Page 83 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

‘See you again soon?’ Lowe asks.

‘Definitely.’

I nod, even though I’m scared he just wants me as his normal friend from his normal life, proof that he was liked before he got famous, and I’ll have to make friends with his wife and go to Winter Wonderland with them and watch him have babies and become their crazy fun Fairy Odd Mother. KILL ME NOW.

But also don’t kill me; let me live here, eternally next to him. Where I can talk to his tongue. Open his jaws. Clamber into his mouth.

And then he says, ‘Oh, hey, by the way, Ella, I read your book, your poems and … ’ He lets the words hang … AND? … ‘You should be proud of yourself too.’

The word lands like a match, strikes my heart. I do a face as if to say hardly.

‘You read books?’

‘Only yours.’

I download the sober app once again and hit Day Zero. The clock starts ticking and would you believe that from that moment on, for the next month, I am feeling so fucking good. It’s like I’ve been rebooted. I’m inspired. I don’t wear my rings when I write – I need to write hard and fast – so I can almost forget the opal ring and its diva requirements, its power and conditions. It sits in its soap dish with the others. Days turn into nights, the back and forths pick up with Lowe, like nothing ever changed, like no time or distance has passed between us. We never talk about meeting up, which is good – just song recommendations, screen grabs of my sober milestones, stupid memes. Innocent, light and friendly – maybe we can just be pen pals? I find myself laughing out loud at his messages. My heart soars every time I see his name appear on my phone. Jackson is at work more than he is home. Taking calls from Zahra and the team at weekends, past 10 p.m., before 9 a.m. – where I’d usually nag, I don’t.

Once, Zahra is on loudspeaker and I hear her call Jackson ‘Jackie’. He goes quiet when he’s stressed, insular. Burning off the racing thoughts and congestion at football, tennis, cricket and all those 10ks. When he’s distracted with work, he’s distant with me; he pulls away. Usually, I’m the one to pull us back, carve out the space to bring us together: a new TV series, dinner, a night away. But this time, I don’t. He notices the changes. You’re on Cloud Nine, he says. He thinks it’s the engagement that’s making my mood lift, not that I’m high off the dopamine of getting a text back from my favourite human.

And I’m working. Doing it, editing and fixing. I help Jackson finalize the story for his big KTPLT Christmas advert, a simple one about giving the gift of love, with hidden messaging about sustainability (got to hide those greens of goodness in the creamy mashed potato). The main character is an adorable animated carboard box with a bow of string for hair. It’s very cute. I enjoy working creatively together with Jackson in this way, our brains tessellating.

But if anybody asks, I’m writing my book. And I don’t care how ambitious or ridiculous or audacious it sounds because once again my world has been set on fire.

By November, I, finally, hover my finger over the button and press send to my agent, cross my fingers and hope for the best.

My agent replies, so fast it’s like an Out Of Office auto-response: Is this a prank?

Chapter 33

Already smashed down by the terror of sending out my work, I feel vulnerable and tremulous, forgetting that absolutely nobody can read a giant novel and give you feedback in an hour. I meet Aoife in London Bridge to silence the voice of my inner critic and self-medicate with food. I am DETERMINED not to drink but meeting up with my best mate in a fancy place is a test. She’s clearly feeling herself: high-waisted leather pants and her clip-clop boots, swinging her TK Maxx handbag. Aoife’s recommended this pasta bar where they cook the pasta in front of you. They don’t take reservations, she says, but you can drink in the queue. Queue? For pasta? The queue is at least fifty people long and next to an alley that smells of vomit, piss and fish blood, but apparently it’s so worth it. I’m sorry but have you ever watched anyone make pasta pesto in front of you?

I manage to dodge the queue-drink by offering to go to the shop whilst Aoife holds our place. I return with the two bottles of Peroni she requested and tell her, ‘I’m just SO thirsty,’ whilst cracking open my sparkling water.

Aoife’s tipsy by the time we’re seated at what she calls ‘front row’ at the bar looking over the kitchen. She claps her hands excitedly, leaning over, naming ingredients very loudly to impress the chefs. Ah, that’s why she likes it here. ‘They’re tattooed, bearded and Italian’ – a chef wipes their forehead with a rag like a Diet Coke advert – ‘and stressed.’ Her eyes flicker at the untame, orange flames, snake-charmed.

She glances at the wine list, ripping at the (very good) bubbly bread, whilst perving over other people’s burrata. ‘Order whatever you want – I’ll expense it. Red? Or white? To start?’

‘I might eat something first.’ I buy myself time.

‘A carafe of the Rosso Toscana, please?’ she tries to pronounce in her South London accent to the waiter, who returns with two glasses. I let them fill my glass with delicious-looking red wine but don’t drink.

‘So, I’m having doubts,’ I begin, but it isn’t easy to talk; it’s crowded and loud. We’re sat in the middle of a chain of strangers and the plates come small, quick, and in no order, interrupted with top-ups of water and small talk with others, the staff. Aoife’s acting like we’re on holiday, here to make friends, twirling pappardelle, catching eyes.

‘About?’

‘Jackson.’ I wince.

‘It’s definitely the engagement; it’s freaked you out.’ She’s so sure she barely looks up. Wipes her bread around a ramekin of grass-green oil, sprinkles on crystals of salt.

I nod; already this is bringing me great comfort. I prefer this diagnosis to having to leave him, which is much more effort.

‘You two were happy before this. We always thought you saw things long term with Jackson. We told him it was a good idea,’ she confesses.

‘It’s not your fault.’

‘And the way you ran for that bouquet at Mia’s, I mean—’ She chuckles to herself in that way that makes you sometimes want to punch your mates.

‘I can’t pin my future on catching some flowers.’

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