‘Today has been weird, almost like a dream. A few hours with you and I feel completely different. If only we had been friends all those years ago. Maybe things could have been different. No one has had this profound an effect on me in such a short space of time.’

‘I promise I’m real.’

‘Well, thank you, Felicity “Icantrememberyourlastname”, I think you might be my guardian angel or something. A beacon of light in the monotony of my daily existence.’

‘I just think you could do so much more. Don’t settle for what life gives you.’

He leans over and kisses me on the mouth, tender but not sleazy in any way, like a full stop at the end of a sentence. I don’t know why but I don’t recoil. He pulls away and looks down, embarrassed.

‘Sorry, I just wanted to check you were really here. Cheeky, I know.’

‘Well, it was nice seeing you again, Jason. I have to get back to my hotel now.’

‘I have to go play Warcraft with my guild,’ he says with a grin. ‘You know, you’ve changed a lot. You’re not like the girls who stayed here, you seem more alive somehow.’

If only he knew how wrong he was.

My first interaction with someone from the past has been a positive one and I really wasn’t expecting it to go that way. In my mind I had built this place up as my own personal axis of evil, where everything and everyone was out to get me.

I am tired and I am hungry. I watch as Jason disappears around the corner and head back towards town to get another drink.

In the pub I get a sandwich for dinner; it’s a fancy one served on a wooden board with a smattering of leaves on the side. I look at my phone; no calls from Chris today. That voice in the back of my head tells me he’s just keeping me around out of sympathy, even though I know that’s stupid. I don’t want to indulge in my self-doubt right now, so I go back to the bar and order a drink, just a half of beer this time. When I get there the bar staff, a young man with a name badge that says Paul and a woman my age called Flora, are chatting in hushed tones.

‘Do they know who it is?’ Flora asks.

‘It’s got to be her, hasn’t it?’ Paul replies.

‘How sure are you about it?’

‘I told you my brother works in the pub there and there’s police everywhere. They found a body.’

The words ring out in my ears. Am I too late? I had hoped that maybe I could have found out something first; like maybe I could have saved her if I just figured out what was going on.