Page 15 of I Know How This Ends

Henry and I walk together across Bristol.

With his jacket slung over one arm, we amble through Clifton Village, past turquoise-painted boutique shops and pink cafés

lit from within and crowded with colors like Christmas. We cross pebbled pavements next to Georgian buildings with ornate

balconies, and through little squares with gardens filled with trees .

And we talk about nothing in particular: films we like, music, art.

It’s not a “date,” so it doesn’t feel like an interview. There is no secret checklist where we attempt to slip in key questions

without the other person noticing. Because it’s not just me. Over the last four months, I have noticed my dates doing it too.

Running through criteria they may not have written down in a notepad but which exist all the same.

Do you work out? Translation: will you remain in this exact physical condition for the foreseeable future?

Do you do yoga? How wild are you in bed?

Are you friends with your exes? Will you be a nightmare if we split up and/or are there lurking exes I should be worried about?

Are you a free spirit? Do you like casual sex, and would you like to do that straight after we finish the tiramisu?

Do you want children and if so, how soon?

Are you trying to force a connection as fast as physically possible so you can procreate at nearly forty years old, because—if

not—I definitely am?

My answers (no, no, no, no, no) are met with disappointment.

And instead of recognizing how completely mad it is, meeting a total stranger based on a few photos and immediately trying to work out if you’re going to be with them for

the rest of your life, it becomes normalized. Swiping through a selection of humans—left, left, left, left, right—like we’re

filling an online supermarket cart. Adding items, in the desperate hope of finding something worth buying. Love has changed

to a point where we now expect to take a human we’ve never met before and make them the most important person in our life,

starting from that precise moment. You’ll do. Let’s go.

No wonder we’re all so full of criteria, questions, checklists.

We’re interviewing someone for the job of loving us forever: a career of live-in affection and support, ending with us dying

in each other’s arms. As if love is just another thing we can check off. Job—tick. Hobbies—tick. Friends—tick.

Lifelong soulmate—tick tick tick, done .

And I find myself telling Henry this—monologuing at him—as we wander down Constitution Hill. This outpouring of honesty is

an entirely new experience, in dating terms. It’s so easy to be honest without being honest: you just have to pick the data

you share, even if it’s only a slice of the picture.

Henry listens, nods, then drops this bombshell:

“I’ve never actually online dated before, probably for that reason. It all seems a little... clinical.” A slight pause,

then: “Also, I should probably tell you I haven’t been on a first date in twenty years. Present company excluded.”

I stop walking halfway across Brandon Hill, where we’ve taken a bit of a detour, neither of us admitting that we’re intentionally

making the walk longer.

“I was your first date in twenty years ?”

Is this a Red Flag? Is he just saying it to try and make me feel “special”?

“Um. Yes.” Henry looks directly into my eyes and smiles slightly. He’s telling the truth, I can see it in his face. “What

a re-entry into the dating pool, huh.”

“I’m even more sorry, in that case.”

“It’s not a problem.” He grins sheepishly. “I didn’t really know what I was doing, to be honest. Probably shouldn’t have analyzed you quite as intensely as I did, straight off the bat. That was... weird of me. Should have kept my observations to myself. Lesson very much learned.”

I sit down on one of the benches next to Cabot Tower as Bristol glows.

“I actually liked that bit,” I admit as Henry sits down next to me. “I do it too. Why has it been twenty years?”

“I lost my wife, Amy.” Henry stares at the lights too and I turn to look at his profile: the shape of his nose, curved like

a hawk. “Five years ago.”

For just a second, I hear it literally: he lost her, she’s been put in the wrong place and now he’s looking for her everywhere, like mislaid car keys.

“You—” The meaning hits. “Oh my God.”

“Not ideal,” he says faux lightly. “Cancer. But it was a long time ago now. I’ve just been focused on...” He pauses. Frowns.

“Getting through that, I guess. It’s been a bit of a slog, but I think I’m out the other side now. Finally.”

My heart hurts; I reach out and put my hand briefly on his.

Then I stare at my hand in shock: I feel something again. The same thing I felt when our hands touched the first time. An

almost audible sizzle, like something dropped in a smoking-hot frying pan.

“I’m so sorry, Henry. Really.” I should have remembered that hearts can be broken in so many ways—some far, far worse than

mine—and that a lot of us are just walking around still in pieces, pretending to be whole. I’m trying to decide how far to

probe, how many questions he wants me to ask—whether it’s invasive, whether it’s rude—when Henry suddenly shivers, reaches

for his tweed jacket, pulls it on.

