Page 47 of Wish You Were Her

She looked as though she was about to be reasonable about the whole thing and then she peered up into his face and smiled, conspiratorially. “Yeah, you know what? Me too.”

When they reached the final stretch of the carpet, fans threw their hands toward Allegra like zealots to a god.

“Allegra, please!” one woman screamed. “You’re the reason I’m alive, I love you!”

“Allegra, I have a tattoo of you!”

“Allegra, please! PLEASE!”

Jonah watched as Allegra brushed people’s desperately outstretched hands with her fingers.

She took a couple of selfies and when one man suddenly grabbed her, as if overcome by her nearness, Jonah intervened.

He pulled her free and stood between her and the crowd so that his body shielded her from the grasping hands.

He was vibrating with rage. The entitlement that people felt over her! He wanted to fight every last one of them.

“Thank you,” she told him, sounding surprised.

“Don’t mention it.”

“No one’s ever done that before. I usually have to wriggle free myself.”

“Allegra,” the man who had snatched at her yelled, still trying desperately to seize her. “You don’t respond to me, how am I supposed to get in touch with you now?”

“You don’t!” Jonah replied, glowering down at the shorter man.

“She knows who I am,” the man whined. “She knows I need to talk to her every day.”

“Enough of this. You ready?” Jonah asked Allegra.

She nodded, taking his hand once more. They left the carpet for the movie house, leaving shrieks and shouts in their wake.

“Did you know him?” Jonah asked as they gave their names at the door.

“No,” Allegra said, shrugging. “But lots of people think you’re communicating directly to them. It can make things a bit parasocial.”

“Disgusting.”

“No,” she said firmly. “Some people are just lonely.”

The din of the crowd could still be heard as they milled about the foyer of the cinema. Allegra air-kissed some producers and introduced Jonah to the slightly scatter-brained director. Natalie, Jasper and Grace waved as they made their way to the upper circle of the cinema auditorium.

“They’re upstairs, but we’re down in the stalls,” Allegra told him.

Jonah dazedly followed Allegra to their seat near the front.

“I like to come in early while it’s still quiet,” Allegra said. She smiled earnestly at him, as they sat in two large reclining chairs in front of the biggest cinema screen he had ever seen. “What did you want to tell me?”

“Oh, yes. That reminds me. Need to send an email really quickly.”

He fished out his phone and went straight to his inbox. He opened up his drafts and pressed “send.”

“Your pen-pal?” Allegra asked, something strange crossing her face.

“Yes. Saying goodbye.”

“Goodbye? What do you mean, goodbye?”

“She’s the best. She’s great. But she’s not real.

She’s not here. She’s words on a page and while the words have changed my life, I can’t waste time on an imaginary friend.

One that I’ve built up in my head, from some perfect words.

I need the whole human. Not just the great, edited parts.

I wrote this letter after the pictures were published.

I never sent it. I’m sending it now. Because I’m where I need to be. ”

Allegra’s eyes shone. “You don’t… wish she was here instead?”

“No. But you’re right, I did have something to tell you.”

“Okay?”

Jonah took in her face. A face so perfect to him, without lights and retouches. The exterior of a soul more beautiful to him than any other he had known, even more so than the friend in his inbox. “Nothing big. Just that I love you.”

Her eyes widened and her mouth formed a perfect “O.”

“You don’t need to say anything back,” he told her, meaning it.

“But I love you. Like how Pip loved Estella. My whole life, I was told I couldn’t have the things I read about in books, the things I saw neurotypicals having.

They said I wouldn’t be anything. Education, speech, friendship.

All of it wasn’t what they saw for me. But I did it anyway.

I’m done listening to them. Whoever ‘they’ even are.

I love you and I always will.” He said it all so matter-of-factly but it was because he wasn’t afraid anymore.

Love wasn’t supposed to be selfish. “People get embarrassed after they fall—that’s why I was such an arse.

It’s no excuse. But I fell a while ago and I’ve not been able to get over it.

I love you. And it’s been you. All along.

” He loved her, no matter what the next scene held.

It was a fact, not a conditional offering.

“Allegra!”

He didn’t look away from Allegra when the studio employee hissed her name from the aisle of the cinema, and she didn’t look away from him.

