Page 41 of Isla and the Happily Ever After (Anna and the French Kiss 3)

She sort of laughs. “Apparently, I’m domineering.”

“I’m replaceable.”

Gen lifts her head, hackles raised. “He said that?”

“No, but it’s true. He fell for me because I was there. I could’ve been anyone.”

“Don’t say that. Why do you say things like that?”

“Because that’s what happened.”

She stares at me in disbelief. “You’ve always been so hard on yourself.”

I stare at my hands. I am hard on myself. But isn’t it better to be honest about these things before someone else can use them against you? Before someone else can break your heart? Isn’t it better to break it yourself? I thought honesty made people strong.

“Hey.” Gen nudges me. “Show me what’s in the tube.” My head shoots up, and she shrugs. “I saw him drop it off yesterday.”

I can’t stop myself. “How’d he look?”

“Like you’d torn out his heart and stomped on it with your tallest stilettos.”

I’m a bad person. I’ve hurt him. I never wanted to hurt him, and somehow it happened anyway.

“Do you really think breaking up with him was the right thing to do?” Gen asks.

“I don’t know.” But I shake my head. “That’s not true. It was right. It was.”

“But you still love him.”

I swallow. “Yeah.”

“A lot.”

“Yeah.”

She pauses. “Would it make it better or worse if you showed me what’s in the tube?”

“Ohmygod. You’re relentless.”

“The word was ‘domineering’. Get it right.”

“Ugh. Fine.”

Gen opens my sock drawer. “I had a feeling I’d find you here,” she tells the tube. She pops off the top and gently taps out the paper. She unrolls it. “Whoa, Nelly.”

Shit. I’d forgotten he drew us naked.

“So. You guys were serious.”

“Please, Gen. Don’t.”

“Is that a Joshua tree? On an island?”

“Yeah.”

“Well…fuck. That’s a really romantic gift.”

“I know.”

“He’s good. The art,” she clarifies. “I mean, he was good when he was a freshman, but this doesn’t look like it was drawn by someone in high school. Not even a talented someone in high school. This is, like, the real deal.”

“Will you please stop complimenting my ex-boyfriend?”

Ex-boyfriend. The word tastes sick on my tongue. I hadn’t even let myself think it until now. Every single part of me wants to take the word back.

“I’m just saying he’s talented.”

“Why don’t you tell me more about Sarah?”

Gen rolls up the drawing and slides it back into the tube. “You win.”

But she’s wrong. I’ve lost everything.

One miserable week and no phone calls later. No messages. New Year’s Eve. There’s shouting and singing and general drunken revellery down on the street. Our neighbours have been blasting dubstep for the last three hours. I’ve been watching television in my bedroom alone. Just like Josh and I talked about on our first date.

Ten minutes until midnight.

Josh and I were planning to meet at Kismet. We were going to ring in the new year with a kiss. I’ve never had a New Year’s kiss.

Nothing about this decision has gotten any easier. That awful word torments me. Ex-boyfriend. I can’t accept it as the truth. I don’t think…I don’t…I don’t know why I’m doing this any more. I think I freaked out that night in the car. I know I freaked out. And I have a very deep, very ugly gut feeling that I’ve made a mistake.

Josh told me that I’ll never know what kind of person I am if I don’t take any risks. Apologizing would be a risk, grovelling would be a risk, begging for his forgiveness on my knees would be a risk.

What have I done? I love him.

Of course he’s worth the risk.

Suddenly, I’m ripping off my pyjamas and throwing on a dress and coat and boots. I’m racing past my sleepy parents in the living room, and I’m shouting that I’ll be right back. I’m ignoring their cries of concern. I’m running downstairs, onto the pavement, across the street. The air is frosty and sharp, and the wind is strong.

Josh, I’m coming. I know you’re there. Please don’t leave.

I tear around the corner, and there it is. My beacon of hope. I race towards its glowing front window, dodging taxis and bumping into a guy being shouldered home by a friend. There’s a loud cry of anger, but I keep running until I burst through Kismet’s shining glass door. The café is still open. But it’s empty.

Two employees are sitting at a table. They look up at my entrance, surprised.

“Excuse me, but is there a guy here?” I’m panting, but I have to raise my voice over the loud rock music blasting from the speakers. “Was there a guy here? About my age?”

A woman with a chest covered in electric-bright tattoos shakes her head. “Sorry, honey. We’ve been dead for nearly two hours.”

In the distance, there’s an eruption of explosions and cheering. Cars honk, people shout from their windows.

It’s midnight.

I run back outside, frantically looking up and down the street, but he’s nowhere to be found. Two college-aged girls run past the café hollering at the top of their lungs.

No, he’s coming. He’ll feel me here, like he felt me the last time.

“Are you okay? You don’t look so well.” The tattooed woman is standing beside me, and her forehead is wrinkled in concern.

“My boyfrie— my Josh. Josh. He’s coming. He should be here any second.”

The other employee, a wiry guy whom I belatedly recognize as pierced Abe Lincoln, pops his head out the door. “You forgot my kiss, Maggie.”

“I forgot nothing,” she says.

“He’s coming,” I say again.

Maggie side-eyes me. “How old are you? Do your parents know you’re out?”

I shoot her a nettled glance. “I’m petite. Not a child.”

She shrugs. “O-kay. But I’m still gonna wait out here with you.”

“You don’t have to do that.” The cold wind howls, carrying with it the continued sounds of celebration. I hug my coat around myself tighter.

“Jesus.” Abe shivers. “At least wait inside.”

They coax me back into the café, and I sit at the table in the window. The one I sat at more than half a year ago. They turn up their music even louder. My ears hurt. I glance at my phone, watching the minutes tick past. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Josh hasn’t called me since Christmas Day. Before I can talk myself out of it, I call Brian’s number. It goes straight to the voicemail of a scary-sounding protective service agency. His employer. I leave a message explaining where I am, pleading for Josh to meet me, and then I run outside again as if that should be enough to make him appear.

; He’s not there.

I sit back down, wait until two minutes have passed, and then bolt outside again. I repeat this pattern for an hour. I call again. I leave another message. I look outside, but nothing has changed. Josh isn’t coming.

He’s not coming.

I crumple in the doorway, vaguely aware of Maggie and Abe rushing towards me. It’s the deathblow. It’s over.

Chapter twenty-eight

It’s been a month. Josh never called me back. This gaping, bloody, open wound – the wound that I created – still rubs me raw. I have to keep convincing myself that I was right in the first place, that I was right to break up with him, because it’s clear that he’s realized the truth of what I’ve always feared. That what he felt for me wasn’t love, after all, but convenience.

He’s moving on.

I wish that I could move on. I’m clinging with every last fibre of my being.

At night, I lie awake in bed, pretending that his body is pressed against mine. I close my eyes and imagine the weight of his arms draped across me. Holding me tight. In class, I daydream about placing a love lock on le Pont de l’Archevêché, a bridge near Notre-Dame. Couples write their initials on padlocks and snap them onto the gates as a public declaration of their love. I ache for this sort of unbreakable, permanent connection.

After New Year’s, my father and I took a train to Dartmouth. I didn’t want to go, because how can I possibly say yes to them, even if I am accepted? But Dad wanted me to see the school in person. He’s excited that I’ve applied somewhere unexpected.

Everything was covered in a thick layer of pristine white snow. Dad had scheduled an interview for me, and the encouraging woman behind the desk showed me pamphlets of the campus in the spring and autumn. It looked even more beautiful. She was impressed with my transcripts, and she assured me that a lot of students don’t know what they want to study when they arrive, and I left the interview feeling hopeful and buoyant and alive.