Page 83 of The Book Swap

His eyes are clouded, his red lips twitching at the corners.

“We were infinite,” he says, his eyes looking nowhere but at me.

Swallowing, I nod. “We always will be, whatever happens.” I scan his face for a hint of how he might be feeling. I need him to know I’ve changed. “Your dad, is he...?”

“He’s okay.”

Just being in front of him, my whole body is vibrating with energy. All I want is to reach out and touch him. To know how it feels to finally hold his hand.

Someone on stage picks up a guitar, playing the beginning of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and James’s face breaks into a small smile.

“I can’t believe you got up there and did that.”

“Neither can I,” I say, swallowing. “I read your letter. I’m so sorry for how I behaved. Some might call it...self-centered.” I screw my face up, and he raises his eyebrows.

His eyes move to my lips and back. I don’t understand how I turned him into someone so different in my head. All for one mistake. What would Bonnie think, if she could see me now? Here. Would she think I was mad for forgiving him, or mad for holding on to it all for so long?

I look away, catching sight of Cassie at the table, a man dressed as a Buddha having taken my seat opposite her. They’re both trying to pretend that they’re not watching us.

“You’ll be pleased to know I’ve been making a lot of apologies recently. My mum. You. Bonnie’s parents...”

“Why them?” he asks, his eyebrows knitting together.

“For not being there for Bonnie.”

“You don’t need to apologize for that—she understood.”

His pale blue eyes are fixed on my face, staring down at me as I process what he’s saying. I watch as his expression changes. As he shifts from empathy to panic.

Bonnie’s dad finishes announcing the final act of the talent contest and out of the corner of my eye I see Cassie approach before retreating backward, followed by the Buddha. Behind her is the wall plastered in photos of Bonnie. I shake my head.

“What do you mean?”

“I was with her.” He locks eyes, making sure I hear. “Through the chemo. I took her to nearly every session, and no, she was not happy about it at first, okay? She hated me. She made sure she punished me for the entire journey but she had no choice. Her parents couldn’t do all the trips. She needed the help.”

I’m trying to listen. Trying not to respond until I hear everything he has to say, but it’s not making sense.

“She’d have told me.”

“She couldn’t. The forgiveness thing,” he says, lifting his arm up toward me. I flinch. I’m trying to piece everything together. James and Bonnie. Jealousy catches in my throat. The two of them, together, without me, when I should have been there.

“Bonnie forgave you, Erin. She understood why you weren’t there. Was grateful, actually, that you wouldn’t see her like that. That you’d remember her the way she was before the cancer.” He lets out a laugh. “She used to say that to me. That I would always hold the worst memory of her, and you the best. That between the two of us, we held all of her. We made her whole.”

Bonnie never mentioned him. Not once. Not in the voice notes or in our last drink together. I can’t help but feel like she’s tricked me somehow. Like they both have. Hanging out in secret. Making a pact not to tell me. Everything starts swirling in my stomach. The drinks. The nerves at getting up on stage. The image I can’t get out of my head, of James and Bonnie as a duo. We were never a duo. If I’d known we could be, maybe I’d have done something about how I felt about James at school. I just presumed I couldn’t. That it was the three of us or nothing. Bile shoots into my mouth and I start running toward the toilet, holding my hand over my lips. I burst into the cubicle, and past the group of bunnies reapplying their whiskers in the mirror. I throw up into the toilet as in my pocket, my phone starts vibrating.

Dabbing my mouth with toilet roll I pull out my phone. It’s Georgia.

“The baby’s coming,” she says, the moment I pick up.

32

JAMES

She’s gone. I wasn’t concentrating on what I was saying. I was so distracted by her reading that I said the first thing that came to my mind when she mentioned Bonnie. I was always going to tell her tonight. I’d planned it so much better than that and now I’m walking toward Joel, having just seen her run out of the door and away from me.

The way I’d planned it, I hoped it would have reset everything between us. It would have finished what was started outside the hospital. Instead, I blindsided her. I made it sound like some sort of secret we were keeping at her expense.

“Everything okay?” Joel asks, pulling up his giant Buddha pants.

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