Page 52 of A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances
The numbness I’d felt since he’d started talking wore off and a wave of anger crashed through me. This wasn’t going to happen again. I wasn’t a naive teenage girl anymore. I was not going to let the siren’s call of other people’s passions and the actions driven by other people’s selfishness bulldoze my life.
The Ferris wheel stopped at ground level. Our safety bar was lifted, and I jumped out of the seat. I ran. I could hear Alex calling my name, but I didn’t stop.
I pushed through the crowds until I made it to my room. I took in the rumpled bedsheets. Then I looked at my suitcase and bags sitting next to my wardrobe. Everything I owned in this country was in them. Tomorrow I was meant to be zipping them up and starting a grand adventure. I was meant to be moving to London with Alex tomorrow. Except he was moving to America. To Harvard.
We’d rented a cheap flat until we could get access to his uni accommodation at the end of summer. I couldn’t afford to live there on my own, not without begging my parents for a loan, something I knew both of them (in a rare show of unity) would disapprove of. And I didn’t want to be in London on my own. There was nothing waiting for me there.
I gasped for a breath, then another. Was I? Yes, I was. I hadn’t had a panic attack for years, since I was seventeen, but I still recognised what was happening.
I ran to the bathroom and tried to take regular, deep breaths. My head was pounding now. I rifled through my washbag and pulled out an unopened packet of Xanax. I wasn’t meant to mix them with alcohol, but how else was I meant to manage what was happening?
I popped the small white pill out of the blister pack, swallowed it and finished a glass of water. I breathed in, then out. I lay on my mussed-up bed until my breathing had almost returned to normal. I had no idea how much time had passed – a few minutes or an hour. I finally got up and I stared at my face in the mirror. The girl who had never felt more beautiful in her life was gone; looking back at me was a heartbroken ghost.
I knew that I should lie back down. But it wouldn’t be long before Alex would bang on the door, looking for me. And he was absolutely the last person I wanted to see.
I made a plan. I’d go find Lily. But I just had to do one thing first.
I opened my laptop. My instinct was to make a Skype call, but I was in a ballgown and that would raise questions. Instead, I opened my emails.
Hi Dad. I know I told you that I was staying here, but I made a mistake. Could you please book me a flight home urgently? I’ll pay you back as soon as I can. I’ll call you tomorrow. Love, Rebecca.
I pressed send and shut the laptop lid.
Chapter 25
NOW
For the rest of the week, I kept my head down. Alex was in some of the bigger meetings I couldn’t miss, but other than that, I managed to avoid any direct contact with him. If our team had a burning question, I sent Adrian or Lucas to talk to him, making a note to add ‘provides growth opportunities’ to my promotion application. If the team noticed that I was actively avoiding my ex-boyfriend, they were kind enough to only talk about me behind my back.
The work was absorbing. When we were under the pump, I was normally pretty good at working out the twenty per cent of information I needed to get across and tasks that needed to be prioritised that would make eighty per cent of the impact. But with this case, I found myself reading all the materials that Lucas, whose chronic online-ness extended to brilliant research skills, had pulled together. I found myself filling pages of my notebooks with reflections in my still-schoolgirlish handwriting.
The weekend arrived much more quickly than I’d thought was possible. And on Saturday morning, Matt and I turned up to Arlo’s birthday party right on time, converging at the front door with Lily’s little sister, Mia, and her parents.
Mia was a junior lawyer at an international firm, but this morning looked like death warmed up. She wore pyjamas shewas clearly hoping to pass off as a linen set. But given that most of her eye makeup was aligned with her nose and her hair was exploding out of her scrunchie, she hadn’t pulled it off.
A few shrieks from presumably overexcited babies and toddlers wafted down the hallway and through the flywire door.
Mia turned to me, her eyes wide. ‘Are there going to be kids here?’ she asked in a concerned whisper. I laughed then realised she was deadly serious.
‘Well, we’re at a kid’s birthday party, so I’d say yes.’
‘Like more or less than five?’ she asked, again without irony.
‘I think Lily invited her whole mothers’ group, so...’
The colour drained from Mia’s already washed-out face. ‘Okay... I’m going to need to get a coffee before I can do... this,’ she announced as she waved her hands at the front door.
She almost jogged back down the pathway.
I turned to Lily’s parents, waiting for them to admonish their daughter for bailing on her only nephew’s first birthday party.
‘She had a client event last night,’ Lily’s mum said proudly.
‘A box at the tennis,’ her dad added, his eyes soft as he watched the back of his youngest daughter disappear down the street.
‘Wow,’ Matt said politely.
I loved Mia but it was slightly bizarre to watch her ascent to unequivocal favourite child after she’d gone to law school and then nabbed a job at a big firm.
