangle of glass?
Watching it disappear into that hand-woven basket felt like surrendering a vital organ.
What if there’s an IRIS emergency? What if the servers catch fire?
What if Craig sends an email and I’m not there to immediately catastrophize about it?
The meditation instructor has flowing gray hair and speaks like she’s narrating a relaxation app. Actually, she might be the same woman from my public speaking app.
“Empty your mind,” she whispers. “Let thoughts drift past like clouds.”
My thoughts are not clouds.
“Breathe,” she encourages.
I try. Honestly, I do.
Everyone else looks serene, discovering inner peace or their third eye or whatever. The woman beside me hasn’t moved in thirty minutes. She might have transcended. Or died. Hard to tell.
After meditation, we do pottery. The instructor demonstrates how to “let the clay speak to you.” My clay is mute. I create something that might be a bowl if you’re very generous. It’s lopsided, thick on one side, thin on the other, with an unintentional dent.
The instructor calls it “wonderfully organic.”
“You can really see the emotion in the form,” she says, tilting her head thoughtfully.
Yes. The emotion is “help.”
Later, during the journaling session, something shifts. We’re in the garden, each with a recycled paper journal that smells like hemp. The instructor suggests we write letters we’ll never send.
“Let the words flow without judgment,” she says softly. “This is just for you.”
My pen hovers over the blank page. Then Patrick’s name appears before I can stop it.
Dear Patrick,
I hate that you didn’t fight for me. Not with Jake, not with Craig, not with anyone. You’re so brave about everything else. Climbing mountains, building empires, taking on the world.
But when it came to us, you were a coward.
I hate that I still miss you.
I hate that I check my phone hoping you’ve messaged, even though I know you won’t.
I hate that you made me brave enough to want things, then took them away.
I hate that seafood is ruined forever. Congratulations, you’ve permanently ruined mussels.
I hate that you’ve probably moved on while I’m here, writing your name like a lovesick teenager in a journal that smells like a health food store.
I hate that if you called right now, I’d probably answer.
You’re out there, moving forward the way men always do, while I’m here, frozen at the moment you decided I wasn’t worth fighting for.
I hate that I still love you.
The words pour out, messy and honest and half illegible through the tears.
The woman next to me has written what looks like a dissertation. The man on my other side just has one word: “Dad.”
We’re a right cheerful bunch.
We’re told to burn the letters in the fire pit tonight. “Release them to the universe,” the instructor says, as if the universe gives a toss.
After dinner—quinoa—we gather around the fire pit.
One by one, people step forward. The dissertation woman goes first, feeding pages and pages to the flames.
She cries silently, shoulders shaking. Without thinking, I reach over and squeeze her hand.
She squeezes back so hard it hurts. We’re all just disasters holding hands around a fire pit in the Cotswolds.
The “Dad” man goes next. He holds one word over the flames for ages. When he finally lets go, he makes a small wounded sound. The woman beside him rubs his back in circles.
Then it’s my turn.
I think about Patrick. How he’s probably not thinking of me at all.
“You don’t get to live in my head rent-free anymore,” I whisper and drop the letter.
The flames eat it quickly. Patrick’s name curls, blackens, and disappears.
I wish it were that easy to make the rest of him go too.
Monday morning, I arrive at the office feeling... different. Not better, exactly—I still woke up at 3 a.m. with his name caught in my throat—but the weekend helped.
Last night was rough, though. After the peaceful weekend of mindful breathing and pretending hemp smells nice, I came home to Riri’s empty house and had the most horrific dream.
I was in the water beside Patrick’s boat, getting pulled away by a current.
He was on the boat fishing, surrounded by all his friends and family.
He cast his line perfectly because he’s a master fisherman, and I was literally drowning meters away, arms flailing, trying to scream his name, but water kept filling my mouth.
He never looked. Not once. Just kept casting that beautiful line while I sank.
I woke up gasping, sheets soaked through, that half-second of relief—thank God it was just a dream—before remembering it’s also true in real life.
