Page 9 of I Know How This Ends

“As if I’d miss it.” I look around for Jules. “Where’s the other fake baby mama?”

“Hot tub.” Eve grins and pats her fluffy stomach. “I’m not going in, just in case. I’ve got a really good feeling about this

time, Maggie.”

Smiling, I straighten out my own robe, perch next to her and pat her leg.

My pocket vibrates and I try to ignore it.

As Eve isn’t currently drinking, we’ve forgone our regular pub sessions and have decided to try out other, more sober activities:

cinema, cooking classes, bowling, afternoon tea, a horribly expensive spa. I glance over to where Jules has clambered out

of the hot tub. She gives me a quick military salute before heading toward the sauna, bored already. If Eve is a sparrow and

I am an owl, Jules is a hummingbird: never still, always hovering.

“So how’s school?”

My phone goes off. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

“Brilliant.” Eve leans her fair head back on the pillow. “The kids are hilarious , as always. One boy asked me where poo came from, so I told him. Then he asked if that’s where Eeyore comes from too, and I

giggled so hard I farted.”

I laugh. Ting. “It’s a bit early to be losing control of your bodily functions.”

“Oh.” She closes her eyes and beams. “Unrelated to the Maybe Baby. The only edible thing the canteen serves these days is

baked beans.”

Buzz. Buzz. Ting. Buzz.

Eve is a primary school teacher and her students adore her as much as she adores them, even if I suspect they sometimes see

her more as a peer than as an educator. Cotton-wool clouds and crystals hang from her classroom ceiling and she regularly

wears jumpers with squirrels knitted into the sleeves. Whenever a five-year-old does something naughty, Eve sits them in a

corner on a cozy beanbag, turns on a “sunset” lamp, faces them toward a large photo of the view from the top of a mountain

and encourages them to “think about the bigger picture.” I meet her occasionally after school and she’s always surrounded

by dozens of adoring faces turning toward her like shiny buttercups. It is a constant source of amazement to me that Eve,

who has wanted children her entire life and is surrounded by them every day, can still stay hopeful when her body is seriously

insinuating that she may never have her own.

“What are we talking about?” Jules plonks down next to us in a one-piece, lean and dripping. “It better not be kids again.

I’m maxed out.”

I give her a sympathetic glance. I could not agree more.

Jules hasn’t changed in nearly three decades. She didn’t like dolls, especially the baby kind, and she has no interest in

any of that now either. She’s a top national journalist and she doesn’t have time for “that generic societally enforced female

shit.”

“We were just talking about how we’ve signed you up to a two-hour-long massage,” I grin, feeling my phone buzz in my pocket

yet again. “A nice relaxing bit of being rubbed by a stranger.”

“Touch me and die,” Jules says flatly, stretching out her insanely long legs.

Another ting and I finally capitulate and pull out both my phones.

The Flat Earthers have found me again. They tend to come in waves, which ironically they don’t know how to explain.

FlatEarther7138: You NEED to get ur FACTS STRATE “Margot” if earth is a ball TEL me why we can’t feel it SPINING stop spreading

LIES #wakeup #openureyes

This is under a video where I explain the impact of a rotating Earth on daily weather: something you’d think was relatively

uncontroversial, but nope.

Frowning, I start typing:

Hello @FlatEarther7138 and thank you for commenting. The reason we can’t feel ourselves “spining” is that the Earth is rotating

at a constant—

“Oy.” Jules prods me with her big toe and then uses it to point at a large sign on the wall. “That says No Phones Allowed , does it not? And unless I’m sorely mistaken, that is a phone. If I can manage two grim hours of me time, so can you.”

I scowl and put my still-buzzing phone back in my dressing gown. I’ll get back to @FlatEarther7138 later this evening, once

the globular Earth has, ironically, rotated a little further.

“Fine.”

“You’re working too hard,” Eve says, worried. “You need to think about outsourcing or something.”

“ Or... ” I pretend to think about it for a few seconds, as if this hasn’t been on my mind for hours. “Perhaps what we all need is

a holiday . You know, like the old days. Just the three of us, a nice beach somewhere, sun loungers, books. Wouldn’t that be great? I

could totally switch off then.”

“Oh yeah?” Jules narrows her dark eyes and studies me carefully. “A holiday? On a nice tropical beach? With, I don’t know, maybe a few palm trees? A flowing white dress to giggle in, perchance?”

I look vaguely over at the hot tub while my cheeks start to burn. A couple are kissing vigorously in it, and honestly, this

place should spend less attention on who has a mobile phone on them and more on who is fornicating in shared water.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, I think you bloody do.” Jules’s lips are compressed. “You’re still doing it, aren’t you? You’re still stalking Lily.

You promised , Margot. It’s unhealthy. Unhinged. Verging on completely batshit crazy, at this point.”

“Actually,” Eve jumps in quickly, “I told her. About the... thing. Didn’t I, Meg? It just kind of fell out. You know what

I’m like.”

I give her a grateful glance, even though Jules isn’t buying it because Eve clearly doesn’t know what we’re talking about.

“Right. I’m just going to say it.” Jules’s voice has softened slightly and she leans forward, eyes fixed on mine. “All of

this...” She waves a damp hand in the direction of my still-buzzing dressing-gown pocket. “Starting up your own Instagram

page just to compete with Lily”—I flinch—“following her every move, buying that boxing bag... You’re losing yourself, Margot.