I stare at it for a few seconds as ice spears through me.

“Sorry.” Henry laughs and holds out his elbow. “I know. Absolutely ridiculous, isn’t it? Not an appropriate jacket for a man

in his forties, I’m fully aware.”

But I’m staring at the patch: a pink star, tacked on with yellow thread.

Fuck.

“Were you wearing this the other night?” I say quickly, suddenly struggling to breathe. “On our date? Or... in the restaurant?

You wear it all the time, right?”

He had to have been, right? Or it was hanging up on the coat rack, star facing out, and I’ve been hanging my navy jacket next to

it for weeks without properly registering it. That’s what it is. That’s what it has to be.

“Nope.” Henry frowns and looks at the star again. “It’s been in the dry-cleaner’s for ages because I didn’t have time to pick

it up. Just got it back this morning.”

My cheeks are starting to burn. It’s too specific. Too unimaginable. He has to be wrong. There has to be a scientific explanation.

“What kind of car do you have?” I say abruptly. “What color seats?”

Henry looks at me with understandable alarm and I don’t care: just please don’t say something small, please don’t say red,

please don’t say—

“A Mini Cooper,” Henry says slowly. “With red seats.”

I bend over and put my hands over my face, moaning faintly. This can’t be happening. I’m a scientist , I study the world for things that are real, tangible, demonstrable; I don’t deal in the magic, airy-fairy world of made-up shit .

“What kind of screwdriver do you have.” It’s not even a question now. “What is stuck on it. Specifically.”

There’s a silence and I can feel Henry staring at my back.

“It has a unicorn on it.” His voice is flat. “What the hell is going on, Margot? Are you assessing me for eligibility again?

My jacket isn’t cool enough? My car isn’t big enough? My tools aren’t manly enough?”

“That’s not what I...” My voice sounds strangled. “It’s not—”

“Then what is it?” Henry’s voice is quiet, but I can hear disappointment rising into frustration. “Why could you possibly want to know what kind of car I drive, out of nowhere like that? What relevance does it have, other than as a way to judge me?”

I try to speak—to tell him—but I can’t.

“You know what?” Henry snaps, now fully angry. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. You were right. This isn’t going to work.”

Henry leans forward slightly to stand up, and as he does, I see three moles, like stars, right on his lower back, and I can’t

move, can’t move, can’t—

I ’ m back in my lilac room, but it’s different now.

Every wall has been painted purple, and in the middle is a large double bed, covered with a floral lilac duvet cover. A pile

of purple cushions are stacked against a fluffy white headboard shaped like a cloud, and propped in the middle is a toy panda:

one that presumably used to be black and white, but is now bedraggled and slightly gray, with one plastic eye missing. Purple

cushions line the completed window seat, and a mobile of stars hangs from the ceiling, also now painted lilac. A swinging

hammock is dangling in the corner, and shelves are covered in small keepsakes of no monetary value: pebbles, shells, dried

flowers. There’s a small floral rug on the floor, and one of the cupboard doors is slightly ajar. Through it, I can see small

clothes.

Hanging over the bed is a strip of purple bunting that spells W I N T E R.

It’s a child’s room.

“Meg!” Henry says in excitement from outside the door. “She’s here! I can see her coming down the path!”

My stomach spins; I put a hand to my face and my cheek is hot.

“OK,” I hear myself say faintly. “Coming!”

Cautiously—still experiencing an eerie sense of déjà vu—I open the door into my living room.

This is different now too. My brown leather sofa is still there, but it’s covered in blue throws and green cushions.

My kitchen is now pale yellow. There are paintings on my walls I don’t recognize: a large abstract of bright blues and turquoise with flecks of silver hanging behind the sofa; an antique portrait of a woman I don’t know in a gold frame; small black-and-white photos of me and Henry, together.

Pot plants fill the room with foliage, and there’s a bookcase—I stare at it—full of books I haven’t read or bought.

A large bouquet of yellow flowers sits in a vase on the coffee table, and when I turn, the kitchen is full: spices on the racks, pans hanging from the ceiling.

The fridge has bright paintings stuck to the front of it—a child’s paintings—and there’s something that smells of aubergines in the oven.

My sensible, chic neutral shades have gone, covered by an explosion of color.