Page 50 of I Know How This Ends

There is no Lily and, while there is no way of knowing why , it doesn’t matter anymore. The realization that I will soon lose someone I love makes everything else seem so insignificant.

As if I thought I was living in a town with normal-size houses and normal-size trees and normal-size crockery and then Gulliver

turns up and you realize that it’s all so miniature, it’s ridiculous. Maybe if I’d had that vision sooner, things would have

been different.

I should be living my entire life as if an unknown giant is looming, because it is.

“Please don’t hate me,” Lil sobs into my denim smock, completely reversing her previous statement. “Please, please don’t.

I can’t bear it. I understand we can’t be friends, but please, don’t hate me.”

I glance over her at Jules, who looks emotional but is not joining in the hug because Jules doesn’t do hugs.

“I don’t hate you,” I tell Lil truthfully. “Not anymore.”

“She doesn’t hate me anymore either,” Jules chirps up from behind us. “Something weird happened to Maggie today and all the hate appears to have evaporated for no apparent reason, but she won’t tell us why. It’s all very suspicious. I suspect she was visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“Or future,” I say dryly. “That would work too.”

Lil wipes her eyes and steps back.

“I wish Eve was here too.” She gazes sadly around the garden. “I miss her, so much. It doesn’t feel right without her here.

Like a table with three legs.”

“Good point.” Jules gets her phone out of her pocket and makes a video call that takes one second to connect. “Evelyn? Why

are you picking up your phone? It’s three twenty on a Friday. Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”

“Oh!” Eve beams at the screen. “Yeah. Say hi, kids!”

She turns her video to face a classroom full of five-year-olds, who all cheer and wave.

“One of them will probably confiscate my phone from me now,” Eve grins amiably, returning to the screen. “What’s up?”

“We just wanted to say hello, that’s all.”

With the triumphant air of a magician pulling a bunny out of her hat, Jules swings the video round so that the three of us

are in it.

“Oh my God.” Eve blinks and leans forward. “Oh my God . Are you... It’s all of you! Lil! Hi, Lil! Maggie! What are you— Oh nooooo, are you all hanging out without me ? This is so unfaiiiiir. Why am I at schooooool ?”

Jules laughs. “That’ll teach you for pulling a sickie on the wrong day.”

Eve looks so happy to see us all together it breaks my heart again: she’s like the youngest child after an acrimonious divorce.

“Right.” Jules is back into business mode. “I’ll fill you in later. Go teach sprogs and whatnot. I’ve got to go save my wife

from whatever shit that ridiculous man is spouting at her now.”

Then she blows a kiss at Eve and we hear byyyyyeee from thirty school children.

“Aaron’s bought an electric guitar,” Lil says with a faint air of embarrassed loyalty. “He’s honestly pretty good at it.”

I bite my lip: no, he isn’t.

“Have fun tonight, OK?” Jules kisses my cheek. “Let me know how your big romantic weekend goes—Eve told me all about it. I’ve

got a wedding to argue about.” She glances at Lily. “I’m not doing it, Lil. I’m sorry, but it’s a hard and permanent no.”

“But—”

“No. I’m not doing it. Full stop.”

I frown at both of them. “Doing what?”

They pause, looking guilty, and I roll my eyes.

“I don’t bloody care about the wedding, guys. Honestly. What are you talking about?”

“Lily wants me to be her bridesmaid,” Jules says sharply. “And I’ve said not again in a hundred years, not if you let me play

my own entrance music, not even if you have Guinness pouring out of the little church fountain. I don’t do bridesmaid anymore . Not after last time. Me and Sim got married in Vegas on our own with strangers for witnesses, as it should be, and I’m not wearing satin now. Not

for anyone.”

I inhale sharply: something’s just occurred to me.

“You wouldn’t be a bridesmaid?”

“Not a snowball’s chance in hell.” Jules folds her arms belligerently. “I’ll be at the back of the church somewhere, cheering

you on in spirit, with spirits.”

“So... you wouldn’t be a bridesmaid at my wedding?”

“Sorry, but—no.”

The relief is so huge I nearly burst straight into tears again.

“What about birthday parties for small children? Would you go to them?”

“Hell, no,” Jules says firmly, looking at me with even more suspicion now. “I’ll send expensive and inappropriate gifts from

whatever lovely tropical vacation I’m on at the time. What is going on with you, Margot?”

