‘Andi, you can’t make this my fault.’ Hugh is incredu-lous. ‘First you lie to me for days and now this? Asking me to sign something that’s false?’ He hesitates. ‘I thought I was going to get over you lying. I thought with time we could move past it. But, Andi, this is too much. I don’t see how you can’t understand why I don’t want to do what you’re asking me to do.’ And the way he says my name, with such finality, such resignation, completely does me in.

‘I really do want the best for your sister,’ he says, but he’s already turning to leave.

‘But,’ I say, refusing to believe that this is how he will leave me, that a stupid falsified dive log will be his last straw, that he will really go without giving me the one thing that I’m desperate to do for my sister. I can’t wrap my head around him walking away from me, from us, after the last five days we shared together.

But he does. He leaves without so much as a wave goodbye.

I am left standing on the kerb, watching helplessly as he gets into an Uber, my dive log fluttering uselessly in my hand.

Chapter 28

Life on land

I make it onto the earlier flight, probably because I sobbed to the gate agent incoherently until she rebooked me. I try to call my mom one more time, but she doesn’t answer. I leave her a message with the details of my flight.

The plane hurtles into the night sky. The man next to me nods off, his head dropping towards his chest. I hug the window, pressed to the side of my seat. Only when the flight attendant asks me nicely what I would like to drink do I realise that I have just been sitting, staring out the window, for the better part of an hour.

‘Um,’ I fumble.

She rattles off options. ‘We have water, soda, coffee, tea, wine—’

‘Wine,’ I interject. ‘Red wine, please.’

She sets down a flimsy plastic cup and I take a big sip, the acidity tingling the back of my throat. I resist the urge to knock it all back at once. I stare at the screen in front of me some more. Nothing is playing. I watch the flight tracker blip, flickering in and out. I alternate between staring out the window and falling into fits of sleep. I’m too shocked to be angry, and I’m too numb to be sad. That will come later.