“It is. But I tell you, I’ve never heard one of you say a bad word about the other. You were and are obsessed with each other. Always taking up for each other, helping each other out. You’re too scared. You’re always threatening to leave, saying you want to move somewhere like London or New York or…”

I catch where she’s going and say, “Or LA.”

“Yep. Everything seemed perfect. Then suddenly everything was over. I don’t know what happened. You’d been acting weird for about a month, anyone could see it. You told me nothing except that the breakup was for real this time. Cillian is a wreck, poor thing. Puts on a brave face.”

“This is appalling,” I say, my heart clanging in my chest for Cillian. For me.

A phone rings and we look at each other.

I run across the place, only barely managing not to drop the wineglass. I get to the phone and see the screen.

It’s Aimee.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The phone almost slips out of my hand as I try to answer. When I do, I’m afraid it’s too late, that she may have disconnected.

“Hello?” I ask, then glance at my screen to make sure I didn’t press the End button.

“Hey,” she says.

Holy shit.

That one word. That one syllable. Her voice sounds so familiar and so the same that it feels like a glass of water after a trek through the desert. Such a relief that I’m afraid I might choke on it.

She always had this cool, raspy voice that I envied. Whenever we filmed ourselves as teenagers or recorded for no reason on GarageBand, and we often did, she always came across like young Stevie Nicks and I sounded like preteen Kermit the Frog.

“What’s up?” she prompts.

I can tell she’s annoyed.

I glance at Kiera. She’s chewing on her thumbnail and watching me anxiously.

“Can we meet up?” I ask.

She sighs. “What is there to say, Meg?”

So much. So, so much.

“To be honest, I don’t know why we’re fighting and—this would be easier if we got together and talked.”

My nervous system is electrified. It’s like I’m a teenager talking to the boy I’m crushing on, but a hundred thousand times more intense.

“I’m too busy to think about doing that right now. I don’t have the energy. We’ve talked about everything and I don’t want to go back through it again, I’m not … I … don’t want to … yeah, I guess I don’t want to.”

Those words crush me, and I have to remember to keep breathing.

I’m torn. It will sound too fantastical to remotely try telling the truth. I mean, it’s beyond belief to even me. But I can’t accept not seeing her, obviously I can’t.