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Chapters (86)
  1. Title Page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. Love
  4. Before
  5. One
  6. ONE
  7. Two
  8. TWO
  9. Three
  10. THREE
  11. Four
  12. FOUR
  13. Five
  14. FIVE
  15. Six
  16. SIX
  17. Seven
  18. SEVEN
  19. Eight
  20. EIGHT
  21. Nine
  22. NINE
  23. Ten
  24. TEN
  25. Eleven
  26. ELEVEN
  27. After
  28. One
  29. ONE
  30. Two
  31. TWO
  32. Three
  33. THREE
  34. Four
  35. FOUR
  36. Five
  37. FIVE
  38. Six
  39. SIX
  40. Seven
  41. SEVEN
  42. Eight
  43. EIGHT
  44. Nine
  45. NINE
  46. Ten
  47. TEN
  48. Eleven
  49. ELEVEN
  50. Twelve
  51. TWELVE
  52. Thirteen
  53. THIRTEEN
  54. Fourteen
  55. FOURTEEN
  56. Fifteen
  57. FIFTEEN
  58. Sixteen
  59. SIXTEEN
  60. Seventeen
  61. SEVENTEEN
  62. Eighteen
  63. EIGHTEEN
  64. Nineteen
  65. NINETEEN
  66. Twenty
  67. TWENTY
  68. Twenty-One
  69. TWENTY-ONE
  70. Twenty-Two
  71. TWENTY-TWO
  72. Twenty-Three
  73. TWENTY-THREE
  74. Twenty-Four
  75. TWENTY-FOUR
  76. Twenty-Five
  77. TWENTY-FIVE
  78. Twenty-Six
  79. TWENTY-SIX
  80. Twenty-Seven
  81. TWENTY-SEVEN
  82. Twenty-Eight
  83. TWENTY-EIGHT
  84. Eleven Months Later
  85. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  86. Copyright

I get a tea in case it looks weird that I’m not drinking anything and Poppy gets an oat milk latte – a normal one, much to her annoyance, because they’ve stopped doing the gingerbread ones. She pairs it with a vegan bun the size of her head that’s dripping with white icing and dotted with pieces of pistachio. She hasn’t even taken a bite out of it before my phone rings and I sigh heavily, wondering how Deborah knows that we’ve only just sat down.

But it’s not Deborah, it’s Esen, and I hesitate, in no mood for another bollocking. So I consider letting it go to voicemail, but I’ve had enough arguments like that with my mother over the years. Those furious, feral arguments where I couldn’t even remember what she said to make me so mad, just that I was, the anger so real it felt like there was someone else in the room, standing beside me, egging me on. So I tell myself to answer, knowing full well that the longer I leave it, the harder it will be to go back to how it was before, and the space between us will just get wider and wider until it’s impassable. But as I stare at her name on the screen, I wonder if what I’m really trying to avoid isn’t another argument, it’s having to admit that she’s right. I am being selfish. I’ve been so concerned about Poppy that I didn’t even think about the position I was putting her and Dev in.

‘Hello?’ I answer, wincing as I wait to be yelled at again.

‘Come to the party,’ Esen says with a huff.

That’s all she says and I pause, wondering if Dev’s put her up to it.

‘It’s OK. Poppy says that she wants to try the vegan hot dogs at the Hope & Ruin.’

It occurs to me then that most of what Poppy wants to do revolves around eating. There are no friends that she wants to see, even though I’ve told her that she should, and she doesn’t want to run away to Paris like I thought she would. She just wants to walk around like we did when we first got together and it felt like we were discovering Brighton for the first time. The street art we’d never seen. That second-hand place with the taxidermy rats in top hats. That weird vegan shoe shop opposite the bookshop. She wants to pet every dog and find all the lost cats and listen to every busker we pass. Except she’s not looking at everything as though she’s seeing it for the first time.

She’s saying goodbye.

And I get that, but I’m worried that she thinks that she has time to do the other stuff, when she doesn’t.