Chapter 1
At 11:43 p.m., Maya Bennett finally wrote the sentence she had been avoiding for two years. I should have left you the first time you made me feel difficult to love. She read it once. Then again. Her thumb hovered over the backspace key. The sensible thing would have been to delete it. She had work in the morning. Her washing was still sitting in the machine. There was half a mug of tea beside her laptop that had gone cold at least an hour ago. And none of this, sitting cross-legged on her sofa, writing to a man who would never read the words, was going to change anything. Still, she didn’t delete it. Instead, she kept typing. I kept thinking that if I explained myself better, became easier, asked for less, stopped getting upset at the things that hurt me, eventually you would love me properly. She stopped. “God.” Maya leaned back and covered her face with both hands. The flat was silent except for the low hum of the refrigerator and the occasional sound of tyre's on the wet road outside. It had been raining since late afternoon. Not proper dramatic rain, just the irritating kind that made the windows look permanently dirty. She glanced back at the screen. The website was called Afterword. She had found it three nights ago while mindlessly searching for something completely different. The idea was simple. Write the letter you could never send. No names. No photos. No profiles. You could choose to keep your letter private, release it anonymously, or allow strangers to respond. Maya had spent the first night reading other people’s letters. A son writing to his dead father. A woman apologizing to the friend she had betrayed at 1 nineteen. Someone who had written six paragraphs to a dog. That one had made Maya cry so hard she’d closed the laptop. She hadn’t intended to write anything herself. Yet here she was. She looked at the paragraph again and added one more line. The worst part is that even after I left, I spent months wondering if I had asked for too much. Her chest tightened. That was enough. It was more than enough. She scrolled to the bottom. Three buttons waited for her. Save privately. Publish anonymously. Delete. For a full minute, she did nothing. Then, before she could talk herself out of it, Maya clicked Publish anonymously. A little message appeared. Your letter has been released. “That’s it,” she said quietly. She shut the laptop. Immediately opened it again. “No.” She shut it a second time. This was ridiculous. Nobody knew it was her. The man she had written about would never see it. Even if by some strange coincidence he did, there were probably ten thousand women on the internet writing the exact same thing. She got up and carried her cold tea to the kitchen. Her phone buzzed against the counter. Maya froze. She looked at it. A delivery app. “Of course.” She laughed at herself and poured the tea down the sink. Tomorrow would be normal. She would wake up late because she always did. She would burn one side of her toast because the toaster hated her. She would take the lift downstairs and 2 probably run into the man from 8B, who somehow managed to look annoyed even when nobody was speaking to him. Adrian Cole. Even his name irritated her. He had moved into the building six weeks earlier and had already complained twice about parcels being left near his door, once about somebody taking his allocated parking space, and, most unforgivably, had told Maya that her music was “carrying through the wall” at eight thirty on a Saturday evening. Eight thirty. She wasn’t running a nightclub. It had been Fleetwood Mac. She still hadn’t forgiven him. The first time they met, she had been struggling with four grocery bags in the lobby while he stood perfectly capable and empty-handed beside the lift. He had looked at the bags. Then at her. Then said, “You know the lift doors close quite quickly.” No offer to help. Just useful information. She had disliked him immediately. Maya went back to the sofa. Her laptop remained closed. She picked up her phone instead and opened a completely different app. Eleven minutes passed. Then the notification appeared. Someone replied to your letter. Her stomach did something stupid. She stared at the message. There was no reason to open it. Afterword was full of strangers giving strangers advice they hadn’t asked for. The reply could be anything. You deserve better. Love yourself. Everything happens for a reason. If anyone wrote everything happens for a reason, Maya was deleting the entire account. She tapped the notification. The screen loaded. Her letter appeared at the top. 3 Underneath it was a reply from a user identified only as: NORTH No photograph. No bio. Just a small grey circle and the word. His reply was short. Maybe you weren’t asking for too much. Maya frowned. That was it? She waited, as though more words might appear. They didn’t. She almost closed the page. Then another line appeared. Maybe you were asking the wrong person. Maya read it twice. Annoyingly, it landed somewhere she didn’t want it to. She typed a response. Deleted it. Typed another. Deleted that too. Finally: That sounds like something people say when they don’t know the whole story. She hit send before she could reconsider. For the next thirty seconds she watched the screen. Nothing. “Great,” she muttered. “Now I’m arguing with a stranger.” She put the phone face down. It buzzed almost immediately. NORTH replied. True. Then: I don’t know your story. Another pause. But I know what it feels like to stay somewhere too long because leaving feels like admitting you wasted years. Maya stopped moving. That was different. Not advice. Not pity. Recognition. She sat back down. 4 How many years? The typing indicator appeared. Stopped. Started again. Seven. Maya stared at the number. Seven years. She thought about her own three and a half and felt suddenly ridiculous. Did you leave? This time his answer took longer. Not exactly. She smiled despite herself. That sounds suspicious. It probably is. She waited. Nothing else came. