Page 39 of I Know How This Ends

“Meg! Wait!”

I continue stomping, fully aware that the second I stop feeling furious the real pain is going to start and I am not ready

for it.

“Don’t,” I snap hoarsely as Henry catches up. “Don’t tell me to calm down, don’t tell me I’m overreacting, don’t tell me not

to be so dramatic—I don’t want to calm down, I am allowed to feel fucking angry, it is my right as a human .”

Henry touches my elbow. “I wasn’t going to.”

“ Good ,” I snarl, not at him: at the world. “Because I have never been this angry. Ever. She went with me to wedding-dress fittings, she helped me choose my flowers, she sorted out my stupid updo for me when, when—”

I was shaking too hard to do it myself.

She asked me if I was certain Aaron was the person I wanted to marry.

“Aaaarrrghhh!” I scream, kicking a bin as hard as I can. “Owwwww, fuck ! Why is that made out of metal, what the fuck is wrong with this city, why can’t it be plastic ? I’m going to write to the council, I’m going to email the mayor, I’m going to—”

Henry wraps his arms around me and I burst into tears.

“She’s my best friend ,” I sob into his neck. “I’ve known her since I was five years old, I don’t remember a time when Jules wasn’t my favorite

person, and she chose Lily .”

Except it doesn’t come out like that: it comes out in a garbled roar.

“I know.” Henry strokes my head. “And you’re allowed to be bloody furious, Meg. You’re allowed to feel it.”

Except now I don’t know how I feel: rage is morphing into sadness into shame into pain into fear and back again. Because now

I haven’t just lost Lily, I’ve lost Jules: two of my best friends, gone. A foursome, cut in half.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble, starting to cry again. “I ruined meeting your friends, they think I’m nuts, they hate me, and I’ve ruined everything .”

“Actually,” Henry says, pushing my fringe out of my eyes, “I think they found it all quite exciting. An iconic first impression.

Either way, I don’t give a crap. I’m dating you, not them. They’d be rubbish girlfriends.”

I laugh and a bubble of snot pops out of my nose. “Sorry.”

“I’ve seen you do worse,” Henry smiles. “Margot, you’re not dramatic, you’re not overreacting, you don’t need to calm down.

I’m not sure why you think you do.”

Because Aaron wouldn’t let me feel emotions, I abruptly realize. Every time I was angry, or upset, or scared, or uncomfortable,

or sad, he’d tell me to calm down and to stop being so dramatic . I was too much , until I reduced myself to the only emotion he wanted me to have: admiration for him.

It feels like all the rage that has been building for nine months now has reached its pinnacle and I’m looking down from it,

at a great height, ready to burn. Except it hasn’t really been building for that long, has it? It’s been building for ten

years. An entire decade of suppressed emotion. More than a quarter of my life.

“I’m still angry,” I say, pushing myself away and wiping my face. “I’m still angry, I’m still hurt, I still want to kick things.”

“Or throw things?” Henry asks gently.

“Yes,” I confirm. “Or throw things.”

“In which case,” he says, taking my hand, “I have an idea.”

“I’m not bowling,” I sniff sulkily as Henry leads me down a back street. Jules has rung so many times in fifteen minutes, I’ve had to put my phone on silent. “I appreciate that it might take my mind off things, but I don’t have any energy left to pretend to be excited about skittles.”

Henry laughs as we take a corner. “It’s not bowling.”

We’re standing outside a large black industrial building covered in red lettering: Urban Axe Throwing .

“Axes?” I say in surprise.

“Axes,” Henry confirms. “Think you could throw an axe right now?”

I search myself for the rage I felt and still feel it bubbling at the base of my stomach, hot and red. I’ve tried punching,

I’ve tried setting things on fire, I’ve tried screaming, I’ve tried moving house, I’ve tried collapsing my career, I’ve tried

being a bitch to everyone I’ve ever met, I’ve tried taking down every man in a thirty-mile radius.

Throwing deadly weapons at a wall: not so much.

“Absolutely,” I say firmly.

Henry seems to know the people at the axe-throwing place—they manage to squeeze us in, last-minute—and when I look at him

in surprise, he simply shrugs.

“We all get angry sometimes,” he says simply.

Then they usher us into a large cage and give us a pink-haired, heavily pierced instructor named Gary, who also seems to know

Henry.

“My dude!” Gary slaps him on the back. “Long time no see!”

I look at Gary suspiciously: he has a cartoon frog tattoo on his neck, and I’m not sure that’s the kind of person we need

overlooking a potentially lethal activity.

“How’s it going?” Henry grins at him. “Moved up to manager position yet?”

