Chapter Thirty-Six
The next week passed in a miserable blur.
I slept for what felt like days on end, the kind of motionless, dead-weight sleep of the truly exhausted.
Whenever I woke, bleary-eyed and disoriented, I’d find someone in my flat with me: normally, Mrs. Atallah or Bianca, but sometimes Bianca’s mum or aunties, and on one occasion, even Dana and Enzo from work.
They’d tell me to shower and insist I eat something, which I’d do to get them off my back, and then they’d suggest we go for a walk or watch TV or, in Enzo’s case, do a séance to try to conjure up the ghost of Jane Austen for help.
These offers I’d always refuse, and instead I’d retreat to my bedroom, where I’d pull on Nick’s sweatshirt and get back into bed, clutching the copy of Pride and Prejudice I stole from Baskerville Books, and desperately try to read Nick and Maggie back.
At some point, maybe nine or ten days after I’d returned from the novel, I woke up to find Bianca and Mrs. Atallah standing at the end of my bed.
“What is it?” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes. “B, why are you giving me your ‘I’m a kick-ass barrister, so you’d better confess your crime’ look?”
“She’s not giving you that one,” Mrs. Atallah said. “She’s giving you her ‘enough of this sad-girl shit, it’s time to get out of bed’ look.”
“Ugh, I hate that one,” I said, rolling over and pressing my face into the pillow.
“Come on, Zo,” Bianca said, sitting down on the end of my mattress. “We’ve been here before, remember? I know how grieving-you works, and at some point you need a gentle nudge to start living again.”
“But this is different,” I moaned into the pillow. “This isn’t just grieving-me, this is being-eaten-alive-by-guilt-me as well.” I turned back over to look at her. “I left Nick and Maggie behind. They relied on me to save them, and I abandoned them there. I basically murdered them.”
“Technically speaking, it would be manslaughter, not murder.”
“Thanks, you’ve got the job as my lawyer when I stand trial.”
Bianca gave a half smile, then poked me in the face.
“But you’re not going to stand trial, dumbo, because you didn’t kill anyone.
Pride and Prejudice still exists, which means the story didn’t fall apart.
In fact, Nick and Maggie are probably living their best Regency lives in it right now, which is why you need to start living your life out here too. ”
I glanced at the book on the bedside table.
Bianca was right about one thing: I’d lived in terror that the story was going to disappear before my eyes, but my stolen copy of Pride and Prejudice—and the ones I’d obsessively checked on the Waterstones website every day—still existed.
Which meant that whatever weirdness my being in the book had caused, it seemed that the plot had righted itself once I left.
“I should have tried harder to get them out,” I said weakly. “I should have written a more realistic description of the shop or had a stronger image of Nick and Maggie in my mind. If only I’d—”
“You did everything you could,” Bianca interrupted. “You’re not an expert in this book magic, so it’s frankly remarkable you managed to get yourself out in one piece. Speaking of which…” She trailed off.
“What is it? You’ve got that face again.”
“You’re not going to want to hear this, but Mrs. Atallah and I have been talking and—”
“If this is about Bilal, then the answer is no.”
“What’s wrong with my Bilal?” Mrs. Atallah said from the corner of the room, where she’d sat down with a book. “He’s a very eligible young man, earns a good wage, drives a—”
“This isn’t about Bilal,” Bianca said. “We’re worried that you might accidentally read yourself back into the story.
You barely know what you’re doing, and given how miserable you are, I’m genuinely terrified that you might lose concentration or make a silly mistake and get yourself stuck in the book again. ”
“You’re not suggesting I stop trying, are you?
” I said sharply. “Because there’s no way I’m giving up.
Maggie has spent eight years trapped in that book; she deserves to come back to the bookshop and the life she loves.
And Nick…” My voice cracked saying his name, and I swallowed.
“Nick didn’t abandon me when I read myself into Pride and Prejudice, and I’m not going to abandon him either. ”
“But what if you can’t read them out?” Bianca said, voicing the words that the Fear had repeated to me time and again since I arrived back here. “They’re real people, not fictional characters, so maybe this book magic you have won’t work on them?”
“But I’m a real person and I got myself out, so I should be able to get them out too.”
“But what if—”
“No, I don’t want to hear it!” I shouted.
“Nick told me that the book magic only works when someone has a problem they really need help with. Well, I have a pretty huge problem I need help with. I’ve met this perfect man: someone who is sexy and funny and thoughtful, someone who sees me exactly as I am, flaws and all, and fought for me even when it seemed impossible.
And now this man, who I realize I’m in deep fucking love with, is trapped in a book, and any chance I had of a future with him is gone.
So if I ever want to be happy again, I need Nick—not stuck in a book, but out here with me.
And I just have to focus on that when I’m reading, and sooner or later, the magic will work. ”
“Habibti, there’s a difference between loving someone and needing them,” Mrs. Atallah said, looking up from her book.
“I loved Charbel with every fiber in my body; for forty years he was my companion, my soulmate, my lover. But that doesn’t mean I needed him like I needed air to breathe or food and water to stay alive.
What you feel for Nick is intense, maybe once-in-a-lifetime love, and I know you want him here very much, but you don’t need him to be happy or complete.
The heart is a powerful muscle, and as long as you give it oxygen, food, and water, it will continue to beat, even when it’s broken. ”
She stared at me for a moment longer, her gaze piercing; then she shrugged and returned her attention to the book. I glanced back at Bianca, who was looking slightly shell-shocked after Mrs. Atallah’s speech.
“I won’t stop trying to get them out, B.
Even if my book magic never works again, I can’t give up trying,” I said, and I saw B’s face fall.
She opened her mouth to reply, but I continued.