Still, I got up this morning. Showered. Put on mascara. That must count for something. Gold star for Georgie.
It’s weird being back in London after Skye. Every day that passes, it all feels more distorted. Did Skye even happen?
Of course, I’ve been doing the most self-destructive thing possible: late-night conversations with AI chatbots.
“Do CEOs ever actually fall for junior employees?”
“Was he just using me?”
“How do you know if you were just convenient?”
The AI responded with disturbing enthusiasm: Would you like me to generate a motivational poem about moving on?
No, Chatbot Karen. I would not like a motivational poem. I would like to be put out of my misery but apparently that’s against your terms of service.
I tell myself to stop at midnight. Then it’s 3 a.m., and I’m deep in some relationship subreddit where strangers with usernames like EmotionalSupportSloth are dissecting stories like mine. The verdict is always the same: he was never going to choose you, hun.
Part of me aches so badly I want to scream because he’s so far away. Another part of me is relieved I don’t have to risk bumping into him in the lift. How twisted is that? To crave someone and dread them at the same time?
I swipe my pass at the reception gate. Nothing. I try again. Red light.
“Oh, come on,” I mutter, giving it another go. The reader beeps angrily. “Not today, please.”
“Morning, Georgie!” Susie calls from behind reception.
“Heya,” I say, holding up my card. “This thing’s dead again. Can you check it?”
She taps at her keyboard, frowning at the screen. “These systems are possessed, I swear. Let me see…” Her eyes flick across the screen. “Hmm. Looks like your pass is expiring soon. I’ll just ping Craig and get someone to let you in.”
But it isn’t Craig who appears a few minutes later.
It’s Sarah from HR.
She smiles politely and swipes me through.
“Oh, thanks,” I say quickly. “You didn’t have to come all the way down. I’m sure you’ve got important things to do. Sorry, I thought Craig would send Roy or somebody.”
“No problem at all,” she says smoothly. “Actually, I need to have a word with you.”
“Of course.”
Oh God. Is this about the intercom incident?
Patrick wouldn’t have told HR, would he? Unless he had to. Unless there’s going to be an investigation. Unless—
No. Stop. It’s probably just that health and safety training I missed. She’s going to tell me I need to watch a video about fire exits. That’s all. Breathe.
We ride the lift together, both maintaining polite smiles.
“Sorry,” I babble, needing to fill the silence. “The health and safety thing? I didn’t have time to do it yet. I know I should have. It’s on my list. Very top of my list.”
“That’s fine,” Sarah says lightly.
We pass my floor. Keep going up. My chest gets tighter with each level.
HR floor. Not a quick chat at my desk. A proper HR meeting.
I follow her down the corridor into a conference room on the HR floor. Waiting inside is Lindsey, the head of HR.
My pulse stutters. My palms are clammy. I wipe them on my skirt.
Okay. Now I’m really worried this is Patrick-related. Do I have to disclose something? Is this going to be one of those nightmare HR training scenarios where they make you fill in forms about “inappropriate relationships at work”?
“I have a team meeting in fifteen minutes,” I say nervously, forcing a smile.
“That’s fine,” Sarah says smoothly, pulling out a chair for me. The chair faces both of them.
Except nothing feels fine. My stomach is in knots, and every nerve in my body is screaming that this is not about health and safety or admin or any normal HR issue. This is about Patrick. This is about the intercom.
Lindsey clears her throat and opens a folder. “Georgie, thank you for coming up. I’m afraid there’s been a significant issue over the weekend, and we need to understand what happened.”
My pulse thuds in my ears. “What kind of issue?”
“We’ve had disruption across the reservation systems. At this stage, we’re gathering information from everyone involved.”
Oh, thank God. Work stuff. I can handle work stuff.
“Of course, no problem,” I say, relief flickering through me that it’s not Patrick-related. Though I want to run back to my desk and start troubleshooting immediately. “We always do audits. If you give me a day, I can have a report ready. I’d better get to my desk; they’ll need me to help fix it.”