“Allegra, can you come backstage a sec? They want to do a line-up for the Q&A. We’re doing it before the screening now, Anya has to catch a flight.”

“Go,” Jonah told her softly. “Go be great. You always are.”

“Allegra?” the employee pushed.

“I want to stay here with you, though,” Allegra finally said.

“I’ll be right here. Whatever you need, I’m here.”

When it seemed as though the employee might actually become physical, Allegra moved. She floated toward the small room that was considered “backstage.” The rest of the cast had been assembled, along with the director.

“Phones off, everyone!”

Allegra moved to turn hers off, almost on autopilot. In doing so, sudden curiosity struck her and she opened her personal email address.

There he was. Waiting for her.

Dear Friend, it said. He still didn’t know who he was truly writing to.

Dear Friend,

I think I’m falling in love. In fact, I know I am. I may already be all the way there. I think about her all of the time. I’ve always had a mind that either fixates or wanders and now it does both, over her. My thoughts always lead back to her.

And she’s been hurt. Badly.

And it’s my fault. Or rather, it wouldn’t have happened at all if it weren’t for me. I don’t think she’ll ever be able to separate me from this horrible hurt. I need three wishes now, more than I ever have, and I’m so aware that I don’t have them. I can’t fix it for her.

I’ll spare you the details. You’ve seen it on the news. Sell them this email, if you like. My ex-best friend certainly sold me out, I don’t expect loyalty from anyone now.

That was unfair, I’m sorry. You can probably tell I’m a mess.

How do I convince the girl that the whole world wants a piece of that she’s my whole world? And that I want all of her?

Anyway. This is a thank you, and a goodbye. Your wonderful friendship got me through the denial stage of love. But I’m not in denial anymore. You deserve better than a lovesick bookseller. I’ll always be here if you need a friend. But I have to start writing something else now.

Love,

Jonah

She stared at his letter and suddenly the clouds that had been gathering for so long were gone. The rain stopped. The way ahead cleared.

She had come to Lake Pristine to find her own little slice of the world. But what if that didn’t have to be a place or an event or a moment in time?

Her search for something better could be another person, one just like her.

What a waste. Years of her life, the latter parts of her precious childhood, spent living through emails and meetings and screen tests.

No friends, no holidays, just pats on the head from executives who needed a bright little product.

The only truthful moments of her life were a few seconds of magic per day, captured on a camera that could go from being a dear friend to an invasive stalker within minutes.

She loved her job. But it couldn’t love her back.

So when she and her colleagues were ushered onstage to rapturous applause, Allegra found his face in the crowd. It was a lighthouse, an anchor. She felt so much lightness where weight and heaviness had once resided.

And she suddenly knew that, for the first time at one of these events, she was going to tell the truth.

“Allegra, what inspired you to take on this project?”

The question came after numerous others had been put to the rest of the cast and crew.

The script had been praised, the greenlighting process discussed.

A couple of the actors with larger roles had waxed lyrical about the filming and their co-stars.

It was all very polite and shiny and wonderfully fake.

While the others had been talking, Allegra had taken in the audience.

Her heart had almost stopped when her gaze had landed on a smirking Julie M.

Atkins, seated two rows behind Jonah. When she met Allegra’s gaze, the columnist gave a snarky little sneer and Allegra was back in that restaurant once again, feeling on trial.

But she steadied her nerves. She would not let Julie have the last word.

No one was having the last word on Allegra Brooks anymore.

The question was a generic one, asked by a friendly but shallow radio presenter called Matteo, who was hosting the talkback session. Allegra smiled, regardless.

“It’s a love story. We need more of them. Maybe fewer stories about individuals saving the world, and more about people saving each other.”

The answer was clearly too short for the presenter’s liking and he chose to expand with a rather daring additional question.

“You were recently the victim of a rather opportunistic photographer, has that made doing all of this a little trickier? Are you feeling all right? That’s obviously the worst part of the job, but what’s maybe the best part?

Getting to talk to audiences like this? All of this? ”

There were murmurings from the thousand people in the crowd .

She knew she should just shrug and say that the invasiveness was the price of a very special job.

The overly familiar faux concern from strangers was always jarring and, under normal circumstances, she would brush over it efficiently and find her way back to promoting the project.