“You’re right about one thing, though: I can’t hide in here forever.
I made Maggie a promise that I’d get out there and live my life, and I owe her that at least.”
“Thank you,” Bianca said, and I saw her blinking away tears as she smiled at me.
I climbed out of bed and crossed to the window, squinting as I pulled up the blind and sunlight streamed into the room.
B came to stand next to me. “I reckon this might be our last warm weekend of the year. How do you fancy a swim in the Ponds this afternoon?”
I nodded, even though the thought of being parted from Pride and Prejudice terrified me. “Sure, that would be nice. Mrs. Atallah, do you want to join us?”
The older women didn’t answer, and when I looked over my shoulder, I saw she was engrossed in the book again.
“What are you reading?”
She held up the cover, and I saw it was Fourth Wing. “I found this on your shelf the other day. It’s very good, very steamy. In fact, why don’t you read this Xaden character out for me?”
“Bloody hell!” Bianca said, planting her face in her hands. “The last thing we need is Zoe getting stuck in Navarre! You know what she’s like; she’d be killed by dragons within five seconds.”
“Shame,” Mrs. Atallah sighed. “Charbel was a wonderful man, God rest his soul, but I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on this Mr. Riorson for an hour or two. The thing he does to Violet in chapter thirty, when he—”
“Mrs. Atallah, stop!” Bianca screeched.
My landlady threw her head back and guffawed, and it was such a wonderful sound that, despite everything, I started laughing too. Soon, all three of us were cackling, tears streaming down our faces. And by God, it felt good.
* * *
And so my life slowly returned to normal—or at least, as normal as it could when I was still mourning the love of my life being trapped inside a fictional story.
Once my wrist had healed, I went back to work at Cake Expectations, where I listened to Enzo’s stories and served Gulliver’s Trifle and the Taming of the Stew to customers.
In the evenings, I came home and tried to read Nick and Maggie out, always focusing on how much I needed them, and although with every day that passed my confidence faded a little more, I never gave up.
I’d started cooking myself proper dinners, and then I’d write in my diary before heading to bed with a romance novel.
I met Bianca for our weekly drinks, and at the beginning of December, I wore a gold dress and stood beside her as she married Steve in the most joyful, perfect wedding I’d ever been to.
I had my usual invitation to spend Christmas with B’s family, but this year, I turned the offer down to spend the day with Mrs. Atallah.
She complained loudly about having to interrupt her scheduled reality TV marathon to host me, but when I turned up on Christmas Day morning, her entire flat was decorated in tinsel and she was already sloshed on sherry.
We ate the extraordinary meal she cooked and watched The King’s Speech, after which Mrs. Atallah had a little cry about Charbel and Mr. Darcy, and I had a little cry about my mum and Nick.
Then we cracked open the Baileys and consumed an entire tub of Cadbury’s Celebrations while watching a rerun of RuPaul’s Drag Race Holi-slay Spectacular.
On Boxing Day, Mrs. Atallah went to spend a week with her brother and sister-in-law in Birmingham, Bianca and Steve headed off on their honeymoon to the Maldives, and I was left alone.
Cake Expectations always closed for the Christmas period, so I had nothing to do with my days except sit at home reading.
This was usually heaven for me, and I always saved a selection of my most anticipated novels to devour over the week.
But this year, something felt different.
Initially, I put my antsy-ness down to the whole boyfriend-in-a-book situation, but as time went on, I realized that wasn’t entirely it.
Something else was making me restless—something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
On New Year’s Eve, I arranged to meet some of Mum’s friends for a walk on Hampstead Heath.
Mum had always loved it there and taken me most weekends as a kid, but I’d avoided it since she died, the place too full of memories.
But the walk was wonderful, the Heath gorgeous in the frosty winter light, and afterward we had lunch at the Bull & Last pub, laughing and crying as we shared stories about Mum.
At the end, we all hugged goodbye, promising to make this an annual tradition, and then I went home to read The Love of My Afterlife, curled up on the sofa.
I finished the last page just before midnight, my face red and puffy from crying happy tears.
As I put the book down, my eyes flicked toward the laptop on my desk, as they had done many times that week.
So far, I’d always ignored the pull, distracting myself with another book or a trip to the fridge to eat some of the delicious leftovers Mrs. Atallah had insisted on giving me before she left.
But that night, I picked up my diary and crossed to the desk.
I’d bought this laptop for myself when I was accepted into the novel-writing course seven years ago.
It was on this keyboard that I’d written my many attempts at a novel, spending hours hunched over the screen, tapping away in a fever dream.
Then Crispin had slowly worn my confidence down and I’d opened the laptop less and less frequently, and these days I only used it for random Google searches or watching films in bed.
Now I ran my fingers over the keys. As I did, my mind swung back to that afternoon at Netherfield Park.
I usually tried to stop myself thinking about my time in Pride and Prejudice, the memories still too raw and painful.
But that evening, I allowed myself to remember the afternoon when I’d lost myself in writing again, that extraordinary feeling of elation I’d experienced, and the promise I’d made Nick’s mum.
From outside the window, I could hear drunken revelers at the pub up the road, preparing to ring in the new year.
At my feet, Mr. Wickham twitched, chasing an unlucky female cat in his dreams. Other than that, the flat was quiet.
I glanced across at my bookcase, overflowing with romance novels: funny, powerful, heartbreaking books that celebrated love and friendship, healthy relationships and amazing sex, and above all else, the utter, indomitable, bloody marvelous strength of the human spirit.
And then, as the crowd at the pub started their countdown to midnight, I opened up a new Word document and typed two of the most exciting, terrifying, promising words in the English language.
Chapter One.