It was that guy. With the bird. With Tyger. This time it definitely was. He was wearing the same dark blue sleeveless puffer thing he’d had on when I first saw him.

It was a bit much to expect to actually see the words from here, even if they were superhero-vision-strength binoculars. I wondered what it was. To Kill a MockingGrouse, or I Know Why the Caged Pheasant Sings. Maybe The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Highlands. How to Stay Afloat and Influence People, ha ha. And then a thought came – maybe it was my book. What if he’d taken it? Swiped it from the rock? The Book Thief, then.

My arms ached. You could totally take someone out with these bad boys.

We met on the rocks and from then on it was you and me. You’d pick twigs and leaves from my hair. We’d drink beer and take each other to the places we loved.

You visit them all the time now, and I follow, a little wake, a rustle of feathers.

The hollow in the oakwoods, which was always damp, even when we put a blanket down. Surrounded by leaves the colour of wet foxes. I tuck up in high branches there and listen to the scratch-language of woodlice, to the loudness of birds.

The singing sands, where we swam in the sea on the days when it was green-grey and almost warm. The small, dumpy lady who lived there would bring us cups of hot chocolate and look out to the horizon as she talked. You seemed to like her. Maybe she made you think of your ma, before she was ill. I think I came at the right time for you, too.

Rock to woods to sea-salt. I move at the pace of clouds.

I drift after you, to the place we liked best. A place no one knew but us. Dark, hushed. Scratching our initials into the stone with your penknife, after our first time. I told you that I’d never done it and you said you’d not done it much either, and your smile made me feel safe.

The place where I left my heart.

‘You have got to be kidding me.’

Finn was sitting on a moped, and the moped was making a sound like a lion cub with a chest infection. It was a cross between a motorbike and the squeaky old shopper that Lottie liked to zigzag down to the market on. One of the handlebars was extra-long, a plastic bar strapped on with loads of gaffer tape, which Finn was leaning on. He was still in his school uniform. Jesus.

‘Say hello to my stallion,’ he said.

I folded my arms. ‘Are you even old enough to be driving one of those?’

‘Yeah, course.’ He pursed his lips at me. ‘Near enough, anyway. I’ve been driving it for two years. My da got it from an auction. It’s an antique. Got to get around somehow.’

Even better. An ancient moped. ‘Have you got a helmet for me or something?’