Shit. She’s panicked about my panic. I forced a smile. ‘They’re fine, Molly, why?’

‘Okay. Okay.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Then it’s Rowan.’

Back then, in the weeks and months after Skye, I’d wanted this conversation so many times. I’d wanted to sit down with my friends and talk about how I didn’t understand, how I didn’t know what to do – talk about what an utter shit Rowan had been. While Molly waited for a response, I flashed through all the imagined versions of this very conversation and in every single one I’d mentioned Skye by name. Now, though, I was ready to cry over the girls Rowan hadn’t even slept with – yet. I felt my eyes fill up and I tried to think of a way to phrase things that might sum everything up, so I wouldn’t have to explain it all to Molly the same number of times Rowan had had to explain it to me. But I couldn’t find anything descriptive enough …

‘I think he might be behaving like a bastard, Moll.’

Her eyes stretched. ‘Okay, inside, let’s get you inside, inside.’ She yanked my keys out of my hand and ushered me through the entryway to the building as the first tears tumbled free.

*

I was in the bathroom when the rest of them arrived. Before that, Molly had sat me down on the sofa and asked for everything and I’d told her, in between making ugly crying faces and gulping in air like a semi-strangled fish. Christ, no wonder he wants to sleep with other people, I thought as I stared myself down in the vanity mirror. When the doorbell had sounded, Molly rushed me out of sight and told me to get my face back on. She’d deal with the girls, whatever that meant. I wondered whether, when I emerged from the en suite, they might all know already. My mouth formed a petit O as I reapplied mascara and then I blotted my cheeks with pale compact powder, to try to compensate for the pink glow of post-cry. I huffed.

‘This is as good as it’s going to get, Parcell.’