Mo gripped the steering wheel, his eyes glued to the road ahead, as she placed her hand on his thigh. A swell of grief gathered in his chest. For his mum, for what he’d done, for what he could’ve had with Netta.
He cleared his throat. ‘So, what’s the deal with the interview today?’
Netta’s hand retreated and she turned to look out the window as the countryside zipped by. ‘They’re coming to the hotel at lunchtime. I’m grateful for the chance to tell the truth, especially after seeing him at the gala, but I’m also shitting myself.’
‘Don’t be nervous. They want to bury him,’ he said. His voice felt detached from him. A separate entity. ‘They’ll be on your side. Just tell the truth.’
Netta looked at him. ‘The whole truth and nothing but the truth.’
Mo shifted in his seat, uncomfortably exposed under her gaze. The truth had killed the beautiful thing that had been growing between them—like a flower yanked from the ground, roots and all—and now here he was, telling her to bare her soul to a bone-picking magazine reporter. What a hypocrite.
They were silent for the rest of the drive. Awkward didn’t even begin to cover it. Mo’s head whirred—a broken revolving door, thumping him with every rotation, letting the same thought in over and over and over:You’ve fucked it.
When he pulled up at the front of her hotel, she turned to him, her face tense.
‘Thank you for such an … unforgettable Christmas,’ she said.
Mo nodded feebly. Thirty years of running and now, in one weekend, the black smoke he’d kept walled up was consuming him, filling his lungs with an indescribable darkness he was powerless against.
‘Will I—’ she hesitated. ‘Will we see each other again?’
Mo’s wall was almost rebuilt now, he could feel it, like a demolition played in reverse. ‘I’ve, ah, got some stuff I need to do,’ he lied. ‘I’m not sure when I’ll be free.’
‘Oh.’ Her eyes were downcast, her nod almost imperceptible behind the curtain of her hair. ‘Right.’
‘I don’t really do this sort of thing.’ The words erupted from him, their edges sharper than he’d intended, Netta’s wounded expression proof of their damage. He swallowed, looking at her through lowered eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have …’
‘What?’
‘None of this should’ve happened,’ he said flatly. ‘It was a mistake.’
Netta’s teeth sank into her bottom lip and she nodded. ‘I see.’
Mo stared out the window and chewed the inside of his cheek, willing it to swell, to bleed, for his physical pain to match his bruised brain and battered heart.
In his peripheral vision, Netta straightened and looked to him.
‘So, it was all nothing?’
Mo kept his eyes averted and sniffed. ‘It wasn’t nothing,’ he said, ‘but it can’t be anything more, either. I thought …’ His voice withered, sucked dry by the parasitic blackness surrounding him. ‘I thought I was different with you. Iamdifferent with you. But I can’t be different. Different is— It just doesn’t work.’ He turned to look at her to find her eyes glossy with tears, her brow drawn into a frown.
‘I’m sorry.’ His voice was robotic. Nothing about him felt natural—he was sure she could see straight through him to his mechanical bones and rusted heart.
‘I should’ve known better,’ she said, a hardness creeping over her face. ‘You practically came with a warning label slapped across your forehead.’
‘Netta—’
‘No, don’t explain. I can’t believe I’ve made this mistake again.’
‘It’s not you—’
‘Yeah, yeah. I get it, Mo.’ She held her hand up to silence him. ‘Look, I didn’t ask you to tell me about the diary. I flew across the planet to bring it back to you and I never asked you about it once. I respected your privacy. Genuinely. Have you … Actually, don’t worry about it.’
‘Say it.’ He wanted to feel her barbs. Sharper the better.
‘Have you been playing me?’ she asked. ‘Tricking me into thinking you were interested just to get your reputation back on track? Has it all been for show? Because I thought we had a connection, Mo. I thought it wasreal.And that took some work, to be honest, because the thought that someone like you could like someone like me is pretty far-fetched.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
