I hadn’t decided. But it needed to be something I wouldn’t have been able to have if Rowan had come with us. I scanned the listings again. ‘Can I get the garlic and tofu bake?’ I shut the menu and handed it back to her. ‘Garlic bread would be great, too, thanks. With cheese.’

‘You got it.’

In the minutes after, Mum and Dad tiptoed around asking whether something had happened. Neither of them said anything outright – it wasn’t their style – but there were questioning intonations and presuppositions scattered in every other comment. I thought back to what Faith had said, about not needing to protect Rowan, and, while in many ways I agreed with her, there was also the nagging fear that if this storm somehow passed with us both intact, I didn’t want other people to carry a judgement – on either of us. Plus, they were my parents. They’d always been the pillar of romance and honesty; the only couple I’d ever known to make it work. Unless there have been times when they haven’t made it work … The intrusive thought appeared while I watched them hold hands on the table still.

‘We’re allowed to touch in public, you know,’ Mum joked, which pulled my eyes up.

‘God, I’m sorry.’ I forced a laugh. ‘I was staring?’ She nodded. ‘Sorry, I – can I talk to you both about something?’

Mum yanked her hand free of Dad’s and stretched across the table to reach for mine. ‘Rowan?’

I felt a prickle of feeling behind my nose and I realised then how close I was to tears. ‘Nothing has happened, like, really nothing. I actually asked him not to come tonight.’ Mum looked surprised, but at least I could tell myself I’d been sort of honest. ‘I’m just having a lot of big worries, and I don’t know how normal they are, and, I don’t know, it might really help to talk to people who have also had the big worries and still somehow made it work.’ I felt myself running out of breath as I spoke, but if I stopped I knew the tears would come. ‘I think I’m just worried that we’re not really thinking straight in getting married so young.’ Dad pushed back from the table and came to sit in the spot next to me; he tucked an arm around my shoulder. ‘What if there are all these things we haven’t done yet that we might like to?’

Mum lowered her voice. ‘Is there someone else, sweetheart?’

I actually laughed. ‘No, Mum, and I don’t know that there ever could be.’