I said hi because even I wasn’t cold enough to walk right into someone and then ignore them. If I had been paying attention and spotted her earlier, I would have been suddenly distracted by something and pretended not to see her, like a normal person.

Beth stood beside us, beaming, waiting for an introduction maybe. She’d be waiting a long time, let me tell you. When she realized she had stumbled upon something awkward, she mumbled something about forgetting to tell Barbara about buttons, then scooted back into the store. At least she wasn’t a complete balloon. If I’d been with Dad he probably would have started his own chat with Izzy and said something unforgivable like, Oh, Izzy, how come we never see you anymore, or I wish you two girls would make up, we miss you around the house, or God forbid, Saoirse is stuck in her room all the time, you should come by and take her off my hands.

Izzy looked past me into the window of Pronuptuous and I saw it dawn on her face.

“Is that her,” she whispered, even though Beth was nowhere near being in earshot.

I nodded.

“I never thought I’d see the day you two would be hanging out,” she said.

She didn’t sound appalled, she sounded like she might be impressed by my personal growth, but I had the sensation of being caught doing something shameful.

“It’s not a big deal.” I smiled tightly and I rubbed my thumb into my scar.

Izzy noticed and gave me a look like she was trying to tell me something. If we were friends, I’d probably know she was trying to tell me that I couldn’t fool her and I should stop pretending. But we weren’t friends, so I decided I was totally baffled by whatever mysterious thing she was attempting to communicate.

“We could talk about it,” she offered.

“I have to go,” I said, and I hurried off, leaving her on the street looking after me. I mean, I assume she was looking after me. I couldn’t see that part, but I’d been watching a lot of movies lately and it felt like the right thing, dramatically speaking.

A few seconds later Beth caught up with me.

“I got the impression I should give you two some space,” she said. “What was that about?”

I rounded on Beth, stopping us both on the footpath.

“We’re not friends, Beth, OK?”

“I know,” she said, and her face fell. “But I’d like to be. I don’t have a lot of friends here. It’s hard to get to know anyone when you move to a town where everyone’s been best friends since they were four. It’s kind of lonely.”