As far as I can tell from googling while driving （do not recommend, extremely dangerous）—Lucas’s flight boards in thirty-eight minutes.
“Move! Move!” I hoot my horn. “Oh my God, Jem, there’s a fucking pony in the way!”
“Ride it?” Jem suggests.
She’s on speaker. She rang for entertainment and distraction—she’s currently hiding in her parents’ spare bedroom with the disgraced Piddles, feeling （as she put it） “about the size of a frickin’ Borrower” after a lunch with her overachieving cousins. She was delighted when I told her I was actually chasing a man down at an airport, rom-com style.
“Don’t be ridiculous, they go at twenty miles an hour, max,” I say, hooting the horn again. “Oh my God, I’m going to have to get out.”
I yank on the parking brake and tumble out of the car, shooing the horse aside and then running back to Smartie.
“I’m on the move again!” I yell.
Jem gives me a little supportive whoop. I slam the brakes on as a pheasant trundles across the road.
“Argh, pheasant! Bloody New Forest wildlife!” I shout. “These animals have no respect for an epic love story!”
“Maybe that bird is on his way to his one great love,” Jem says. “Always remember you never know what kind of day someone else is having.”
“Can you not be sickeningly nice, just this one time?”
She laughs. “You’ll make it, little pigeon.”
“I really won’t! He’ll already be through to departures, I don’t know how I’m going to find him—how do people do it in films?”
“I dunno, actually,” Jem says thoughtfully as I climb up the gears, the pheasant having finally reached the other side of the road. “It involves a lot of running . . . and ducking under things. Or jumping over things.”
“I wish I’d gone to the gym more than once in the last six months,” I say, speeding up. “He won’t answer the phone, so that’s out. At least he’s tall. He’ll be easy to spot in a crowd. I’m just going to have to wing it when I get there. Oh, God, what if he never forgives me for being such a knob?” A wash of fear moves through me. “What if he doesn’t like me anymore? What if he’s just going to reject me all over again, in front of an airport full of people?”
“Then it’ll hurt,” Jem says. “But you’ll handle it.” Her voice softens into its lowest key. “You can cope with so much more than you think, Izzy. You’ve coped with the very worst thing in the world.”
I screech around a corner. “Do you think losing my parents has made me too scared of risking things? I always try to live life to the fullest, you know, but am I not actually doing that at all?”
“You are in so many ways—you’re so brave! But letting someone in, loving someone, that’s hard for all of us. And you’ve got the extra challenge of knowing what it feels like to say goodbye to the people you love most. So . . .”
“I’m going to do it, though,” I say, the adrenaline soaring. “I’m going to tell him I—I’m going to tell him I’m in love with him.”
“Go seize the day, my little pigeon. My romance-loving heart could really do with a happy ending right now.”
I can hear the smile in Jem’s voice.
“I’ll do my best to deliver,” I promise her, “and kill as few pheasants as possible in the process.”
“Atta girl.”
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
In all my wild imaginings of how this airport chase is going to go, I’ve been envisaging it like Love Actually or Friends. Sprinting through crowds, shouting Lucas’s name, desperate to find him.
I had forgotten what Bournemouth Airport is like.
It’s basically one room. There’s no queue for security—it’s all very calm. Slightly wrong-footed, I approach the woman checking tickets and passports.
“Hi! I don’t have a ticket! I’m here to tell a man I love him!”
She eyes me. “Roger,” she calls, without looking away. “We’ve got another one!”
Roger appears from somewhere, hitching up his belt. He is very large and looks very bored.
“May I start by saying, do not try to push past me,” Roger says. “I will catch you immediately and escort you to Bournemouth police station.”
If asking politely doesn’t work, pushing past the security guard is my plan B, so this is a blow.