‘The results are finally in?’ Evie was already putting Ben on speaker and clicking into her emails. It must have just come through—she’d emailed Hugo from her study only minutes earlier. She desperately refreshed her inbox, the anticipation building. God, I want this so much. I need this, she kept thinking. As the email appeared and she opened it, waiting for it to load—goddamn slow 3G internet!—Evie asked, ‘What did yours say?’

‘I’m one of the winners! Can you believe it?’ Ben laughed.

‘Oh my god Ben, congrats! That is incredible, so amazing. I am thrilled!’ And Evie was—nobody deserved it more than Ben. His screenplay about the Piccadilly Circus buskers was one of the most heart-warming things she had read.

‘That leaves two more spaces. Have you found the bloody email yet?’

The browser finally loaded, and Evie scanned it hurriedly, her heart brimming with hope. But then her eyes fell on the words, We regret to inform you …

‘Evie, I can’t believe it. An internship with Catherine bloody Lim! And not to mention, a cool thousand quid. What should we splurge our winnings on? I’m thinking West End tickets and a really posh dinner.’

‘Sounds great, Ben.’

‘Berry, I just know you’ve got this too. Has the email arrived yet?’

‘Benny, I’m so proud of you.’

‘What does your email say?’

When Evie didn’t respond, she heard Ben exhale deeply. ‘Oh, bugger, Eaves, I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s all good, Ben. There’ll be other opportunities,’ Evie said, her voice cracking, giving her away. She was gutted. After everything she’d put into the short, it still wasn’t enough. Maybe the reason her screenplay never worked in the future wasn’t because she couldn’t write it, but because even if she had, it would never have amounted to anything. Maybe all the effort she had invested into being a creative was just self-indulgent vanity. A waste of time.

‘Sod ’em! Sod the lot of them!’ Ben said, sounding generally bewildered, which comforted Evie just the tiniest bit.

‘Benny, it’s okay. Really. I’m just so happy for you. They couldn’t have picked a better human.’ She took a deep breath, regaining her composure. ‘We need to celebrate! I’ve got that gala thing with Hugo tonight’—which she suddenly felt less enthused about—‘but how about tomorrow? You can come round to mine and we can sample different pastas for the podcast.’

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

‘Ah, I wish I could, but I’m busy. I have a date.’

‘A date?’ Evie asked, taken aback. Ben dabbled in dating half-heartedly at best. Evie had never quite got to the bottom of it. Ben was a catch. Evie saw how other women looked at him, and you only needed to spend half a minute with him to see how he shone from the inside out. ‘Anyone special?’