If I hadn’t met Daniel or tested out the app, none of this would have happened.
Isla was thinking, her head tilted slightly. ‘That’s the one thing I don’t understand. Why would you go to Daniel instead of Rory? Rory’s your person. He has been the whole time I’ve known him.’
I sighed. ‘I couldn’t vent to Rory just as a friend, could I? When it comes to us, work and personal boundaries are the same. Maybe we never should have mixed the two in the first place.’
Joe squeezed my arm. ‘That’s not true, and you know it.’
I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. ‘I just needed to vent to someone who was a complete outsider. And yes, I realise how badly that backfired.’
Isla sipped her tea. ‘So what is it exactly about Level that’s freaking you out? Let’s strip back to the basics.’
I took a few deep breaths, trying to regain some control. ‘Sometimes owning a dating app feels a bit dystopian. Like some weird episode of Black Mirror. I don’t want to mess with real people and fuck up their lives.’
She started rubbing my back in slow circles. ‘You know what, I get it. It’s high stakes. Dating is hard.’
I loved Isla, but I was sceptical. ‘Not for you two.’
‘Not true.’ Joe laughed. ‘Very much not true. A relationship takes work.’
This kind of talk was news to me, when it came to my brother and his childhood sweetheart.
Isla nodded. ‘Particularly when you literally grew up together. We were babies when we met.’ She smiled at Joe. ‘Trying to figure out if we grew in the same direction was hard, for a long time. But we worked it out.’
I was momentarily stunned. I’d always seen the two of them as an impenetrable unit, bound together by a decade of shared experiences. But it was true, they’d been incredibly young when they’d met. And Joe’s career had been a massive sacrifice for both of them.
‘Thanks for telling me that.’ I sniffed. ‘As selfish as this is, it does help to know that people’s relationships are hard way before Level gets the chance to come and mess them up.’
Joe smirked. ‘This reminds me of that time you dropped your Beanie Baby in the sea, and the only thing that stopped you bawling was me chucking mine in too.’
I smiled despite myself. I’d mourned the loss of that little spaniel for weeks after I’d dropped it in the sea on a family holiday to Bournemouth. ‘In my defence, I was 6 years old.’
‘Maybe so, but a day hasn’t gone by that I don’t think about it. Have you seen how much Beanie Babies go for on eBay now? I might as well have scattered my life savings on the beach.’
‘We live in London, and you’re about to pay for a wedding, so how much would that be? Fifty quid?’
Joe flipped me the finger.
‘We even broke up once, actually. For about five days.’ Isla was smiling, even though it sounded like the opposite of a happy memory.
‘I don’t remember that.’ I was incredulous. This was Joe and Isla.
‘Well, it did happen.’ Joe scratched his head. ‘God, I haven’t thought about that in ages. I didn’t tell any of you because I hoped it wouldn’t be permanent.’
‘When was it?’
Isla sighed. ‘It was during the final year of his degree. We’d been fighting all the time about our future, and about our compatibility because of that. As soon as we’d decided to end it, I knew it was the wrong decision. I stayed at my sister’s house for a week, cried into my granola every morning, and then showed up at his door with my tail between my legs. Turns out “compatibility” doesn’t mean shit, because look at us now.’
There it was again, that word. Compatibility. The word that dominated my entire life, seemingly in work and outside of it. What did it even mean? I glanced at two of the people I loved most in the world; would Level have placed them together? Isla was endlessly bubbly where my brother could be a grump, and their careers couldn’t be more different (in every single way you looked at it, including their schedules). I wasn’t sure that the algorithm would have detected the ways in which they did match; the fact that they both hated fighting and worked hard to communicate how they felt, their affinity for stupid kid’s toys and play fights around the house, and the fact that Isla supported Joe’s career fully, packing those little lunches with his favourite things every day. An equation for dating could only be so accurate – it wasn’t human, didn’t get to experience all of the things that made two people compatible off paper. Maybe the fun part was taking a punt and seeing whether two people clicked, with no earth-shattering consequences if they didn’t. Somewhere along the way, with all the pressure of a perfect match, Level had lost its magic.
‘What are you thinking about up there?’ Isla pointed to my head.
I leaned my head on her shoulder. ‘That real sisters dig deep into their own trauma to soothe each other.’
She snorted. ‘Ever the optimist. I know this year has been tough for you, Pen.’ Isla was serious again now. ‘And I know that you might be doubting a lot of things right now. But don’t let one of them be Rory.’
‘I’m not doubting Rory.’ I grabbed one of Mum’s cushions and held it to my chest. ‘I’ve never doubted him. I just don’t agree with him on everything.’
From the kitchen, where he was currently rifling through the cupboard for snacks, Joe groaned. ‘Our wedding day is going to be like an episode of The Kardashians, isn’t it?’
I squeezed the fabric tighter, the mere thought of Rory and I walking down the aisle in complete awkward silence making me squirm.
‘You’re making her stressed.’ Isla stroked my hair. ‘Don’t listen to him. I’ve caught him watching reality TV when he gets in from work. He’d love it if our wedding turned out to be like an extended episode.’
‘It’s soothing to watch people create drama out of nothing.’ He came back around the corner, distributing bottles of beer and Mini Cheddars. Mum would be arriving home with fish and chips any minute now. ‘It’s like, the opposite of my workday. It’s how I de-stress.’
I was learning a lot about my brother tonight. I pulled my legs underneath me, curling up for the night. I’d planned to go home and do some work, but what I needed – shitty TV with my family, and chips drenched in salt and vinegar – was right here.
‘Speaking of stress, are you going to tell Mum about your cold war?’
I pulled a face at the terminology. ‘No. She already thinks my romantic understanding is damaged beyond repair.’
‘Huh?’
‘It’s nothing.’ I brushed the comment aside. ‘Just the classic “did my divorce damage my kids?” mentality.’
He nodded. ‘Ah, the age-old question. Given that I’m about to say “I do”, I think we can safely say I avoided the baggage. Same can’t be said for you, though, can it?’
‘Too soon, Joe, too soon.’ But I was laughing anyway, accidentally getting tea up my nose. My brother was a pain in the arse, but he also knew exactly what to say. Or do, when it came to Beanie Babies.
