Chapter 19
Half an hour later, he still hasn’t looked at it and I feel even worse.
Es is finishing off some oozy custard-filled doughnut as I refresh my story views for the zillionth time.
But still, nothing. There are twenty-seven little faces underneath my story, twenty-seven people who have seen it, but none of them are Jonathan.
And he always looks at my stories.
Panic rolls through me. What if it’s actually over? What if there is nothing I can do to change that?
‘I’m getting tired,’ Es says, as she wipes sugar off her fingertips with a napkin and looks around for a rubbish bin. ‘Should we go?’
‘Sure,’ I say. She spots a rubbish bin and as she goes over to it, I frantically tap through to Olivia’s profile. And I don’t want to be this woman—jealous, paranoid, clingy—I really don’t but here we are.
Her grid loads, slowly, slowly, and then . . .
A calm comes over me. My thoughts slow. It’s fine.
Olivia’s last post is a selfie of her and two others—a blonde woman and a man with patchy facial hair and an ostentatious little hat with a purple feather in it.
It was posted only ten minutes ago, and in good news, Jonathan is nowhere in sight.
She’s standing outside a black building with red ropes outside and I can make out some white lettering behind her.
As I zoom in, I realise I recognise the building . . . I know where she is.
I scroll to the caption: Going to see my talented friend Mark tonight. #spokenword #openmic #poetry #supportyourfriends
‘Are you ordering an Uber?’ Es asks as she comes back over to me. ‘I might do the same. It’s freezing, I can’t feel my toes.’
‘Me neither,’ I say absentmindedly, as we walk towards the exit. With each step, I’m telling myself, I’m just going to go home. Have some dinner. Go to bed. That’s the safe, controlled thing to do. Oscar is wrong about me, I’m perfectly capable of keeping myself safe, the way I always have.
But also . . . Olivia is only a few minutes’ drive from here. In Soho. Which is a little close to Coventry Street for comfort—and feels like a warning right now—but also I can’t punish myself for everything forever.
My stomach churns. Would it be completely crazy to go and get a look at her, up close?
I mean, maybe the guy in the little hat is her boyfriend and it’ll put my mind at ease—then I can stop obsessing.
So I turn to Es and say, ‘How do you feel about going to a poetry open mic? There’s this great one in Soho I’ve heard about. We could just go for a little while.’
‘Eh, I don’t know hon, sounds like a trek, and I’m so tired. Got to get up early to catch a train to Liverpool tomorrow.’
I nod, and we head out into the icy air surrounded by the sounds of Christmas carols and laughter. Maybe Es is doing me a favour? A reconnaissance mission doesn’t sound very hard-to-get or Aubs 2.0 . . . maybe it’s better I don’t.
But the moment we step outside, snow flurries start to fall. It’s not real snow, of course, it’s the fake snow they pump out every hour on the hour at Christmas time, which means it’s nine pm now. The snowflakes are all lit up by the lights outside and it feels magical, like a sign.
A sign not to give up.
And I can’t very well turn up alone. Everyone looks at a woman alone. Aside from which, Olivia has probably seen Jonathan’s Instagram page—I’m on it.
I bring the images in question to my mind’s eye: I’m wearing huge sunglasses in one photo and you can barely see my face through my hair in the other. But still, I’ll need to be careful.
So now I do something I’m not proud of. I turn to Es and look her deep in the eyes. I feel my pupils flare and my insides warm up, and in a calm and soothing voice I say: ‘You’ve changed your mind, you want to go and see some poetry at an open mic night in Soho.’
I hold my breath. Watching her.
Please let this work.
I watch and wait . . . and then her eyes glaze over and she nods slowly. I blink and look away.
‘Hey,’ she says from beside me and I look over to meet her gaze. ‘I’ve changed my mind, let’s go to Soho. I feel like watching some poetry, it’ll be fun’
I shrug and say, ‘Sure.’