It is astonishing to me how this new boyfriend of mine manages to make friends with everyone who crosses his path. Probably

because he asks questions and genuinely cares about the answers.

“Last year,” Gary chuckles, handing him an axe. “Thanks for the advice, mate. Super helpful. Obviously, I need to be here for legal reasons and whatever, but you know what you’re doing.”

Henry laughs and hands the axe to me. “It’s not for me, this time.”

I look down at my new weapon, brightening at the weight of it, the sharpness of it, the solid potential fatality of it. Oooh,

I think I’m going to enjoy this. I can’t believe I’ve been punching a bag in my living room like an amateur .

“Um.” Gary has noticed the dangerous gleam in my eye. “I’m going to need to run through the guidelines with you, in that case.

Keeping it safe, people. Hahaha.”

Clearly, he can see I am not here to play.

Nodding, I half listen to what Gary’s saying (throw it at the board, follow through with your shoulder, stay facing forward,

hold on tight, don’t let go too early, please don’t kill me by accident, woman with crazy eyes) and focus instead on the wall

in front of me. I can feel the fire in me flickering, and I’m suddenly worried it’s not hot enough anymore: just embers and

glowing coals and sadness.

As Gary finishes a quick demonstration—making it look a lot easier than I suspect it is—I turn the axe round and round in

my hands.

Then I look at Henry desperately. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“You can.” He grins warmly. “You have to. I just paid, like, three nights’ worth of tips.”

“Right.” I nod, and stare back at the wall. “So I just... throw it?”

“Just throw it,” he agrees.

“OK. Here goes.”

Lamely, I pull my hand up and attempt to chuck the now ridiculously heavy axe at the wall. The side of it hits with a thud

and it bounces straight onto the floor, looking disappointed.

“Good first try!” Gary says behind me encouragingly.

“I don’t feel anything,” I say, turning to Henry in frustration. “It’s not working.”

“How about you try talking to the board?” He smiles. “Tell it what you’re angry about. Then throw the axe. Say whatever you want to say, no judgment from me. Or Gary. Right, Gary?”

“Trust me,” Gary says darkly. “I’ve heard it all .”

Swallowing, I nod and turn back. “Um. Hello, board. It’s nice to meet you.”

Henry laughs. “So polite.”

“I... um.” I take a deep breath. “I’m angry that my best friend Julia has lied to me and that she took Lily’s side over

mine.” I feel an abrupt need to contextualize this, for both Gary and the board. “Lily was my best friend too, by the way.

She ran off with my fiancé the night before our wedding.”

Gary nods—gotcha—and the board has zero reaction, as expected.

Lifting my arm, I throw the axe.

This time, it hits the board with a beautiful, deadly thud and a thrill runs through me.

“I’m angry that my friendship group has been destroyed by a man ,” I say more loudly, lifting another axe with a lot more energy this time. “That thirty years together has crumbled because of a pretentious, black-T-shirt-wearing, guitar-not-playing, lying, cheating idiot.”

I throw another axe: it lodges itself in the wall.

“I’m angry that Aaron treated me terribly for years and I didn’t do anything about it because I thought it was what I deserved.”

Another axe. “I’m angry that I never had it out with him, or her, that I just walked away .”

There goes another axe.

“I’m angry that my parents left when I needed them, and I’m angry that they didn’t even ask me to go with them, and I’m angry that a part of me is glad they’re not totally happy there because it means they miss me,

and I miss them, and I’m so selfish sometimes it makes me furious .”

Another axe.

“I’m angry that my grandfather is old and I can’t do anything about it.”

Another axe.

“I’m angry that Eve can’t have a baby.”

Axe.

“I’m angry that I keep seeing shit and am expected to handle it all on my own, puzzle it all out, as if I don’t have enough to bloody worry about.”

Axe.

“I’m angry that my neighbor’s husband hit on me and now it’s down to me to sort it out when it should be down to him , and yet another friendship is at risk because of a man .”

Axe.

“I’m angry that I worked my entire adult life for a career I loved, which I threw away out of pettiness and spite .”

Axe.

“I’m angry that I wasted most of my twenties and my thirties and I will never get that time back.”

Axe.

“I’m angry that now I have an amazing boyfriend and I wasn’t ready for him to be amazing, wasn’t sorted out enough, wasn’t

healed enough, but now I have to heal and be OK as fast as I can so I don’t screw it up .”

Axe.

I’m shouting now—and sweating profusely—but I don’t care, it needs out, I need these emotions out of me , I need that board to be full of axes.

“And most of all,” I say, wiping my forehead on my sleeve, “I am angry because I’m not angry anymore. I’m happy. I’m so fucking happy. And it feels wrong, because I’ve forgotten what that even feels like and that makes me angry .”

