Page 63 of Best Mistake Ever
Her passion and positivity inspired something in me, which now seems to be sadly lacking again.
I’ve lost my purpose, I guess.
I want it back.
And I want the excitement and momentum we got going for the project to return. But I can’t figure out a way to do that without her.
It’s funny, but it’s made me realise I was crazy to imagine things would ever have worked out here with Tessa. She was never going to be happy living and working at Gladbrooke, so far out of London and away from the celebrity scene she’s become so attached to.
And strangely, I find now that I really don’t care that she left. It was for the best.
One good thing about meeting Bea is that it’s made me recognise how little I actually liked spending time with Tessa when I was sober. It was all about the partying with her.
And thinking about her now, I realise I’m feeling… nothing.
She was never the right woman for me. I just imagined she fitted the rock-star persona I thought I wanted.
Whereas whenever I think about Bea, I get a weird heavy ache in my chest. Like part of me is missing.
I should probably just hand the place back to my dad for him to sell right away. I don’t want to run the place on my own.
And more to the point, I don’t want to do it without Bea.
17
BEATRICE
It’s been a painful, lonely week, with no contact from Jonah and still no sign of Dee and Jem. From the messages she’s been sending me, it sounds like the storm’s wreaked havoc in that part of Europe and a lot of people have been trapped and grounded whilst waiting for it to blow over and for safe travel to resume again.
I pretended to her that I’d gone through with the ‘twisting my ankle’ plan so she didn’t have to worry about that while she was clearly really stressed about the situation on the island. I feel bad about not telling her right away about being fired, but I figured there wasn’t anything she could do about it and the last thing she needed was more bad news. Jonah clearly hasn’t been directly in touch with her either, so at least that’s a blessing.
I can’t imagine what state they’ll all be in when they finally make it home though.
It sounds like it’s been a real ordeal.
Just as I’m thinking this, there’s the sound of the door opening to the flat and I hear voices as Dee and Jem come inside and head towards the kitchen.
I feel a surge of relief that they’re back. At least I’ll have some friendly faces around me now after carrying around the memory of the hard look on Jonah’s face just before he walked out on me.
But when I hurry out of the office and find them having what appears to be a whispered conversation in the kitchen, neither of them has particularly happy expressions on their faces.
Uh oh.
‘Hey, you’re back,’ I say stupidly.
Dee comes straight over to hug me and I sink into her arms, feeling a sudden overwhelming need to cry. But I hold it back, steeling myself against it. I don’t want the first thing they have to do, after stepping in through the door, is mollify me.
‘So, you finally escaped from the storm,’ I say into her hair.
‘Only just,’ she replies, but there’s a heaviness to her voice that shoots worry through me.
‘Is everything okay?’ I ask, pulling back to look her in the face.
There’s a moment where I think I see a flash of sadness in her eyes, but she quickly covers it with a smile. ‘All good. Just glad to be home safe. The journey back was mostly smooth,’ she says. Again, there’s a hint of darkness in her voice and I wonder for a wild second whether there’s some subtext there meant for Jem to hear.
‘So, are you two still speaking to each other?’ I joke, wanting to test out this theory.
There’s a slightly awkward pause before they both say, ‘Yes.’
