I’ll let you in on a secret, I’m not really writing this for you to read. I’m writing this for him. I’m hoping that he will read this and realize how truly, deeply sorry I am for not choosing him.
Because he is everything.
So please . . . come back to me. Because I feel lost without you.
I love you.
More laters . . .hopefully.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Dear Diary,
Hi, diary. Real diary. Private diary. It’s been a week since I published the column and I haven’t heard a thing from Alex. Of course the column seems to have catapulted my career, it became the most read and shared thing last week. Everyone has read it and is talking about it, except for the one person that I need to read it.
I even tried to call Alex, and it looks like he no longer has the same number. Julian said he’d also tried to call but it was the wrong number. Seems that Alex has gone to great lengths to keep me away. So at this stage I have two options:
1.I give up. I forget Alex and move on with my life and try to find someone who will one day live up to him (never going to happen), or
2.I can go and find him.
Can you guess which one I’ve done . . .? I’ll give you a clue, let’s just say that I’m writing this from International Departures. In fact, I have to go. Right now.
Wish me luck. More to come . . .
I didn’t sit still the entire flight to London.How could I?An entire ten hours of tapping my foot, pacing the aisle, twirling my hair around my finger and repetitive toilet visits, even though I didn’t need them—I’m sure I burnt more calories on that flight than an hour at the gym.
I had a pent-up ball of energy in my stomach that was twisting my insides into knots that felt like they were going to explode. I felt like that terrible Monty Python sketch, where the man in the restaurant eats too much and explodes. Except mine would be an explosion of emotions that would fill the entire plane, coat its walls and windows and cover everyone in its sticky, messy goo.
And by the time I landed, I was an absolute wreck. The airport bustled with a manic energy, which only served to set my nerves on edge even more. But after what felt like another few hours of pure torture, I finally found a taxi. I leapt in and handed the driver the address.I hoped this was Alex’s apartment.
We finally arrived at the building and I immediately raced up the steps to the front of it. I looked at the wall in panic—there was a massive panel of buzzers for all the various apartments and I had no idea which one was Alex’s. I was just about to start pressing them randomly when I saw someone come out the elevator and walk towards the door. I ducked behind a massive pot plant and when they exited, I grabbed the door and slipped in. It was all very cloak and dagger-y of me.
I walked around in the large reception, my feet clicking loudly against the fancy marble floor, wondering how the hell I was going to find him, when a row of postboxes on the wall caught my eye. I walked up to them and started scanning the names, and there he was.Just like that. Apartment 66. I raced towards the lift, the anticipation building inside me like a coil.Tighter, tighter, tighter . . .I was sure there was a limit to how tightly this thing could be wound, and I was sure I was about to discover where that limit was as the lift seemed to climb the floors like a sloth.
Could it not go faster?Was that too much to ask? I stared, tapping my foot impatiently as the lights for the floors seemed to illuminate in slow motion.
“Oh, come the F on!” I cursed the buttons loudly when the lift seemed to slow down even more.How was it possible for something in the universe to be so perversely slow?
Finally, after what felt like an eternity in hell, it arrived on the right floor. I threw myself out the door and started running down the corridor, reading the apartment numbers as I went.
62, getting closer, 63, nearly there, 64, almost there 65 . . .
There! I was here. And I didn’t waste a second. I banged on the door like a mad person. I heard a footstep inside, I saw the door handle begin to turn and my heart climbed into my mouth. This was it. This was the moment that I had been waiting for. I was about to see Alex and I couldn’t waai—
“You!” My jaw fell open when I saw who was standing on the other side of the door.
“Uh . . . who are you?” she asked. She had that air of snarky superiority, the kind that made you instantly dislike her.
“Connie?” I asked her, even though I knew the answer to that already.
“Yes, that’s me,” she said sarcastically.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Uh . . . I live here,” she said snappily.
My heart climbed out of my mouth and committed suicide by tossing itself on the cold, hard floor. “You . . . you . . . uh . . . you do . . .” I stammered, walking backwards. My feet were just carrying me there on autopilot. As if I had no control over them whatsoever.No wonder he didn’t respond to my article.
