The Wake-Up Call

by Beth O'Leary

For my readers. I treasure every one of you.

Ninety-nine per cent of the time, I think Izzy is the most annoying woman I have ever met, but very occasionally I can’t help noticing how beautiful she is.

‘Am I being ridiculous about these rings, like Lucas says?’ Arjun tilts his head, tapping the pen on the menu. ‘You’re being an optimist,’ he says eventually. ‘And a romantic.’ ‘So . . . Ridiculous?’ ‘No.’ He gives me his full attention – a rare thing from Arjun. ‘You’re being Izzy, and it’s excellent,’ he says, as though it’s as simple as that.

She has surprising eyes. From her colouring you’d expect hazel or brown, but they’re the green of palmeira leaves, and almond-shaped, with decadent long lashes.

‘You’ve got to live every moment and enjoy it.’ Lucas tilts his head, saying nothing. I head for the towels, then pause as he says, ‘No, you don’t.’ ‘Pardon?’ ‘You don’t have to enjoy every moment. Nobody can do that. It would be . . . exhausting.’

We are all misled and misdirected from time to time. Perhaps there really is no shame in that, as long as we wake up to it before it’s too late to change.

There’s a reason it’s harder for women to approach men than the other way around – when the world tells you your worth is about men desiring you, it’s hard to take it when they don’t, and we’re scared to be rejected.

‘You’ll know what to do. If you really like her, it’ll come to you, because if you’re made for each other, you’re made to heal her when she’s hurting.

I’m an idiot and probably made her feel as though I didn’t want her, even though the woman haunts my dreams and has done so for much longer than I’d like to admit.

‘And how long were you “accidentally” checking me out in my swimwear? Did you see anything else of interest? Shall I quiz you on freckle locations?’

clammy. I haven’t been on a date for a while. It wasn’t a conscious decision to stop dating, I just got sick of trawling through Bumble and shaving my legs for men who wouldn’t prove worthy of seeing them.

I know it hurts so bad that your mum and dad aren’t here to give you advice, but for what it’s worth, I think they’d tell you that you know best now. If something in your heart says this guy’s not quite right for you, they’d want you to listen to that.

‘Stay there,’ she says, turning her back on me. ‘I’m not inviting you in. I’ve watched way too many episodes of The Vampire Diaries to fall for that.’

(Why is it that when men sweat, it’s sexy, but when I sweat, I look like I’ve been crossbred with a tomato?)

It is satisfying annoying Izzy. I like getting her to rise to the bait; I like making her eyes flare and narrow, and I like how her humour comes out when she’s snapping back at me. But it turns out that making Izzy happy is a hundred times more satisfying.

I want to look after you. So that you don’t have to do it all, for once.

How did you get from strangers to this, where you’re like one person split in two?

I didn’t know Lucas read books. Most of them are non-fiction, so I suspect I’m some way away from persuading him to tackle my Sarah J Maas collection,

‘If we do this,’ he says, voice rough, accent strong. ‘Then you don’t look away from me.’

‘You’re talking like an American girl about to give up her virginity, cara,’ Pedro says, and then realises he’s speaking English and laughs as the entire queue turns to stare at me. ‘Thank you for that.’

I would like to believe that I can let a person see me, and that once they have, they might think more of me, not less.

That’s what jealousy is, isn’t it? Fear of losing someone?

‘I care,’ I say. ‘I want you to have the best things.’

‘Lucas,’ she says, softly now. ‘You can relax. It’s just me.’ It’s just me. Like she isn’t fucking everything.

‘She’d say you’re being stubborn as a mule and blind as a bat. How can you not see how much you love this boy?’

‘I love you. I am completely, helplessly, undeniably in love with you.

‘Brace yourself, Lucas, because I’m only going to say this once,’ Izzy tells me. ‘You were absolutely right.’

‘Meu amor,’ he whispers, his lips against my ear. ‘My love.’

I close my eyes and move against him. It still feels frightening to tell him I love him, even with his arms locked around me, holding me tight, urging me forward, back. But I’ve made my mind up. No more easy options – I want this, the bright, explosive joy of it. I want to say those words every day. ‘I love you,’ I whisper. ‘Eu te amo,’ he whispers back, and then he lifts his mouth to mine,

‘Some things change, but love doesn’t. When you know . . .’ You know. I understand why people say that about love now: there’s no quantifying this. It is too enormous – too dizzyingly deep.

But this world isn’t perfect, and neither am I. Sometimes things are lost, and you grieve for them, and they change you, and that’s OK.

‘The thing about true love, right, is that sometimes you have to really push yourself out of your comfort zone to find it?’

‘When someone doesn’t value themselves, dear,’ Mrs SB says, pulling back and wiping her face, ‘it’s far too easy to take their word for it. But you’re absolutely brilliant. So brilliant,

‘Izzy Jenkins. My love for you grows stronger every day. I want for ever with you. I want to find out how big and bright this love will be when we’re old and grey.’

‘I’ve known I’ll ask you to marry me since that moment at the airport last Christmas, but I wanted to wait until I truly believed enough of myself to trust that you would say yes. I still think this isn’t a question you should ask because you need to know the answer.’