Page 38 of I Know How This Ends

“So have you heard back?”

I shake my head: I sent the scrapbook to Charlie—plus the video on a memory stick—in a big box covered in little clouds and

lightning bolts and sunrays. It looked quite a lot like a school project done by a six-year-old (I suspect Winter would have

done a better job), but I vaguely hoped Charlie might think I was harnessing my inner child.

But that was days ago now, and I still haven’t heard anything.

Not that I’m surprised: my visions have strongly suggested that I’m going to be wearing an oversized hamster costume and serving

burgers. But I had to at least try , right?

“Nope.” I clear my throat. “It’s fine. I’ll sort something out.”

Henry gives me a piercing side glance and squeezes my arm. He’s been amazing—totally supportive, encouraging, one hundred

percent full of belief in me—but there isn’t a lot he can do. He’s got enough going on, trying to fix his own career.

“And have you told Polly?”

I wince. My future husband is alarmingly invested in the minutiae of my life, which is lovely but also kind of annoying. My future husband. A thrill runs through me: it feels so safe, so comforting, like a tiny break in a storm I’m carrying with me.

We wait for a van to pass, then we cross the road toward the pub.

“No,” I sigh. “Not yet. I’ve tried like six times, but she al ways has the kids with her when I see her, and this isn’t information I want them overhearing.”

“You’ll do it,” he says comfortingly. “When the time is right.”

We stand together outside the pub.

That’s the problem, isn’t it? The time. All those years stretching out in front me, and I don’t know what order it all goes

in.

“Yes.” I nod. “Are you ready?”

“No.” Henry laughs. “Is anyone ever ready for this?”

“Nope,” I grin, kissing his cheek. “Good luck. You’re going to need it.”

“ H enry! ” Eve leaps up from her seat with her arms out. “Finally!”

My best friend leaps over a pub stool and flings herself at poor Henry, wrapping herself around him while he blinks in surprise.

“Oh you’re lovely ,” Eve adds, tightening her grip. “I like you already.”

“Eve, I’m guessing.” Henry smiles. “Hello.”

“How did you know?” She retracts her arms and pats frantically at his jacket lapels with her hands. “Sorry, I think I’ve got

crisp crumbs all over you.”

Jules nods at him, lifting her eyebrows. “Hey.”

“And you must be Jules,” Henry says, his nostrils twitching slightly. I warned him that Jules would not be easy to win over,

and he was totally unfazed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. The column you wrote a few weeks ago was wonderful—you know, the

one about the statistical happiness of women who don’t marry or have children. It was so beautifully done. So fair and compassionate.

Eye-opening, in fact.”

I stare at him proudly: good homework, Henry. A*.

“Oh!” Jules wriggles slightly, struggling between her innate need to remain on guard and her love of creative validation.

“Thanks.”

“The comments section was horrifying,” Henry adds sincerely. “So many people furious at the life choices of total strangers.”

“ Right? ” Jules lights up. “You wouldn’t believe the quantity of hate mail I got. Pages and pages of it. Apparently, I’m an angry,

bitter lesbian, and that’s only sixty-six point six percent true, thank you very much.”

Henry laughs and Eve glances at me in triumph: he’s smashing it.

“Can I get you both a drink? Same again?” Henry glances at the table, notes what Eve and Jules are drinking—white wine, Guinness—then

looks at me with a small twinkle in his eye. “And you can have one too, I guess. Freeloader.”

“Go on then,” I smile as he briefly kisses me. “Gin and tonic. When are your friends turning up to interrogate me?”

“In about ten minutes.” Henry glances at his watch. “I gave us a little breathing room so that it wasn’t total chaos straight

away. And I apologize in advance. I met them at uni and they’re bloody idiots. Doctors, all but one of them.”

Eve beams at him, approving of literally every word out of his mouth, like a besotted child. I wonder briefly if any of Henry’s

friends are hot and single, and whether I can set them up with her. Though maybe I should leave that until after I’ve actually

found out whether I pass The Test myself.

“Well.” Henry puts his jacket down on the booth seat. “I shall go and order from the other side of the pub so you can discuss

your first impression of me in private.”

He leaves and Jules and Eve immediately turn to me.

“Oh my God,” Eve breathes. “I love him. Absolutely love him. ”

I nod: that kind of went without saying. Henry could be wielding a machete and Eve would still think he’s a truly sweet soul .

Biting my lip, I look anxiously at Jules. “And you?”

“I can’t make an accurate assessment after three bloody sen tences, can I?” She sees my tense expression and relents slightly. “But so far, yes. I approve.”

My entire body relaxes. “Oh, thank God. Yay! Can I have a crisp?”

I take a crisp before anyone answers because it was a rhetorical question and they’ve spent the last twenty years raiding

my fridge.

“So how long has it been?” Eve sits back and I look again at her wine with a wave of sadness. “A month? It seems to be moving

fast. Meeting the friends already? That’s a big step.”

I shrug slightly. “It doesn’t really feel it, weirdly.”

After all, I was with Aaron an entire decade and I think he sat down properly with my friends a total of four times. For every

single one of those he was dragged there with vague promises of “reward” afterward, like a dog with a biscuit. Henry actually

wanted to meet them, because if they’re important to me, they’re important to him too. I had no idea how much that would mean to

me until he said it.

