“When on Sunday?”
“First thing in the morning.” I look down at the ground.
“No way! So this is it?”
I nod. But my head is full of angry questions. How can this be it? How have I met someone so funny and kind and right for me and only be able to spend a day with him? This is so unfair.
“Well then, I’m gonna have to look into coming over to the UK for my next vacation,” Noah says with a grin.
It takes every muscle in my face to smile back at him. We trudge over to the truck and get in.
All the way back to the hotel I feel numb with sorrow and disappointment. On the surface, everything is OK. Noah does his running commentary of driving directions and we exchange small talk, but all I can think is, this is so unfair.
By the time we’re back in the underground car park at the hotel, I feel as if I’m going to burst into tears.
“Do you know what an inciting incident is?” Noah says as he turns off the engine.
I shake my head.
“It’s the point at the start of a movie where something happens to the hero that changes their life forever. You’ve seen Harry Potter, right?”
I nod.
“Well, the inciting incident in that movie is when Hagrid tells Harry Potter he’ll be a great wizard someday and gives him the invite to Hogwarts.”
“Oh, right.”
Noah looks down in his lap, like he’s embarrassed. “I think that’s what you might be to me.”
“What? A wizard?”
“No! My inciting incident.”
I glance at him. In the half-light of the car park, his cheekbones look even more chiseled than ever. “What do you mean?” I ask, hardly daring to believe what I think he means.
“I mean, I think this might be the start of something.”
We sit in silence.
“I think you might be my inciting incident too,” I say with a small smile.
• • •
When we get back up to the wedding suite, I’m amazed Mum and Sadie Lee can’t immediately tell something’s happened. I feel so excited and alive; I’m surprised I’m not glowing like one of the fish in the underwater mural. But they’re both too busy putting the finishing touches on the wedding cake—a fondant husband and wife, dressed in twenties-style clothes.
“Elliot and Dad are back,” Mum says. “They’re up in their rooms.”
“OK.” I look at Noah and he looks at me and it feels as if an electrical current is passing between us.
“Are you ready to take me to fetch Bella?” Sadie Lee asks Noah. I feel a pang of sorrow at the thought of him leaving, but it’s softened by another thought: we are each other’s inciting incidents. This means I have to see him again.
“OK then,” Noah says, giving me a knowing smile. “It sure has been fun hanging out with you.”
“You too.” I instantly feel my face blush.
He brings his arms up as if he’s going to hug me, but for some completely ridiculous reason, known only to the God of Awkward Moments, I go to fist-bump him. I’ve never fist-bumped anyone in my life.
“Oh!” Noah sees my raised fist and quickly meets it with one of his own. Then he grips my hand in his and pulls me in for a gangsta-style shoulder-bump. “I’ll call you later,” he whispers in my ear.
I nod, hoping he won’t notice my burning face.
And then he and Sadie Lee are gone. Before I have time to show the tiara to Mum, her phone rings.
“Hi, Cindy,” she says, raising her eyebrows to me.
“Here’s the tiara,” I mouth, placing the box down on the kitchen counter. “I’m going up to my room.”
Mum nods and I walk back out through the wedding suite. By the time I get to the elevator, I have a text from Noah.
Thank you for an awesome day. Speak to you later. N
I quickly start texting him back.
Thank YOU xxx
I look at the text and frown. Three kisses is way too many. Especially when he didn’t send me any. I delete the kisses. Now the text looks really blunt and unfriendly. I add a smiley-faced emoticon. But it looks too immature. Maybe if I did a winky face . . . ? No, no, that looks way too suggestive. I delete the winky face and add a P for Penny. Now it looks like I’m copying exactly what he did. I need to show that I have some kind of originality and flair. Three lifts come and go, but I’m still standing there, typing and deleting, typing and deleting. How can I create an original and mature impression without seeming too keen or too formal? In the end, I go with: “Thank YOU, Penny” and I add a thumbs-up emoticon. Which seemed like a great idea until the moment I pressed send.
• • •
As soon as I get to my room, I go straight over to the adjoining door.
“Elliot, are you in there?”
I open the door. Elliot is lying facedown on his bed, fast asleep. I carefully shut the door and go over to my own bed. Then I lie down and stare up at the ceiling. I want to savor this feeling for as long as I can. I close my eyes and hug one of my pillows to me as I replay every moment of the day in my head. Thank you, thank you, thank you, I whisper to the God of Inciting Incidents.
Then, when I realize I’m far too excited to fall asleep, I go over to my suitcase and pull out my laptop. Carefully avoiding my email and social networks, I go straight to my blog and sign in. There are now over four hundreds comments on my post about facing fear. I “like” them all and reply to the girl who’d been scared of her mum’s drinking. Then I open up a new post and start to type.