I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy.

It might not be Jules at all. There is a very solid possibility that I haven’t seen Jules in my future visions because she’s busy zip-lining around Costa Rica with vodka in her hip flask.

“Nothing,” I grin at her. “Absolutely nothing.”

Jules takes a few moments to assess me—she’s not buying it—then pats my nose with her finger and escapes back into the house,

where I can already hear Aaron droning at Sim about amps and plectrums .

“Well.” Lily coughs awkwardly. “It was really nice to see you, Margot.”

I nod. “And you, Lil.”

“I guess I’ll... see you around. I’m sorry. Again. I’ll never be sorrier about anything in my entire life, and I need you

to know that.”

Lily walks toward the front door and I can see the sadness in her shoulders, the red flush on her neck, the little strand

of hair sticking vertically from her ponytail. All I want to do is prod it back in again, smooth her out, make her happy.

“Lil,” I say abruptly, before I can analyze it all too carefully. “Would you like to go for a coffee sometime?”

Lily freezes and turns round slowly.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I nod. “I am sure.”

“Then, yes .” Her entire face lights up. “ Please. I would absolutely love that.”

“Good. I’ll text you.”

Lil puts one foot in the house, then hesitates and turns around again.

“Maggie... are you the squirrel?”

I stare at her for a few seconds, then burst out laughing. “Yes. I’m the squirrel. How the hell did you know?”

“I just...” Lily frowns, slightly bewildered by her own astuteness. “I don’t know, really. I just kind of knew . The comments were so sweet. Plus... when we were kids, didn’t your neighbors have a squirrel living in their garden that

you used to call Lucy? And weren’t your neighbors called Jones?”

I frown. “Yes. Blimey, I’d totally forgotten about that.”

“Well, it made me feel better anyway. Every time the squirrel said something nice to me, I’d imagine it was you and that you

didn’t hate me completely, and it would make me so happy and so relieved. So thank you, for that. It meant a lot.”

She doesn’t need to know I made those comments out of spite, and I suddenly wonder if I did . Entirely, anyway.

If I wasn’t watching her from afar, just because I missed her.

“You’re welcome, Lil.”

I ’ m nearly home—rushing to meet Henry—when my phone rings.

“You’re too early!” I try to shift my handbag so I can find my house keys and accidentally drop it. “I’m not ready yet! But

I am so bloody ready for all the rampant sex we’re going to have and I hope you like expensive silk things because my new knickers

are basically disposable, is what I’m saying.”

Bending over, I pick up my bag, slightly out of breath.

“I do like expensive silk things,” Charlie says calmly. “I’m just not entirely sure we’ve reached that stage of our professional

relationship yet, Margot.”

I blink at the screen, then silently yell “FUCK” into the sky.

“Hi, Charlie.” Worst wannabe children’s TV presenter ever. “I thought you were my boyfriend. Please accept my apologies and

be assured that I won’t be throwing my knickers away, as suggested.”

“Good to know.” I can hear her smiling. “I won’t keep you long, I just have news.”

Piece by piece, my future is coming. I am one step closer to the happiness I’ve seen and felt. So even though I know exactly

what Charlie’s going to say before she says it, I let her say it anyway.

“The board loved it.” She chuckles. “The decision took all of thirty minutes. You got the job. You are now Margot the Meteorologist, our brand-new children’s TV presenter. Oh, and your cat got it too. You’re both in.”

I look up at the sunny sky and feel the sharp, sweet ache of happiness.

Funny how both grief and joy can make you hurt.

Funny how entangled they are: woven into one big piece of fabric that makes us whoever we become.

“Thank you,” I say simply, shutting my eyes.

“You’re so welcome, Maggie. I can’t wait to see this all come to life.”

“Me too,” I say, smiling slightly, because it’s one thing being shown glimpses of the future and a very different thing to

actually live it.

When she’s gone, I take my other phone out: my burner phone.

The phone I used to split my life in half.

To split myself in half too.

Then—with a quick flick of my wrist—I flip back the lid on my neighbor’s rubbish bin and chuck the phone in. There is no need

for me to be two people, two versions of me. One is finally enough.

This is my future now.

And it all starts with Henry.