“What do we know about these friends of his?” Jules glances curiously at the door. “You can tell a lot about someone from their friends.”

I smile. “Exactly, so be on your best behavior, OK?”

“Is there anything you want us to ask him?” Eve looks warmly over at the bar where Henry is patiently waiting as promised,

facing away so he can’t secretly lip-read. “You know, things you want to know about him but haven’t been able to ask yet?

Like has he ever cheated, does he have a bad temper, does he sniff his socks and turn his boxers inside out to avoid washing

them, that kind of thing?”

“No,” I laugh as Jules’s phone pings. “I’d rather find that out the normal way. You know, by slurring random questions at

him when I’m drunk.”

Jules makes a strange squeaking noise.

Eve and I both look at her in surprise—that was a very not-Jules noise—and she quickly puts her phone back in her pocket.

“Just work,” she says tersely. “Sorry, what were we talking about?”

Yeah, that’s not going to fly with us. I study her: her face has tensed up, her shoulders are tight. Something is very, very

wrong.

“Bullshit,” I say sharply. “What was it?”

“ Work. ” Her jaw clenches. “Like I said.”

“Oh, come on ,” Eve says, launching herself to the side and grabbing Jules’s phone out of her pocket. “I swear if it’s yet more hate mail,

I’m going to send them a reply myself, and I will rip them to—”

She looks at the lock screen and pauses. “Oh.”

Eve hands the phone back to Jules, then focuses intently on the nearly empty packet of crisps. “So Henry’s training to be

a doctor, right? That must be hard work, very impressive. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be at uni as a mature

student—”

I stare at Eve as she gabbles, then back at Jules. “Tell me.”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Fucking tell me .” My voice is rising. “You’re my best friends, tell me what it is .”

Wincing, Jules hands her phone over to me in silence. On the lock screen is a message from Lily:

Hey J! I’ve told the world! Thanks for all the support, babe. Love you. See you Friday! Xxx

Below it is an Instagram alert: @LilSunnyDayz has posted . I can only see the first few words:

I am beyond delighted to announce that

Teeth gritted, I hold the phone up to Jules. “Open it.”

“Margot...”

“Open. It.”

Jules breathes out and opens Instagram, holds it up to me.

I am beyond delighted to announce that Aaron and I are expecting our first baby! So the wedding will be on hold until next

year, but we are so so so excited about starting our beautiful family together! True love is everything. 3

Underneath are thousands and thousands of comments:

OMG! Congrats! You deserve the world!

Sooooo happy for you.

You’re GLOWING you ANGEL.

I look back at Jules, who is avoiding eye contact. I feel almost nothing about this new announcement, no jealousy, no pain,

no hurt. Aaron and Lily can do what they like, it’s none of my business—but what I absolutely do feel now is incandescent

fury .

“How long have you known.” My voice is flat, no question marks. “Jules, how long have you known.”

“A couple of weeks,” she says in a small voice.

Weeks , and she didn’t give me a heads-up: she just told me to stay away from Lily’s social media pages.

“And what did she mean, ‘see you Friday’? How often do you see Lily?” I’m getting louder and louder, but I don’t care. “How

often , Jules?”

“Every few weeks,” she whispers. “She’s quite far away, and they’re renovating the new house, so she needed—”

I take a deep breath. “You told me you cut her off.”

“I—”

But that’s not it: that’s not the anger I’m feeling.

It’s bad enough that she’s stayed close with Lily after what she did and has deliberately lied about it.

It’s bad enough that she’s secretly traveling all the way to Exeter every month to help them redecorate.

No, it’s the thought I’ve had since that night, since the wedding, the thought I’ve been pushing away as hard as I possibly can, and now it’s right at the front of my brain and I can’t keep pushing.

“Did you know.” I stand up. “ Did you fucking know. ”

In my peripheral vision, I can see Henry tentatively approaching with three bemused men and this probably isn’t the best first

impression I could make, but I don’t care, I don’t give a shit, I am going to rip this pub up from its goddamn roots.

“Jules!” I scream. “ Did you know that Aaron was with Lily before I did? ”

She looks down. “Yes.”

I close my eyes in pain and it suddenly hits me: Jules isn’t in my wedding. I’d been so focused on Henry, the little boy,

the happiness, I hadn’t paid attention to the fact that my best friend wasn’t standing next to me at the altar. She’s gone,

and this is why.

“Margot—”

And it feels worse.

Somehow, after everything Lily and Aaron did, this feels like the biggest betrayal.

“What about you?” I turn my fury on Eve. “Did you know too?”

“No!” Eve’s green eyes widen and even in my anger I feel a nauseous wave of relief. “I swear! I didn’t know anything! And

I really did cut Lily out. I haven’t spoken to her since, I wouldn’t, I swear , Maggie.”

“She didn’t know,” Jules says quietly. “It was just me. And I am so, so—”

“Don’t talk to me,” I hiss, grabbing my handbag as my eyes fill. “Julia, don’t ever talk to me again.”

And I push past a bewildered Henry into the street.