Maybe I wasn’t normal. But maybe normal wasn’t the point, had never been the point. Maybe this was. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be here but I was, and I wanted to be, and that was so much more important. She grinned at me, and I grinned back and my chest nearly exploded. ‘We’re here, Leen,’ I said. ‘We’re fucking here.’

36 WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER

36

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER

‘So,’ I said, cigarette in one hand, oversized cocktail with a fruit salad impaled on the rim in the other. ‘You’re getting married.’

Lina laughed, lifting her own insane creation.

We’d spent the past two days lying by the pool talking about swimming, and lying on the beach talking about swimming, and talking about going for walks and getting massages and taking day trips, but mostly talking. Or not talking, just being. Doing absolutely nothing. My bones had defrosted, my skin had softened, the muscles that had been holding me so tight for what seemed like forever had relaxed, letting me go floppy. I never wanted to go home.

Matt was arriving the next day, and they would be running through all the final details with Amanda and the celebrant and the caterer. The day after, everyone else arrived—Jenny and Colin and Mum and Dad and Jack and Shay, Matt’s family and thirty of their closest friends—and then the day after that they got married. It was nearly over, and I didn’t know what would happen next.

‘I am,’ Lina said.

‘Are you happy?’ I took a drag, coughed. Away from work, I rarely smoked and I felt it in my lungs.

She laughed again. ‘Of course.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’ She sucked on her straw. ‘Really really really. I wouldn’t be doing it if I wasn’t.’

‘And Matt’s the one?’

‘He is.’

I could tell he was, see the certainty all over her face. ‘How do you know?’

She hesitated. ‘I just do. I feel it in my gut, right deep in there. He’s a part of me, and he always will be.’

I sipped my drink. It was strong, probably stronger than I’d had in months.

‘Like you. Like Mum. He’s a piece of my soul. I don’t know. But different, because I also want to touch him all the time. And I always know where he is, if he’s in the room. Like—I can feel him.’

My breath caught.

‘I just know.’ She smiled. ‘And I know you two haven’t ever got along, not really, but he does adore you. Especially after this year. He was kind of bummed when you moved out.’

I took another drag of my cigarette. Hot. Toxic. I stubbed it out, half finished, as I exhaled.

‘He was!’ Lina insisted. ‘He wanted you to move in properly. At least until we need the room for something else.’

Something fluttered in my chest. ‘Something else?’