“I mean . . . if that’s okay. I did make up names and places, and it’s not really about you guys, at all. It’s about me. It’s my story. You just all happen to have been such a big part of it, in a completely good way.”
“What’s it about, though?” he asked.
I smiled at him. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
“Okay, well, now we really have to rush this celebratory dinner, so I can get home and start reading.”
“I want to read it, too,” Ash said.
Emelia put her hand up. “Me too.”
“And me,” Techno Tannie said. “Did you put in there that I make music? You should. I just posted my new track on Spotify, if you want to listen,” she said.
I nodded. “Your music is in there. A lot of music is in there.”
“Now I’m dying to read it,” she said.
“You’ll all have your turn, but Mike has to read it first.”
“Why?” he asked.
I smiled to myself. “You’ll see,” I said nervously.
I heard the knock on my door at about six thirty a.m. I was sleepy when I got up, unsure and a little disorientated. I walked over to the door and opened it. Mike was standing there, holding the manuscript. I could see that the corners were crunched and crumpled, as if he’d been reading it. He held the book up.
“Uh . . . so I read this,” he said.
“And?” I asked, waking up with a yawn.
“It’s . . . it’s incredible,” he said.
“Really?”
He nodded. “And the letters you wrote are so beautiful. I mean, they are completely made up and so different to the real ones, but they are still so accurate. You captured the feeling in them perfectly. You captured everything perfectly. The town, the people, yourself . . . everything.”
“I didn’t think I was going to be able to write those letters and do them any kind of justice, because I’d never experienced anything like it . . . But now . . .” I paused.
“Yes. Now . . .” he said. “That’s kind of what I wanted to ask you about.”
“Ask away,” I said nervously.
“Well, I read something in the book that I just want to confirm, because I don’t want to misinterpret anything here, and I certainly don’t want to make a complete idiot of myself.”
“What do you want to understand?” I asked.
“So . . .” He flipped the manuscript open and there was a highlighted line in it. “Well, it’s this part, really, that I want to just make sure I’m reading correctly.” He pointed at the line and held it up in front of my face. I read it.
“What about that line?” I asked.
“Well . . .” He turned the manuscript around and cleared his throat. “It seems to imply that you—”
“Have fallen in love with you?” I asked, cutting him off.
“Well, yes.” He looked up at me, malachite eyes shining in the early-morning light that was rushing through the stained-glass window.
“Yes,” I repeated.
“So, I’m not reading this wrong, then?” he asked.