I throw the axe and hold out my hand.

“We’ve run out of axes,” Gary says faintly.

“Oh.” Blinking, I stare at the wall. “Right. Sorry about that.”

Slightly out of breath, I turn to face Henry, expecting to see some kind of horror and repulsion as he realizes what he’s letting himself in for.

It’s not there. He just looks... proud of me.

“I’m going to need an axe,” he calmly tells Gary, who is busy collecting all the axes I’ve already buried. “Just one, this

time.”

With a nod, Gary hands it over.

“I’m angry too,” Henry says simply. “I’m angry because I feel things for you that make me feel like I’ve lost Amy all over

again, and I feel guilty and worried and ashamed that I’m moving on and scared that I’ll lose you like I lost her, and most

of all, I’m angry that I’m happy too.”

He throws the axe and it lands perfectly in the middle, in a way that tells me Henry has been very, very angry many times

before. Angry that his beautiful young wife died, that he lost his beloved medical career, that he had a tiny child to look

after all on his own, that he has a brain the size of a small planet and he spends this power asking people if they want Parmesan

on their tagliatelle.

We stand and stare at each other in silence for a few seconds.

“You need to take Winter to see her mum’s ashes,” I say quietly. “She needs to be able to talk to her. To talk about her.

Even though it hurts you. She needs to know who her mum was.”

Henry’s face colors. “I know.”

“You can’t avoid things because they’re hard, Henry. We have to be able to fight. Properly, really fight. Because if we can’t fight, then it means this isn’t strong enough. It means what we’re throwing isn’t an axe, it’s

a vase. I’ve had the vase, and it broke. I need the axe.”

A nod. “I know.”

Henry doesn’t ask how I know he avoids fighting when we’ve never really had one. He doesn’t even ask how I know about Amy’s

ashes, although something tells me Winter may have given him a clue.

“So... you want extra time?” Gary steps in awkwardly. “Or... are we all done?”

I smile at him. “I think I’m done. Henry?”

Henry nods. “Me too.”

Holding hands, we walk out of the axe-throwing cage room, and I now realize groups of people are yelling, laughing, screaming,

celebrating: it’s a place for joy, for fun. Or maybe they just have punching bags at home: it’s difficult to tell.

“Hey.” Henry pauses. “Margot, what you said...”

I flinch slightly. “Which bit?”

“About ‘seeing shit.’ And... puzzling it all out on your own.”

Nice one, Margot. What a way to reveal that you can see the future: screaming, with a deadly object in your hand.

“Oh!” I frown. “It was more... you know. Metaphorical.”

Henry looks at me carefully. “Right.”

“Not real . Not like, uh, visions or whatever.” I laugh and it sounds forced, like air squeezed out of a bottle. “I’m not having visions of the future or anything, and then trying to piece them together in the right order. That would be crazy .”

Henry frowns. “Yes. I guess it would.”

I stare at him. “You guess?”

“No, it totally would. I’m just saying, if there’s ever anything you need to talk about, I’m open-minded.”

Yeah, I am not taking him up on that. Nobody—bar maybe Macbeth and his wife—is that open-minded. If I wasn’t experiencing it myself, I’d be calling the nearest hospital and having the Prophet locked away, highly

medicated. Plus, at no point in any future vision has Henry indicated that he knows about my visions, and I have never mentioned

them. And one of us surely would have by this point, right? Which obviously means I don’t tell him, and I’m good with that

decision. It seems like the smartest move.

“Cool,” I say as my phone vibrates in my bag. “Good to know.”

Missed call: Jules

Missed call: Jules

Missed call: Jules

Biting my lip, I scroll down, a long way down.

Let’s just say that while I was throwing axes, Jules was lobbing a very different but equally sharp weapon at me in turn.

Guilt, predominantly, along with three decades of history, i.e. emotional blackmail.

Please talk to me.

Teeth gritted, I text back:

GO. AWAY.

“You sure you don’t want to hear what she has to say?”

I glance up at Henry with a scowl. “Nope.”

“Ah.” He lifts his eyebrows. “Because you would never avoid something just because it’s hard, right?”

“Touché.” I scowl at him a bit harder. “Shut up.”

“No.” Henry smiles. “I will not.”

I smile too, but he doesn’t get it. This isn’t about fixing something chipped or slightly cracked around the edges. And there

aren’t two sides to this story: there’s the whole story, and then there are the people who only knew half of it. Jules was

supposed to be on my side, with me. Oblivious and stupid.

And I don’t want to hear what she has to say, because I know how this ends: I’ve seen it, with my own eyes.

What we had is already broken.