She looked at herself in the photo: nineteen years old, so full of confidence and conviction. Back then, she’d been sure she was going to be an actress or a writer, that she would lead a creative, fulfilling life. And that love, the kind you read about, would be just around the corner. What would that girl think of the life she had now?
Whenever she felt unsettled about the future, or disappointed in the present, Chloe turned to the past. Reaching beneath her bed, she pulled out a dusty shoebox. Inside were all the notes the Imp had ever sent—clues, riddles, and poems, all written in his distinctive, sweeping calligraphy. She’d always known these notes were from her best friend, Sean, though he had never said it out loud. These notes were her proof that someone could know you better than you knew yourself. That therewere kind, thoughtful men in the world, even if they weren’t in her life right now. Flicking through the box, she found a ripped playbill forThe Taming of the Shrew.She thought back to that opening night, the night when everything had changed. What would she do differently now?
There was a gentle tap at her door and Chloe looked up to see her mother standing in the doorway wearing a dressing gown and fluffy pink bed socks.
“You’re back early,” she said, pushing her gray fringe away from her eyes. “He wasn’t a charming young man who whisked you off your feet, then?”
“Sadly no whisking and very little charming,” Chloe said with a weak smile. “The loo in the pub was nice though, so that’s something.”
“Oh that makes all the difference,” her mum said enthusiastically. “Did they have those little cotton flannels instead of the paper towels?”
“No, but they had moisturizer as well as soap.”
“Oh, well, it’s almost worth going just for that, then,” her mother said with a knowing nod. They shared a smile, and her mother came to sit down beside her.
“I’m beginning to think I might have terrible taste in men, Mum.”
Her mother laughed and squeezed her hand. “That’s not true.”
“It is. At uni, I always fancied the arrogant rugby boys who wouldn’t give me the time of day. I overlooked the nice suitable men who actually liked me.”
“Well, rugby boys have got those lovely thighs,” her mum said, and Chloe leaned her head on her shoulder.
“I wasted two years with Peter,” Chloe said quietly. “Everyone could see he was bad news, except me.”
“Weak men don’t like strong women. You saw through him eventually, love,” her mother said, hugging her close.
“I just don’t trust myself anymore, Mum. I don’t trust my instincts.”
Her mother reached for the threadbare teddy that sat on Chloe’s pillow. He had once belonged to Chloe’s grandmother Valerie, and something about him—perhaps the tilt of his stitched brow—exuded the same air of intelligent mischief that his previous owner had possessed in spades.
“Don’t listen to her, Aloysius,” her mother said, covering the bear’s ears with his paws. Chloe smiled, reaching for him. He had faded fur; loose, frayed stitches; lumpy stuffing; and scratched glass eyes that gave him a look of worn-out wisdom. Peter had never liked him, had refused to have “the manky bear” in their flat. But to Chloe he was a treasured possession—imbued with nostalgia for her childhood and the warmth of her grandmother, a link to a time before she even existed.
“It might take you a little while to see when something’s wrong,” her mother said softly. “But when it’s right? Trust me, you’ll know. Life isn’t a race. Everyone gets where they need to go in their own time.” She leaned forward and kissed Chloe’s head. “Right, I’m off to bed, I haven’t done my Wordle yet.” With a glance at the open shoebox, she added, “Don’t stay up too late reminiscing. You can’t live in the past, you know, only the present, maybe the future.”
Her mum blew her a kiss, said good night, then quietly closed the door behind her. Once she was gone, Chloe pulled the Perfect Partners card from her bag. Wendy did say it was the future. She turned it over in her hand, running a finger along the thick edge.
“What do you think, Aloysius?” she asked the bear. “Is somesecretive, high-end dating service going to be the solution to all our problems?”
She shook Aloysius’s head for him. “No. I didn’t think so either. Shall we look for cute 1950s hats on Vinted instead?” Aloysius nodded. He was a bad-influence sort of bear, but he was old enough to know that scrolling for hats was much more enjoyable than scrolling for men. And that indulging her nostalgia for fashion was probably safer than reminiscing about the contents of that shoebox.
2
Ten and a Half Years Earlier
The thick velvet curtain didnothing to muffle the roar of applause. Foot stomps reverberated through the floorboards. Chloe turned to Sean beside her on the stage, his face flushed with triumph.
“Listen to that, they loved it,” she said, eyes glittering with delight.
“Of course they did,” he said, grinning back, his black hair damp with sweat, pupils wide with adrenaline. “You were spectacular.”
“Everyone was,” Chloe said, catching Akiko’s hand in the line beside her and giving it a squeeze.
“I thought I was going to throw up when I saw how packedit was,” said Akiko, pulling a face. “And I needed the loo for the whole of act two.”
The band filed onstage now, led by John, and the curtain lifted once more so the musicians could take their bow. As the spotlight hit them, the crowd erupted again—shouts, whistles, Chloe’s name called from the stalls. Sean nudged her forward, pushing her through the line of musicians, and she stumbled, alone, into the spotlight. The applause surged as she took a final bow.
She had never known an opening night like it. No missed cues, not a single flubbed line; there was an energy onstage that felt electric. Everything about tonight felt like a real, professional production rather than a student play. Chloe hadn’t been acting Katherina; she hadbeenKatherina. All those months of writing and rewriting, the midnight rehearsals, those late nights workshopping with Sean, transforming Shakespeare’sThe Taming of the Shrewinto something raw, modern, their own. It had all been worth it. Because there was no high on earth like this. No legal high, anyway.
