Page 126 of The Wedding Forecast

‘My turn to ask questions,’ I say. ‘I’ll start with the most annoying. Where do you see yourself in five years?’

‘Married with kids,’ he says immediately. Then he looks anxious again. ‘Sorry. Did that scare you?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Wait. How many kids?’

‘Between two and four.’

‘Now I’m scared. Four kids in the next five years?’

‘No, that’s a ten-year plan. A very loose one. I’m an only child, and I always dreamed of a big family.’

‘I’m an only child too,’ I say.

We smile at each other.

‘Why did you give me a second chance? After I never replied to you?’ I ask.

‘Everyone deserves a second chance,’ he says. ‘And I’m more of a slow burn. It can take’—he pauses, calculating—‘fifteen months to realise how dateable I am.’

I laugh, and he looks at me with a serious face.

‘I do have one more question,’ he says.

‘What’s that?’

‘Can I kiss you?’

‘You can,’ I say.

It’s awkward at first—it’s always awkward when someone asks, the hesitation after you say yes, the wait for him to lean in, the self-awareness of preparing my lips to be kissed, of closing my eyes at the right moment—but after a moment, I’m into it. He’s a pretty good kisser. And, I realise, I haven’t thought about his dexterous fingers once tonight. Not even when he carefully cut up the cheese.

He drives me home, and in the car outside my house, he asks to kiss me again.

‘You don’t need to keep asking,’ I say, after I draw back from the kiss.

‘I like to ask the first three times,’ he says.

‘Okay, let’s get that third ask out of the way,’ I say, pulling him towards me and kissing him again.

It’s nice. It’s all so nice. Not everything needs to feel like it did with Mac. This feeling—of being safe, of enjoying his company, of slow-building attraction—can be wonderful too.

Later that night, I take the photo of Mac and me out of my bedside drawer. I have to get rid of it, I decide. Because Patrick’s fingers might no longer be a problem, but the picture is. It’s weighing me down, it’s holding me back. I want Patrick, the bookshop, my life here, and I can’t if I’m holding on to this fantasy.

Because I miss Mac. I miss his voice, I miss his words popping up on my phone, I miss talking about movies, I miss us telling each other stories, I miss imagining what I’m going to say to him throughout the day before we get to talk. I miss all of it. But the missing-him pain is like the pain you feel when you go back to weights at the gym after a long hiatus. Every muscle hurts because it’s been torn apart but it’s also rebuilding, it’s getting stronger. And I can only keep getting stronger if I get the photograph out of my life.

I take out a piece of paper, a nice piece of paper from my fancy stationery box (a box of stationery items I have bought because they are beautiful and then never used), and I write a note: Dear Mac, someone gave me this photo of us and it makes me think of you. I still think about you all of the time. Because it was wonderful. I hope you are well. And happy. Love, Anna.

That is an unhinged letter if I have ever seen one. I fold the letter around the picture. I will probably throw both of them away tomorrow, in the light of day.

But I decide to send it, because if I want to pursue anything with Patrick, I need to get rid of this picture. Let it burn a hole in Mac’s life. Let him throw it out or put it in a box somewhere. Let it be his burden. I have to let go of him, all of him.

I get up early and I go to the post office before work and buy a special envelope for sending photos, with cardboard backing, and I send the photo and letter to Mac’s address, before I have second thoughts.

I immediately regret it, of course. How embarrassing, sending that. It’s all so dramatic. I’m not a teenager. I could have just thrown it away, or given it to Hayley to put in a box for me to find in twenty years. Or burned it in a ceremony with Bobbi. We could integrate it into the new shop opening: come and burn pictures of your ex-boyfriend and we’ll give you a new literary man to love.

But it’s done now and I do feel better. I feel lighter. I found Patrick in the end and I should have just saved myself a whole lot of time and heartache and kissed him at the wedding instead. The mums will be so happy.

PART THREE