‘God,’ I interrupted, ‘don’t get me started on my parents or yours.’

He laughed. ‘Yours have done okay.’

‘They have. And I do honestly think they’re more than fine, now. But they probably haven’t always been.’ He opened his mouth to interrupt me again, but I pressed on. ‘And I know we could have powered through and made it to the other side of whatever this is. Then, somewhere on the other side, we would have been fine. But how many women did you sleep with on this – whatever we’re calling it?’

‘Edi, what does that have to do wi—’

‘Give me an estimate,’ I cut him off. ‘The nearest hundred.’ I tried to sound light-hearted but from his drooped expression it was clear that he was struggling. ‘You don’t know, do you?’

He sniffed again and shook his head this time. ‘Christ, I’m just sorry.’

‘My God, do you think Betty knows how many men she’s slept with?’

‘I’m not Betty.’ He sounded offended by the comparison.

‘No.’ I squeezed his hand again. ‘But you are kind of one of my best friends.’

‘Even now?’

The girls had taken it in turns to coach me through how this conversation could go – or even, should go. They’d told me in fifty different ways why Rowan and I didn’t need to be friends and they’d given a hundred and one examples of former couples who weren’t. But when someone has been in your life forever, can you really cut them out? ‘Yes,’ Lily had said, and Cora and Faith had nodded.

But Betty, surprisingly, had been swayed. ‘I get it,’ she weighed in, ‘I couldn’t cut any of you out.’

When it was phrased that way, Molly had agreed, too. ‘I’m a big believer in keeping ex-boyfriends around,’ she’d said.

Cora tapped her hand. ‘And that’s an issue for another day.’ We’d shared a laugh, then, and shared some history and shared an understanding that yes, sometimes people mess up …

‘Even now,’ I answered him.

But you can’t hold it against them forever.

‘What happens now then?’ He looked wounded and my heart hurt. Most of my adult life had been spent fixing whatever it was that turned his face sad. Now, though, things needed to be different.

‘Now, I’m going to take my stuff and I’m going to call the girls and I’m not going to lie, Rowan, I might get a little drunk.’ He half-laughed. ‘And you’re going to move your boxes into the bedroom, and ignore them for maybe two months, but in the interim you’ll call the boys, and you’ll get a little drunk, too.’

‘When will I see you?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘But if things can still be fine th—’

I pressed my finger against his lips to shush him. ‘Fine looks a little different now.’