The Love of My Afterlife(10)
Being a date tester for a load of people I’ve never met before sounds like my actual nightmare. I’ve never even talked to the shopkeeper of the corner shop even though I see her almost every day. I don’t do people. But…then I think of how Jonah just looked at me. Like he would definitely kiss me of his own free will. In a heartbeat, in fact. All I’d have to do is find him. I already know he lives in London. And that his first name is Jonah, second name something beginning with the letter T. How many Jonah Ts can there be in one city?
I picture my cosy flat with my new stripy rug. All the TV series I’ve yet to finish. Old Mr. Yoon, who has been getting more forgetful of late and has no-one else but me to check in on him. This would be a chance to make sure he’s okay, to make sure he has everything he needs in case I do end up snuffing it for good. My heart starts to beat desperately with the innate human instinct to save one’s own life. To keep breathing and living and being, no matter what it takes.
Before I can second-guess myself, I grab the pen from Merritt and scribble my signature across the bottom of the paper. The wet ink is purple, shimmering like oil in a puddle.
“Ten days,” Merritt repeats. “And he has to kiss you.”
“But what about if—“
I don’t get to finish my question, because Merritt snatches the paper out of my hand and then, with a manic laugh, reaches out her thumb, pressing it resolutely onto my forehead.
I gasp and look down at my arms as they turn iridescent and then into a silver sort of liquid and then…
5
“Delphie? For fuck’s sake. Delphie? Wake up.”
I frown, opening my eyes to see a pair of eyes so dark they’re almost black. The man’s face is so close to mine that I can smell the soap on his skin, something clean and expensive. He’s saying my name, and he seems really pissed off. It takes me a few seconds to recognise the patrician tones, and when I do, I feel a sharp spike of dislike in my belly. I sit bolt upright and push the man’s face away from mine.
“Christ.” A brief look of relief crosses his despicable face. “You’re alive, at least.”
I wipe multiple beads of sweat from my forehead and mash my lips together, mouth dry. I look around. I’m on the floor of my apartment. I’m alive? I gasp for air and take a huge gulp of it in when I realise there’s no restriction. Beautiful air. Wonderful, beautiful, life-giving air.
“Holy shit.” I stand up with a wobble, noticing as I do that my phone is right there on the side table. There is zero sign of a microwave burger anywhere in the vicinity. My TV is switched off and my laptop is closed. “What the fuck?”
Cooper from downstairs towers over me, his treelike frame making my living room look even tinier than it is. He holds his hands up as if he wants no part in answering my question. “I came to bring you that,” he says stiffly, pointing to a cardboard parcel on my kitchen table. “They delivered it to me again. Your door was ajar and I came in to find you passed out on the floor. But you’re clearly not dead. Hurrah. I should go.”
“Wait!” I say, pulling down my nightie. “How long was I passed out? What time is it? Where’s my burger gone? I don’t…” I look towards my window. The sun is setting. I squint at my clock. Eight p.m. “Two hours have passed?”
Cooper regards me coolly. “Are you drunk?”
I grab my throat. “No. No…the beefburger is gone,” I mutter. “Completely vanished. Was that a dream? The launderette…Was it not real?” I shuffle over to my coffee table and scan it. “If there’s no burger, that means…What does that mean?”
Cooper steps towards me and uses two fingers to push my shoulder so that I plop down onto the sofa. “Starting to feel like I should telephone a doctor…” he says, mouth settling into its usual grim line.
“No. No…I’m fine.” I wave him away. “I think…I think I just had a really weird dream.”
Cooper glances around my little living room, a single eyebrow raised. I suddenly see the place through his eyes—faded old floral wallpaper I never got around to changing after Mum moved out, unopened boxes of oil paint stacked high on the teak side table, a row of second-tier knickers drying into cardboard on the radiator.
His eyes snag on the underwear for a moment before sliding back to me with an expression that rests somewhere between mild boredom and outright scorn. Ugh. This guy thinks he’s so much better than everyone else. He’s dressed, as usual, like some wounded yet enigmatic French guy. The kind of guy who reads sun-burnished paperbacks at the bar because he wouldn’t dream of being tethered to an iPhone. The kind of guy who smokes just for the aesthetic. Like if Timothée Chalamet had an extremely tall, extremely brooding asshole of an older brother. Black leather jacket, plain black T-shirt, black jeans, black boots laced neat and tight. Thick stubble because he’s just too clever and mysterious to shave.
When Cooper first moved into the building five years ago, he looked totally different—dark hair much shorter rather than the jumble of curls it is now. He was clean-shaven then, strutting about in obnoxiously loud Hawaiian shirts and board shorts, a pencil tucked behind his ear. There was far, far less scowling. In fact, the day he moved in, I remember thinking his eyes were the most glittering, cheerful eyes I’d ever seen, which goes to show that first impressions are mostly bullshit.