Page 54 of Wish You Were Her

She made to leave and then stopped.

“And you know something? One of those I-Love-Allegra-Brooks essay writers, as you call it? He broke into my apartment and held a knife to my throat.”

She said it so matter-of-factly that it made Jonah feel ill.

“I was sixteen. It didn’t really feel like love, you know, a blade on your skin. I’ll have to take your word for it. I don’t really know what love is. Just what it feels like on the cinema screen. And in the romances you hate so much.”

She was already gone from the cafe before Jonah was able toprocess what had happened. He felt so ashamed. For someone who struggled with naming emotions, this one was so astutely easy to identify. Shame—and regret.

He wanted to chase after her, but she was already on the other side of Main Street, heading toward the large festival tent. The launch party was about to begin and, as the last of the light died, electricity and anticipation came alive in town as people flocked toward the first event of the Lake Pristine Book Festival.

Jonah felt as though he had been shoved from a moving train. He had been fantasizing and fixating on this meeting, hoping that the charming, loveable person on the other end of those emails would come and ease the ache in his chest—the one that had been growing and groaning since Allegra Brooks blew into town. He should be thinking about her, his friend, but he was consumed by the girl who had just stormed out.

Her words had wounded him. Maybe she was right and he was a book nobody wanted to read. He floated through Lake Pristine, more tolerated than he was wanted.

It was painful for him to admit that witnessing a person with such explosive charisma made him only capable of small, ugly words. Such sweetness brought out bitterness; in a light so bright, you had to cower away and find respite in darkness.

He had to put a stop to it.

“What was that about, pal?”

The question came from Nick, one of their part-time booksellers. He was with his partner at the table by the window and they were looking at Jonah with concern.

“Nothing,” Jonah said, sounding less broken than he felt. “Professional disagreement.”

“About the festival?”

“Sure.” He despised the Lake Pristine Tax. “Something like that.”

“Don’t let anything spoil your last year with the festival.”

“I won’t—what?”

Jonah turned in his chair to look properly at Nick. The man looked surprised by the follow-up question, or perhaps by Jonah’s slightly indignant tone.

“I just meant,” Nick scrambled for words, “you’ll be going to uni or to the city after the summer, won’t you? Like Simon? Getting out of here.”

Jonah felt like someone had tied a piece of wire around his neck. People kept making comments like this to him. To his mother in the bakery as she worked. To him at the market. George, a few months after Christmas, had also mentioned it a lot. Jonah had finally grown tired of it and told the older man that he had no plans to leave town.

“I…” Jonah spoke around the invisible wire. “I don’t know what I would do. Or where I would go.”

“That’s the fun of it, isn’t it?” Nick said gently. “Finding out?”

“Maybe,” Jonah said, staggering to his feet. “Sorry, Nick, I have to go.”

He fled, leavingMiddlemarchand the rose in his wake.

Chapter Sixteen

Allegra stood among a crowd of volunteers, authors, book lovers and curious townspeople while her father made a welcome speech and she tried to smile through it. She had endeavored to shed the shock of finding Jonah instead of Simon, hoping to leave it lying on the steps of the cafe like an old newspaper.

But it was all still with her.

She was soaked in feelings. So she did what her job had taught her: she beamed and clapped during all of the correct pauses and focused on other people.

All great actors made everything about their scene partners. They did not indicate or become consumed with their own performance. They fixed all of their attention on other people and reacted accordingly.

Strangely, she felt his arrival. She didn’t look behind her, or even away from her father onstage, but she knew from the little fish swimming up and down her spine that he was in the tent. She was insanely aware of him.