And I’m worried about you.”

“I’m not competing .” I blink, suddenly feeling tiny. “And boxing is exercise. ”

“Try yoga,” she says firmly. “You’re supposed to be moving through grief, that’s why they’re called stages . And you’re not. You skipped denial, went straight to anger and just stayed right there, rolling around like a—”

“Badger,” Eve offers helpfully.

“Since when do badgers roll?” Jules smiles affectionately. “Seriously, Eve. How are badgers famous for their rolling?”

“They probably roll sometimes,” Eve says indignantly. “And I thought it sounded a bit nicer than pig , which is where I suspect you were going with that unnecessarily unkind simile . ”

“Margot, you need to stop,” Jules says. Both of them turn to stare at me. “Right now.”

I look down, cheeks still red. “OK.”

“Is that a real OK?” Jules misses nothing: it’s what makes her such a great journalist. “Or is that a fake OK to placate us while you go set up another fake account when we’re not looking?”

“The latter.” I fiddle with my dressing-gown belt. “Originally. But now it’s a real OK. I’m sorry I’m being so... weird.”

“It’s time to move forward. Consider this an intervention.” Jules puts her arms around me and Eve as they both press their

foreheads against mine. “We love you and we want the old Margot back. Not now, not immediately, but eventually.”

Something inside me sinks. I wish I knew how to tell them I’m not sure who the old Margot was . It’s hard to make your way back to something that was never really there: like trying to hold a rainbow in your hands.

“Noted.”

We spend another hour taking it in turns to sit with Eve or sweat it out in the sauna, and then Jules abruptly decides she’s

done, as Jules is wont to do.

“Right.” She stands up and shakes the water off, like a dog. “I think that’s enough pathological relaxing for one evening.

I don’t know about you guys, but I am feeling about as tense as it’s possible to get and I’ve got an overdue deadline to meet.”

Eve stands up and stretches, glancing hopefully at her belly.

My phone buzzes again.

“I’ll think about getting someone in to help me,” I say in a meek voice, as if I’m one of Eve’s five-year-olds. “I know initially I probably set it up out of spite or whatever”—spite, it was pure spite—“but I don’t completely hate it. I get to talk about

the weather, at least.”

I never thought I’d spend my meteorology PhD convincing strangers that the globe is a bloody globe, but that’s apparently

where I’m at now.

“That’s an excellent idea.” Jules kisses my cheek. “I’ve got connections to some advertising sites, so I’ll send them over

tonight.”

I nod, feeling incredibly relieved. “Thank you.”

The three of us waddle in our berobed, flip-flopped glory toward the spa changing room like three huge teddy bears, and I

vaguely hear Eve asking if anyone else wants a chocolate milkshake because she—

But everything has suddenly gone hazy, cold, and the world pivots.

His face is in profile.

The hawk-like nose, the bushy eyebrows; tanned hands on the wheel. He glances toward me briefly, dark eyes warm, and I feel

a rush of something intense, giddy, almost solid. Then he turns back to focus on the road and I realize we’re in a small car.

The seats are bright red, ripped and worn, our knees are slightly bunched.

On either side of us, it is green and yellow: tiny flowers in hedges, a narrow road.

My hand reaches out and touches the elbow of his brown tweed jacket. There’s a large star patch sewn there: pink, tacked on

badly with yellow stitching. My fingers touch it lightly, and he looks at me again and smiles, slightly snaggle-toothed.

I feel myself glow at him like a nacreous cloud, illuminated from below.

Then he reaches forward to twiddle with the car radio; the air crinkles with a sand shaker and an electric guitar, he hits

the wheel with his palms and says—

“Maggie.” A hand on my shoulder. “ Margot. ”

Blinking, I stare at Eve.

“Are you OK?” She peers closely at my face and puts a hand on my cheek. “Is it the heat? Do you need to sit down?”

“Um.” I swallow and look vaguely around. “What... happened?”

“You just glazed over for a few seconds.” Jules frowns.

“Oh.” I rub my face, feeling sick. “I think I’m just exhausted, that’s all.”

Except tiredness, heat and dehydration don’t quite explain why the face I just saw was the waiter’s. It was vivid, as if I

was actually with him. I felt him looking at me. I felt the warmth, mirrored and reflected back. I haven’t thought about him since I gave him my number

last night. I was busy ignoring another, much more aggressive Henry.

Frowning in confusion, I reach in my pocket and pull out my burner phone.

Hi Margot. It’s Henry. Not the lion version. Dinner tomorrow night? X

OK, that makes a lot more sense.

Checking between my two phones, I must have caught a glimpse of this while I was being nagged by Jules—that’s why he’s now

on my sleep-deprived mind. It’s dehydration combined with exhaustion combined with intrusive thoughts. Which is still a little

weird, but not too worrying. I’m reaching the end of my twenty-date experiment, and I’m just excited about not having to do

this anymore.

I think I’ve collected quite enough data for the foreseeable future.

Quickly, I type back:

Sure. Where? X

Four more dates and I can officially leave romance behind me.

An immediate ting .

Oh, I think you already know. ;)