My neighborhood is nice. When I was little I thought it was “normal”—the kind of place most people lived. But I can see now that we have it really good compared to a lot of people. Things got a bit tighter after Mum went into full-time care—we paid extra to put her in the best home—but we were able to do that and I think that makes us really lucky.

Oliver’s neighborhood is many levels beyond that. The houses slowly got bigger and bigger until you couldn’t see the houses anymore because they were at the end of long driveways and stone walls. It isn’t a manor or anything, but it is really big and has gardens (plural) and a pond and that sort of thing. I specifically knew that homes in this area cost a clean fortune because Hannah used to want to live in this really pretty gray-brick one with a legit turret. It was for sale last year so we looked up the estate agent’s website and concluded that we would never be able to afford anything like it. We recalibrated and set our sights on living anywhere, as long as it was together.

Three months later she’d broken up with me so I don’t know if she ever really meant it when we talked about the future together. That was one of the hardest things about breaking up. It’s not a pair of bookends, the beginning and the end. It’s the unraveling of the future. The flat we would never move into together, the cat we would never pick up from the shelter. It was all the times I wouldn’t hear her go on and on about some boring film I couldn’t sit through, or the way I wouldn’t see her do that silly tap dance she does when she’s trying on new shoes. It’s all the things we used to do that we’d never do again and all the things we’d never do for the first time together.

As I put my finger up to the Quinns’ doorbell, I realized I hadn’t told anyone I was coming. I hadn’t brought a gift or even a card. What was I doing here? Coming round here to see her again would give off some serious looking-for-a-relationship vibes and that was against the rules.

Or was I overthinking it? We could be friends, right? Ruby didn’t have any friends here and neither did I. Who couldn’t use a casual friend for the summer?

I stood for a minute, weighing up the options. If I wanted to be friends, maybe I should come back tomorrow. In daylight. Like a normal person. With a belated birthday card and an apology.

The front door opened.

Shit.