I Owe You One

by Sophie Kinsella

The trouble with me is, I can’t let things go. They bug me. I see problems and I want to fix them, right here, right now.

“I’m spelling things out because I know you,” says Hannah. “And what I worry is that deep down you’re still hoping for some sort of miracle.” There’s silence. I’m not going to say, “Don’t be ridiculous,” because there’s no point lying to your best friend.

Whenever Mum smiles, lines appear all over her face. They stretch like sunrays from her eyes; they score her cheeks and mark out her forehead in deep creases. Grief brought extra lines to her face. I saw it happen. And maybe some people think the lines are ugly, but I see love and life in every one of them.

Distantly, I’m aware that I’m not speaking appropriately. But I can’t seem to stop myself. Sense has taken a back seat for now. Alcohol is in charge of talking. And Alcohol says, “Woo! Anything goes!”

“The rational part of my brain,” he says at last, “understands that everything is random. There are a million possibilities in the universe. Us meeting is just one of those possibilities, and just as meaningless.” He sounds so matter-of-fact, I feel my heart droop a little. But then he carries on, in the same tone: “The thing is, though, I can’t imagine a world that didn’t bring us together. We were meant to be. Don’t you feel it? You were meant to walk into Café Allegro. The water molecules were meant to fall though the ceiling. It’s been event on event on event. Your parents bought a shop in Acton. Mine didn’t move to France.”

It’s all been coming toward this moment.” He rests his head on his hand to gaze at me, a shaft of moonlight falling on his cheekbone. “This exact moment,” I echo, teasing him. “This precise moment right here.” “So this is pretty epic.” I gesture, rumpling the duvet with a smile. It seems quite mundane, for an epic moment. Although, actually, what more-momentous instant is there in life than being in bed with the person you feel is right? Really, really right? As these thoughts pass through my head, I suddenly feel light-headed, almost scared. Because he is right for me. He is, he is. “So…this is it?” I say lightly. “This is what it’s all been heading for? This is as good as it gets?” “No. It’s only going to get better.”

We met guys and we fell in love and everything seemed to work out. Until it didn’t.

“You can’t go back in time and do life a different way.”

Thinking about Seb and what might have been fills me with such pain I can barely breathe. Which is why I try not to do it. But I can’t help myself.

Or how you can be the happiest you’ve ever felt with someone and then the saddest.

I have that weird thought, just as I did in the coffee shop when I first saw him: I know you. But I can’t know him, can I? Or I’d know why we’ve ended up like this, meeting like two stilted strangers. Didn’t he feel what I was feeling? Didn’t he feel the joy? What happened between us—what happened?

You need to start thinking less about what you owe other people and more about what you owe yourself.