Page 55 of I Know How This Ends

I smile back. We’re not quite back where we used to be, but it’s looking good. There’s too much love here for it not to be.

“Now,” Eve says, randomly kissing the top of my ear. “Obviously it’s very early days, so I don’t want to jinx anything, but—fingers

tightly crossed—my dreams have all come true, so what are we going to do with Margot ?”

I blink and pull away from the hug.

“What do you mean, what are we going to do with Margot ? You’re not going to do anything with me. I’m not a bloody bit of leftover lasagna.”

Jules, Lily and Eve lift their eyebrows at me.

“I’m not!” I can’t believe I’m having to clarify this. “You don’t have to do anything with me. I am doing great .”

The eyebrows get a little higher.

“In fact, I am doing brilliantly . The show launches next week, which—let me remind you—is going to make me very happy and successful.” Maybe. “I have a cat.

Look. There he is.” I point at Cheddar, who is, indeed, a cat. “I have a flat.” I wave my hands around violently, in case

they’ve not noticed. “And I look, like, ten percent French, which is the most French I have ever looked.”

I point at my new, super-short bob: the TV stylist did it to me for “branding.”

“I am exactly as I want to be, as I have chosen to be, as I am determined to be. It is my decision .”

“Except you’re heartbroken,” Jules states flatly. “Still.”

“Yup.” Eve nods. “You miss Henry. A lot.”

“A lot ,” Lily confirms.

I stare at them. How do they know? I’ve been really careful to hide it. Have they set up film cameras in my bedroom so they

can see if I’m crying in the middle of the night? I wouldn’t put it past them.

“Pffff.” I sniff. “I mean, sometimes. Now and then.”

All. Of. The. Time.

“I still don’t understand it,” Eve says, looking to Jules and Lily for support. “It was going so well, you were so happy,

so smitten, and then you go away for a weekend and poof. It’s over? Because it wasn’t—”

“Right.” I nod briskly. “Exactly. That’s what I said.”

“Except it bloody was,” Jules says crossly. “It was right. We saw it. So you obviously got scared and ran away again. And now you’re worse than you were after...”

She hesitates and Lily flushes, looks down.

“Because that time you were screaming and punching and burning, but it was all just noise . And this time you’re...”

“Actually heartbroken,” Eve fills in. “Like, properly.”

Bloody hell. I can’t win. No matter how I react to a break-up, apparently it’s the wrong way. What do they want me to do?

Fall to my knees outside Asda and scream My life feels empty without Henry in it ? It would be true, but how would it help? It’s not an efficient use of my time or energy and I am not wasting any more.

“Could you not... try again?” Lily looks up and studies my face. “If you’re this sad, maybe it means something?”

“I’m fine ,” I say, yet again. “It was the right decision. Please trust me.”

They all nod doubtfully.

“In fact ,” I say with not a small amount of triumph, “I actually have a date next week. A first date, with a very nice, very handsome set designer called Fred who I met on the show. So there. Not heartbroken. Totally moving on in a healthy way. Getting Back Out There, with capitals, as I have reassured my mother.”

“What number date is this?” Jules asks. “Eighteen? Or are you starting again?”

“There is no number,” I say firmly. “No number, no list, no criteria. I shall not be taking notes. I’m going to meet this

man, see how it goes. And we’re getting a curry, because I’m breaking the cycle. My self-destructive pattern is over.”

I gave up Henry so that we could meet the right people, so I have to follow through with it. I have to be open to love. Henry

did that for me, I realize. I hope he finds his person too. Someone not too hot—that’s unnecessary—but kind and funny. What I want most is for him to be happy, even if it’s not with me.

Admittedly, I’m not at all sure I’m ready to move on, but Other Margot deserves me to at least try . She might be gone now, but I still feel her with me: pushing me to meet her, wherever she is now.

I hope that when I do, I’ll be my best possible version.

“Right.” Eve looks relieved. “Well, that’s lovely. Here’s to new starts for all of us! What’s our plan for this evening, gang?”

“Don’t you have dinner with your mum and dad in, like, forty minutes?” Lily frowns and looks at her watch.

Eve stares at her for a few seconds, then starts laughing loudly.

“Baby brain!” She’s literally giddy. “It’s started already! Oh my goodness, this is amazing. I was waiting for this to happen. I’m such a tit.”

“You’ve always been a tit,” Jules says with a tiny, fond smile. “Don’t go blaming your pregnancy for that, Eve.”

But I’ve frozen. Such a tit. Such a tit.

Such a tit.

“Say that again.” Something is happening in my brain. “That last bit.”

My friends all turn to look at me, concerned.

“Which bit?” Lily asks gently, putting a hand on my arm. “Maggie, are you OK?”

There’s a sudden lump in my throat.

I know.

I know what the bit of paper in my pocket was, in my funeral vision.

And I’d have worked it out earlier, except—it didn’t fit. Somehow, like Macbeth, I’ve pieced things together in the wrong

order. I’ve snuggled into fate again, comfortable I’ve been reading the visions accurately, that I knew what was coming.

But I wasn’t. I wasn’t reading them at all.

“I have to go,” I say, my voice breaking. “Right now.”