Page 66 of The Book Swap

25. What’s your best memory from your school years?

I thought it might include a story about Bonnie, but she’s written about that for question twenty-three. She obviously wanted to mix it up.

When I was in year ten, it was Valentine’s Day. All the girls in our year were so excited. Coming into different classes holding a rose, or a card. I thought it was awful and cheesy, but I was still a bit jealous. A few weeks earlier I’d lost this silver bracelet and I was so upset. Going on to everyone about how I couldn’t find it. When I reached into my backpack in English, there was a box and a card in there. When I opened it, it was a really similar bracelet, and the card just had a question mark in it. I’ve always thought it was Bonnie. She always said it wasn’t. I’ll never know, but every time I think of that moment, it makes my heart dance a little bit.

Now reading her words fills me with the same feeling. Because it wasn’t Bonnie. It was me.

25

ERIN

“Erin, there’s some food outside the door.”

Mum’s voice sounds as though she’s pressed right up against it, and I wait until I hear her footsteps disappear back down the stairs before I hoist up my tracksuit bottoms, tiptoe to the edge of my room and retrieve my dinner.

After Georgia and I came here for my birthday Boxing Day, I climbed into bed and I haven’t been able to leave. Georgia went back to London, checking over and over if I was sure I didn’t want to go with her, but just like last time, my legs wouldn’t do it.

Mum and Derek have been going to work, but making sure I’m fed before and after.

While they’re gone, all I’m able to do is read through the notes in the margins of all the books James and I exchanged. He has all the books with his questions and my answers, but I have all the others, where he’s answered back to me. I do believe him. I don’t think he knew it was me at the beginning. I think the day he wrote that his name was Edward, that was when he found out. That’s why his next questions were about my memories of Bonnie and school.

The hurt is twice as deep. To be betrayed by him once was bad enough, but twice has split me in two. Twice I’ve trusted him, and he’s burnt me in return.

The last time that I lay in bed, unable to leave, I lost out on time at school and time with Bonnie. This time, I’m missing out on being there to support Savannah before her results. I’m missing my teaching with the girls in the year below Savannah. They’ve got mocks to prepare for and I was going to be helping them. Cassie’s moved in and I’m not even there in the flat. Everything was about to start again for me.

I’ve brought the framed postcard from Bonnie, and it’s resting against the wall, staring back at me.

Don’t forget to make all your dreams come true!

I open up the frame, pulling the postcard out. I trace the words with my finger, thinking about when she wrote that, and why. The first time I saw her again, after months of keeping my distance.

All of this feels linked somehow. I kept going back to that library because I needed the postcard back, and what was waiting for me changed my life. Squinting, I turn the card over, scanning my eyes across Piglet and Pooh. It’s almost like Bonnie’s behind it all. My search for the postcard led me to James—but that makes no sense because she hated him too, after what he did. She told me she ignored him at school. She didn’t speak to him again. Shaking my head, I put the postcard down on the bed. I’ve been inside this room too long. I’m starting to think about things that don’t make sense. I didn’t want this postcard to lead me to James. I needed it because it’s the only sign I have that Bonnie forgave me for everything that happened.

I’ll accept every bit of pain that comes because I know it’s the punishment I deserve, for abandoning Bonnie when she needed me the most.

When I look back, I’m not even sure how it happened. I went to visit her in Frome the way I promised I would on that very first weekend, after she told me about her diagnosis. I took food. Signed up to every possible streaming service that promised bad TV like Real Housewives and Below Deck. Things that would distract her. That we could watch together to take her mind off everything.

I was expecting Bonnie to be the same, but even within that week something had changed. I didn’t know how to connect with her anymore. Things I said to make her laugh weren’t landing. She didn’t seem to want me to hug her, or to talk about our lives. There were no threats from her. No “Do this or I’ll tell everyone the mystery floater in the girl’s loo that wouldn’t flush for three days was you.” Her mind was somewhere else. Of course it was. I understand why now. I don’t know why I couldn’t then. How I could be so blind?

Each time I went back home it was worse than before. It was still the early days of the chemo, but some days I’d turn up at the house and her mum or dad would have to gently turn me away. They would say that she was too sick, or she wasn’t up to seeing anyone. Bonnie had never rejected me before—and she was the one person who I thought never would. It brought back everything I’d felt about my mum, and James. I didn’t know how to cope. When I did see her, she’d make excuses or drop hints for me to leave early. Her face would sometimes fall at the sight of me. I started making my own excuses. I would say I was busy with a boyfriend, or Charlotte was keeping me late at work and booking me for events at the weekend. Actually, I was offering myself forward for anything and everything that came up. Booking weekends away and assuring myself that Bonnie didn’t need me. If she did, she’d ask.

By the time her dad called me on that day in August, I hadn’t been back in months. I’d messaged. Sent voice notes. She replied when she could. I did everything it took to be what I thought was a good friend, from afar. I can only admit this now, but I was waiting. Waiting for her to get better. Waiting for her to be the Bonnie from before.

Instead, her dad told me the opposite. That I should get back to Frome. Bonnie was asking for me. The chemo wasn’t working, and she’d decided to stop the treatment, and live as many good days as she could without it. I always thought in the films when people received bad news over the phone and sank to the ground that it was unrealistic. Heightened for dramatic impact, but it’s exactly what I did. I crumpled to the ground, an animalistic sound escaping from my mouth as my mobile fell beside me.

I raced back. She’d asked for me. If she wanted me there, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

That was the night we went to The Griffin and she gave me the postcard. The night she was the old Bonnie, just for me.

Now, in a few weeks’ time, it’s the memorial and the anniversary of her death. Yes, I was there. From the day we met at The Griffin, I hardly left her side, but it was all too late. She deserved so much more from me. A friend who was there for her through all of it, not just the ending. Someone who sat beside her through every single chemo session, holding her hand and telling her how much she meant to them. Who picked her up and kept her company, expecting nothing in return. I was naive, and I was afraid. I couldn’t admit that my best friend was dying, and if I couldn’t see her, I didn’t have to believe it.

I can never forgive myself for doing that to her, and I’m sort of glad the universe won’t either. That it keeps breaking my heart, so I remember how I broke hers.

I wake up the next day to someone banging on the front door.

“Postie,” they shout, before banging again.

I wait for Mum to answer, but I can’t hear her downstairs. I check my phone. That would make sense. It’s gone eleven in the morning. The postie can leave any letters or parcels on the doorstep.