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He’s silent, watching me.

‘If we should do it,’ I continue. ‘From the perspective of our…’ I don’t know how to end this sentence but he is waiting for me to end it. ‘I don’t know whether it’s good for us. Personally.’

‘Whether it’s good for us personally,’ he repeats and I don’t know how to read his tone.

‘I mean, it probably wouldn’t be,’ I say. ‘Unless you’re over what happened.’

A beat. He meets my eyes. God, the urge to kiss him is still there. More than ever.

‘I’m over it,’ he says.

‘Me too,’ I say. ‘So I guess there’s no reason not to do the session then.’

‘There’s still a reason,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to do it.’

‘Okay,’ I say, standing up. ‘I guess that’s that.’

‘It is. I’m sorry you came all this way.’ His voice is hard and flat.

‘It’s fine. I’m off to drive around cafes until I find another author who might want to be in the festival,’ I say.

‘Good luck. Try Carlton or Brunswick,’ he says, looking back down at his laptop, and not looking up at me again.

I leave and walk all the way to my car and get in. A part of me wants to put my head on the steering wheel and sob, but I am determined not to. I have cried enough over this man.

It would be easier if I hadn’t seen him wearing glasses.

But it really feels like that’s the end now. That I’ll never see him again. Or, at least, not for a long time.

Goodbye Xavier.

38

I DRIVE HOME and busy myself so there is absolutely no time at all for me to feel my feelings. My feelings are to be squashed—physically if they have to be. It’s too cold to exercise outside, and too late, so I turn on a yoga video, a hard one, and try to channel everything into my breath. I am breathing in, and when I breathe out, I am letting go of any and all feelings towards Xavier.

I am holding this uncomfortable pose and letting him go.

I also need to figure out a replacement session.

The next morning, I have five very average options to choose from. No one wants to call up an author on a Thursday and say, Hey this festival we’re holding this weekend—the one we didn’t originally invite you to—would you like to come after all, very last minute, the bookshop doesn’t have time to order in copies of your book and no one has time to prepare, what do you say? No, it’s a terrible ask. The better version is getting someone already taking part to do an extra session, but the two best options have schedules that don’t allow for it.

Jamila is looking at me when I walk in. We have agreed that we’re not allowed to gossip until we solve this problem. I am dying to know if Jamila and Darius had a better time on round two. I have told them Xavier said no, but I’ve given no further details.

‘Okay, do we have any ideas?’ Jamila says. ‘Because I’d love to post something on socials about it. We’ve had a bunch of complaints about Jessica’s session being cancelled. People saying they booked accommodation and bought tickets especially to see her.’

‘What do they want us to do, drag her out of her sick bed and prop her on stage in acute pain?’ Kat asks.

‘Probably yes,’ Jamila says. ‘Someone asked if we could do an online event with her instead.’

‘People need to back off,’ Kat says. Then she looks at me. ‘But it would be good if we could offer them something.’

‘What about a book-club discussion of Jessica’s work?’ I say. ‘Hillary could facilitate it, and maybe Jessica’s publisher could talk and surely we can find one other author,’ I say.

Kat nods. ‘That’s not the worst option.’

‘Honestly, we could just stick Hillary on stage and get her to discuss her career,’ I add.

‘She did that for the launch event,’ Kat says.