I Wrote Their Love Story, So I Wrote Myself Out novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Four Emails

We flew home the next day, with nothing to carry but my backpack and a stack of paper in Isla's jacket.

Leith was grey and wet, and the Brodie Picture House sat on its corner with its lights off.

The nurse and the bin lorry man had left a note on the box office glass.

Nobody died. The popcorn machine did. Welcome back.

Isla laughed so hard she had to lean on the door.

Upstairs, in her grandmother's flat above the foyer, she lit the stove and put the kettle on and did not say a word about what was in her jacket.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

The room was small, with a slanted ceiling and a window onto the street, and a patchwork quilt that smelled faintly of lavender.

She came in with two mugs, set them on the sill, and took the folded pages out of her jacket.

She sat beside me and put them in my hands.

"Demi gave me these on Thursday," she said. "They came out of Dennis's laptop."

I turned the first one over.

It was my own saved copy, printed fresh, the one I had read a hundred times.

The other three lay under it.

"You wrote four," I said.

"Four. You only got one." She folded her hands in her lap. "I want you to read them to me, one at a time. And after each one, you tell me what you'd have said, if you'd answered."

"Isla."

"You never wrote back. I'd like to hear it."

I held the first page up to the lamp.

To whoever holds the camera. You pan like someone who loves the room. Come and see it twenty feet tall.

I read it aloud, and my voice was steadier than I'd thought it would be.

"I'd have said yes," I said.

"Would you?"

"I thought it was a joke. Dennis sent it with a laughing face, so I thought the joke was on me." I looked at her. "But if I'd had the nerve, I'd have written, I'll be there on Friday. Save me a seat."

"Which seat?"

"The one nearest the projector."

She smiled, with her eyes wet.

"Next," she said.

The second was dated Christmas.

I read it as it was written.

I've kept a seat free in the third row, on the aisle, for the whole year, in case you came. It's yours if you want it. No questions. Happy Christmas, whoever you are.

My eyes stung.

"I was editing the holiday special that night," I said. "Demi and Wyatt in matching jumpers, throwing flour at a dog. I'd have closed the laptop. I'd have got on a plane."

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