Page 52 of The Typo

I hit send and the email vanished into the ether with a whoosh. I hadn’t even taken the time to read it back, so desperate was I for my words to reach him. Would he do as I’d asked and read all the way to the end? I hoped he would, although how he would react to it was another issue altogether. Would he be angry? Or would he be disappointed? I decided that would be even worse than anger. And would he be able to forgive my deception? From everything he’d shared with me, he seemed to be a deeply principled man. How could he forgive me, when I couldn’t really forgive myself for how I’d behaved?

I gave myself a mental shake. There was no point in beating myself up about it any longer. I’d made the choices I’d made. The important thing now was that I didn’t let this become my new excuse for holding myself back, undoing everything that I’d strived to achieve over the last few weeks. Come what may, I was sure I would get a response from Cameron. He wouldn’t leave me hanging, would he? But whether it was the response I wanted was another matter entirely.

ChapterTwenty-Seven

Of course, I couldn’t leave it at that. I tried to push on with the rest of my work day as best I could, but even my lunchtime violin practice wasn’t enough to calm my thoughts, and I found myself putting the instrument down and hurrying back to the computer instead.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: 20 Feb, 14:02

Subject: Sorry

Hi Cameron,

There are all kinds of things going through my head right now. Did you get the email in which I confessed all? Maybe that’s the reason you haven’t messaged yet. Or maybe you’re not going to reply ever again. Has the internet gone down and that’s why I’ve not heard from you for ages? Or perhaps the real reason is that something happened to the expedition ship and I have no idea. After all, why should anyone think to tell me if you’ve become ill, been injured or worse? Maybe I’m jumping to the worst-case scenario there. If something had happened to an expedition ship in Antarctica, I’d probably have heard about it on the news.

Maybe the simple truth is that you’re angry at my deception. I don’t blame you. I’m angry at myself too. It wasn’t fair to either of us, and if it’s the reason you don’t want anything more to do with me, then I understand. I know I’m placing a lot of faith in one phone conversation and a dozen or so emails exchanged. But I want the opportunity for us to meet for real. Maybe there’ll be no spark in person, it’ll fizzle out and we’ll go our separate ways. Or maybe the opposite will happen. Either way, at least we’d have tried.

Still hoping to see you at Edinburgh Castle.

Love,

Amy x

I didn’t actually hit send on the second email. If Cameron hadn’t already been frightened off by my confession, this unfiltered angst would definitely do the trick. But the very act of writing it was therapeutic in a way, allowing me to continue with the pretence of chatting with him even while I feared I’d never hear from him again.

The poor refresh button on my keyboard took a battering as I kept pressing it in the hope that a reply would land from Cameron. But as the afternoon wore on, there was nothing, and my hopes started to fade. Excluding the postcard, which didn’t count because of when it had been sent, the last message I’d had from Cameron had been on Valentine’s Day. Had I been ghosted? Had he grown sick of me before I’d even confessed? It was probably what I deserved, but that didn’t make me feel any better about it.

For the next few days, I buried myself in work and other distractions in an attempt to forget about the deafening silence from Cameron. Well, I say that, but in reality, I still ended up refreshing my emails approximately every thirty seconds, despite my best intentions. I felt like I was living in limbo. Not only was the situation with Cameron unresolved, I was also on the sad countdown to Cass’s departure from the country. Whenever I thought about one source of unhappiness too much, I forced my mind onto the other, but as both were upsetting, I didn’t exactly have my most productive week. I went about on automatic pilot, my mind elsewhere as I envisaged the journey Cameron could be making towards my home city in a few days. I decided it was better to imagine him doing that rather than dwelling too much on the other likely scenario, that he’d changed his flights and was heading as far away from me as possible.

Several times, I started writing more emails to him, but out of self-preservation, I didn’t add his address so they languished in my drafts folder rather than following in the wake of my other missive. If he was deliberately ignoring me, sending a stream of further messages could only damage my cause. Besides, I needed to retain some dignity. I did cave and try ringing him a couple more times, but once again nothing happened. I googled how to find out if someone had blocked your phone number, but got so many contradictory answers that I concluded it was better for my state of mind to decide that he hadn’t taken such a drastic measure, even though I feared I was lying to myself.

The unsettling sense of uncertainty reminded me of the turbulent days after the fateful concert when I’d decided to give up the violin. I knew if I wasn’t careful, it would be all too easy to slip back into the self-preserving habits I’d established then, habits which had been intended to stop me from getting hurt, but which had ultimately imprisoned me. I was determined not to let it happen again.

With that in mind, I called another rehearsal of the Drowsy Maggies and booked us into the Cellar Bar for our first official gig later in spring. I spent a happy, yet tear-filled evening helping Cass and her family with the final bits of packing, and met Leonie for a pre-matinee brunch. I even managed to arrange a quick coffee catch-up with Meg and Jodie. In fact, I’d almost begun to believe my head’s dogged assertion that I’d recovered my equilibrium, when the email landed with a ping and sent my heart into a spin again.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: 25 Feb, 14:40

Subject: Re: Confession

Hi Amy,

We’ve had some signal blackout. A brief message to say I’ve now got your email. Actually, I’ve got a confession of my own to make. It’s difficult to know where to start. Can we still meet on March 1st? I’ll explain then.

C

I stared at the words on my phone screen until the letters started to look weird. A confession of his own? What exactly did Cameron mean by that? And how was it possible that a message less than fifty words long could make me feel so disconcerted?

‘Are you alright, Amy?’

Harry’s voice sounded like it was coming from a long way away. I looked up, suddenly conscious that I had been standing in the open doorway of my flat for quite some time.

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