‘I wish you were still here. But I don’t know if I would like you if you were. Because you weren’t a good friend. You weren’t kind. You didn’t love me like I loved you. You weren’t any of the things that I’ve spent the last sixteen years telling everyone that you were. And I’m angry with you for that. I forgive you for sleeping with Rav and lying to me about it, and making me lie to your parents, and telling me not to make friends with people who you thought were dull. But I can’t forgive you for that. I don’t forgive you for that. I do miss you, though.

‘I think about what kind of a godmother you would have been to Rose. Whether you’d have been the one who noticed that she looks so much more like Max than Rav.’ She paused, somehow expecting the admission to have changed the world around her, not quite believing she could have said the words out loud without them changing things. But there was no one here. At least, no one who could hear her. Her chest felt a little lighter. It felt good to confide in her friend. And they were, she supposed, by some warped logic, sort of even now.

She got to her feet. ‘Bye, Zaid.’

Acknowledgements

Two Wrongs was predominately written during a very strange time, when the whole world sort of ground to a halt because of Covid-19. I can honestly say that it has never been harder to be creative than it was during those weeks where the only contact with the outside world was an hour-long walk in the evening or an occasional trip to the supermarket. I spent a lot of time not writing but comparing myself to other writers on Instagram and feeling sorry for myself.

But, while finding the motivation to write was almost impossible, eventually I came to see Two Wrongs as the structure that held my life in place. It gave me a reason to sit at my desk every morning, and something to focus on when being so far away from friends and family felt especially hard. So, in rather a meta way, I think the first entity I have to thank is the book itself.

By extension, I must thank Tash Barsby, who edited Two Wrongs with such thoughtfulness and skill, taking it from a collection of chapters to a real book. I am for ever grateful both to Tash, and to Transworld at large, for the purpose, joy and escapism that writing these books allows me. I would also like to thank Darcy Nicholson, who is no longer my editor but whose editorial voice will for ever live in my head when I am writing.