I felt my heart thud against my chest. It was trying to escape. I looked frantically around at where we could go that I wouldn’t bump into her. To the left of us, a queue for candy floss. Behind us was the exit and ahead was the ghost train—and to the right, the Ferris wheel.

Hannah was getting closer and even though there were a ton of people between us there was no way she wouldn’t spot me. I swear there’s something in your body that just changes when you know someone that well. They can’t sneak up on you. Somehow out of the corner of your eye you’ll see a familiar gesture, catch a word over the noise, and you’ll know before you even see them that they’re there.

I tapped Ruby’s shoulder. “Ferris wheel?”

“Definitely,” she said, and rubbed her hands together. “I’ve never actually been on one before.”

Ferris wheels are interminably boring. Hannah would never go on one. She was terrified because you weren’t strapped in by anything. She always said there was nothing to stop you from just opening the little door and walking right out. I never bothered to point out that, barring evil spirit possession, her body wasn’t simply going to betray her by deciding to leave of its own accord. I actually would have preferred the ghost train, but it was riskier. Hannah and Izzy might go on it too, and getting stuck with them in the carriage behind us would be horrendous. In fact, a whole ex-girlfriend-themed ghost train sounded genuinely terrifying. You’d get in and instead of a mummy mannequin covered in toilet roll popping out, it’s her, and you look down and you’re wearing a baggy old jumper with a stain on the front. You turn the corner and you find yourself being forced to scroll through her Instagram and there are replies from a girl with tattoos and she looks like the celebrity your ex fancies most. Right at the end, they play a video on a loop that’s just screenshots of all the pathetic texts you sent when you were too heartbroken to have any dignity.

Of course, the question is why you’d pay money for that kind of trauma when life will serve it up to you free of charge.

“How have you never been on a Ferris wheel?” I asked, distracted and glancing over my shoulder. Not six feet away, Izzy and Hannah were queuing at the candy floss stand. Definitely Izzy’s choice; she was the one with a sweet tooth. If I turned back now there was no way they wouldn’t see me. I whipped my head round again and pretended I’d heard everything Ruby had said.

“—didn’t really go to places like funfairs and the beach when I was growing up.”