I Was Born for This(71)

It just comes out, like a reflex.

I want Angel to come with me. I don’t know why, but I do. Is it because I know I won’t be able to get out of here alone? Maybe. Is it because I just feel drawn to her? I don’t know. I don’t know why I feel anything any more. Maybe it’s just because she’s the only fan in the world who knows who I really am.

I don’t want to just say goodbye and never see her again.

‘Of course,’ says Angel, her eyes wide and unblinking, as if she wouldn’t mind if I wanted to go to Australia. To Pluto. To Heaven itself. ‘Wherever.’

‘You’re not busy?’

‘Busy,’ she scoffs, as if the notion is ridiculous. Then her expression turns serious again. ‘Does … does anyone know where you are?’

‘You mean apart from the hundred people that just mobbed me?’ I laugh bitterly.

‘I mean … like Rowan and Lister. Or your manager?’

‘No. No, they don’t know.’

I don’t want to think about them right now. I don’t want to think about any of that.

‘Can we go?’ I ask.

She straightens out her hoodie and nods.

‘Yeah. Let’s go.’





Somehow I have ended up on a train to Kent with my son, Jimmy Kaga-Ricci.

I jokingly refer to him as my ‘son’ online all the time, but the more time I spend with him, the more I’m starting to feel like his actual parent. My sunglasses are massive on his head when I suggest he uses them as a disguise. I have to buy our train tickets for us using his card because he’s too nervous to talk to anyone.

Also, he seems to be going through some sort of emotional breakdown.

I mean, I think I might be as well.

I only remember once we’ve been on the train for ten minutes that I should probably text Dad and tell him I’m not coming home after all.

Is everything okay? he texts back.

I send him a thumbs-up emoji.

Jimmy doesn’t talk much. Hardly at all, in fact. The soft, smiley persona from all the videos and photos I’ve seen appears to be imaginary.

But, despite everything, he’s still Jimmy Kaga-Ricci.

Before we leave, he says, ‘You don’t have to come with me.’

But I’d go anywhere with him, wouldn’t I?

I love him. I don’t know how else to describe the feeling I have for Jimmy Kaga-Ricci. It’s not a crush. Not infatuation. I mean love in the ‘I will think about you every day for my whole life’ sense. Love, like the desperate ache to hold on to something useless, even though you know that if you threw it away, nothing would change.

How did that happen to me?





‘Man, how far out is this house?’ asks Angel, as we’re sitting in another taxi, driving through Kent. We’ve long since left Rochester station, and we’ve been driving for at least half an hour. Grandad lives in the countryside.

She’s peering out of the window, though we can barely see anything through the rain.

‘It’s far,’ I say.

Angel shoots me a look. ‘How mysterious.’

‘I’m not gonna give you the address. Sorry. It’s not safe.’

‘Ha, d’you wanna blindfold me as well? Like they do in the movies? Okay, yeah, that would make this way creepier than it already is.’

I don’t reply.

‘You kids picked the wrong day to come down the moors,’ says the taxi driver, an older woman with a different but as strong an accent as Gary. ‘They say flooding’s on its way.’

I say nothing again, so Angel, who seems to be literally incapable of putting up with a conversation pause, says, ‘No way, is the rain that bad?’

She’s got this fake voice. It’s easy to tell the difference between the things she really means and the things she’s just saying to be polite, or to make people like her, or to carry on a conversation.

They talk about the weather for a bit and I zone out. My phone has run out of battery.

‘Where d’you want dropping off, kids?’ asks the taxi driver when we enter the village. It’s pretty small, bordered by thick woodland and rolling fields, and the houses are all custom-built, each one markedly different from its neighbours. Grandad’s house is on the other side of the village, about a ten-minute walk. My house, I mean.

Angel looks at me, waiting for me to respond, since she has no idea where we’re actually going.

‘Just here is fine,’ I say. Don’t want her knowing exactly where my house is. Just in case.

I pay her and we get out of the car. Angel seems almost cheerful. I think it might be an act.

I think everything she does might be an act, really.

It’s not dark yet, but the sky is so grey that the streetlamps have come on. The pavement and the road are dotted with puddles, and after a couple of minutes we’re completely soaked. Neither of us has an umbrella, or even a coat. My jeans are freezing and sticking to my skin. Angel keeps tentatively adjusting her hijab. I offer to carry one of her bags for her, but she flat out refuses to let me.

She talks the entire while we’re walking.

Most of the time she doesn’t seem to require a response. She talks about so many things and so quickly too, jumping from family holidays to school trips to old friends to internet videos without any pause. Is it a sort of nervous tic? Is she just attention-seeking? I don’t think I’ve met anyone who talks so much.