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she felt disappointed. Maya looked at the clock. 12:19 a.m. She should sleep. Instead she typed: What does “not exactly” mean? A minute passed. Then two. She was about to put her phone down when his reply appeared. I was supposed to marry her. Maya sat a little straighter. Another message came. Three weeks before the wedding, she asked me a question. Maya’s fingers moved before she could stop them. What question? The typing bubble appeared. Then disappeared. Appeared again. Finally: She asked me if I loved her, or if I had just become too afraid to imagine a life without her. Maya read the sentence slowly. The room suddenly felt very quiet. 5 She didn’t know what to say to that. For once, she didn’t try to. Then NORTH sent another message. I couldn’t answer. Maya swallowed. So the wedding didn’t happen? No. Was she angry? There was a longer pause this time. She cried. Maya stared at the screen. Then another message appeared. I think I would have preferred anger. Something about that sentence made him feel real. Not NORTH. Not a grey circle on a website. A person. Somewhere, maybe sitting alone exactly as she was. Maya glanced at the rain against the window. She should stop. This was how people ended up telling strangers things they hadn’t told their closest friends. She knew better. Probably. Why are you on this website? His answer came quickly. Same reason you are. You don’t know why I’m here. You published a letter at almost midnight to someone you don’t intend to send it to. Maya narrowed her eyes. That still doesn’t mean you know me. I didn’t say I did. A beat. But you answered me. She hated that he had a point. 6 Maya typed: Maybe I was bored. Maybe. Maybe your first reply annoyed me. Also possible. She smiled. Actually smiled. That bothered her more than it should have. Then NORTH wrote: Can I ask you something? Maya hesitated. Depends. If he came back tomorrow and said exactly what you spent years waiting to hear, would you believe him? Her smile disappeared. For several seconds, she simply looked at the question. She could have lied. It would have been easy. No. Of course not. I’m over it. Instead, because this man didn’t know her name, where she lived, what she looked like or how many times she had cried in a locked bathroom so nobody would hear her, she told him the truth. I don’t know. The response took nearly a minute. That’s probably the most honest answer you could have given. Maya exhaled. Your turn. My turn for what? A question. The typing bubble appeared. Fine. Maya thought for a moment. If the woman you almost married called you tomorrow and asked you to try again, what would you say? 7 Nothing. One minute. Two. Three. Maya checked the time again. 12:37. Maybe he had gone. Maybe she had crossed some invisible stranger-on-the-internet boundary. Then her phone buzzed. I’d ask her if she was happy. Maya frowned. That wasn’t my question. I know. You’re avoiding it. Also true. She laughed quietly. Then his next message appeared. No. Just that. Maya stared at it. A few seconds later: I wouldn’t go back. Something about the certainty of it made her jealous. Not of him. Of the answer. She wished she had one that clean. Maya placed the phone on her knee. The website showed another notice beneath their conversation. Private threads are available between anonymous users for 30 days. Identities may be revealed only by mutual agreement. She hadn’t noticed that before. Thirty days. Ridiculous. She wasn’t going to spend thirty days talking to a stranger. She wasn’t even going to spend another night doing it. I should sleep. 8 NORTH replied: Probably. Maya waited. Nothing. For some reason, she found herself typing Goodnight, stranger. His answer came seconds later. Goodnight, woman who argues with perfectly reasonable replies. Maya smiled. Your first reply was irritating. And yet here we are. She shook her head. Goodnight, NORTH. Goodnight. Maya closed the website. This time she meant it. She plugged her phone in, switched off the lamp, and went to bed. At 7:51 the next morning, she stepped into the lift half-dressed, holding one shoe in her hand and trying to fix an earring with the other. The doors began to close. A hand appeared between them. They opened again. Adrian Cole stepped inside. Perfectly dressed. Perfectly awake. And, somehow, already looking irritated. His gaze dropped to the shoe in Maya’s hand. Then to the coffee she was balancing dangerously against her bag. “Good morning,” he said. Maya pressed the ground-floor button harder than necessary. “Debatable.” The corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile. Almost. 9 Maya looked away. She had absolutely no idea that at 12:37 that morning, Adrian Cole had been sitting three floors above her, staring at a message from a woman whose name he didn’t know. And deciding he wanted to talk to her again.
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Author’s note: Would you keep talking to NORTH after this, or would you leave it as one anonymous conversation? I want to know what you’d do?
