‘I can’t believe he gets to screw up your whole life, and then go on a jolly. That’s not right. That’s really not right.’ Kezza was raging, and I could tell by how hard she was trying not to let on. She’d kept her voice level but I’d known her since we were eighteen: she was hopping mad.

‘There must be a reason for it all,’ Jo mused. ‘Right? I know he could be an arse, but he wasn’t totally heartless. Something must have prompted it …’

I narrowed my eyes and looked at her.

‘Do you know something?’ I asked. She was talking as if she was leading to revealing some big piece of information. I wondered if he’d been seeing somebody else. Men don’t jump ship from relationships unless there’s a lifeboat in the distance. They just don’t. Half of me was frozen in fear that I was finally about to get the piece of the puzzle I’d been obsessing over and the other half immediately prayed to the heavens that she knew nothing. I didn’t want to know, yet I wanted every last detail. I wanted to be seen, and to hide. Freed by information and safe from reality.

She shook her head quickly. ‘No, honey, I’m sorry. If I did, I’d tell you. I promise.’

‘You guys are hiding something from me,’ I started, looking from Jo’s face, to Bri’s, to Kezza’s. ‘If you do know something …’

Kezza reached out a hand too. ‘Honestly, we’re as clueless as you are. I promise.’

I exhaled loudly. ‘Okay. Phew.’

‘But,’ started Bri, and my eyes flickered up to her, my chest tight as a protester’s fist.

‘Yes?’

‘Obviously we know you loved him.’

I balked. ‘I mean, yes. That’s why we were getting married …’

‘I think all Bri is trying to say,’ Jo offered, softly, ‘is that … he was lucky to have you.’

Bri smiled, but it was a forced one. ‘And look, whatever makes you happy – that’s all we want for you …’

Jo cleared her throat. ‘He was just a bit of an idiot sometimes, wasn’t he?’

My jaw went slack. ‘I beg your pardon?’

She slurped from her bottle, buying time so as not to answer me right away. ‘It’s only that we think you’re amazing.’

‘And sometimes it was like he didn’t realize that,’ finished Bri.

What they were saying was a knife to the heart. A betrayal. How long had they wanted to say all this? Were they telling me I’d been an idiot to think he’d ever make it to the church at all?

‘You didn’t like him.’

‘No!’ said Jo. ‘It’s not that we didn’t like him.’

Bri shrugged. ‘I didn’t,’ she said, plainly. ‘I don’t.’

The others gasped.