‘Just natural relationship peaks and valleys,’ he continued. ‘It happens to the best of us. We try not to clue anyone in because – well, you know how people are. They talk. Speculate. As you’ve experienced today. So clearly we’re not doing a good enough job.’ I watched as he took June’s limp hand and squeezed.

‘OK. I’m – I guess it’s not really any of my business,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ Heath said. ‘I guess it’s not.’

‘Hey, Whitaker,’ June said, all of a sudden a lot more chipper. ‘Since the weather’s broken, are you fine to start taking your bike again?’

‘I …’ What was this? ‘I mean, yeah. Sure.’ Since Heath was there, I felt like it’d be too much to dissent.

June wouldn’t even look at me in the dashboard mirror – but she must have noticed the disappointment in my voice. ‘I thought you liked riding your bike.’

‘Yeah, I do.’ But I like you more.

‘Exercise!’ Heath chimed in. ‘It’s good for you.’

What was happening? Heath seemed blissfully unaware of the weight of what June had just asked. June seemed unaware. I thought she liked these rides. I thought she liked me. Because without the ten minutes there and ten minutes back, I wouldn’t see her at all. Nothing left to hold on to.

My chest clenched. Everything she left unsaid filled me up, and while we drifted quietly through downtown I couldn’t shake the thought that I was in some stranger’s car, that I’d been hoodwinked, that all the signs of affection I’d worried I’d imagined really had been imagined and this whole time I’d just been going insane, obsessed with a girl who never thought about me at all. Why didn’t she tell me anything?

Why didn’t she tell me anything?

‘Why don’t you tell me anything?’

No one spoke.

But I had said it. And I wasn’t sure why I was choosing this moment to do something about it. I guess I’d had enough: I realized I was losing her, my twenty minutes a day of sanity, and I felt I at least deserved to know why.

June actually looked at me now in the mirror. ‘What?’

Heath scratched the back of his head.

‘You don’t tell me anything. You never tell me anything. Everything is so vague and mysterious with you, like you’re doing it on purpose.’

‘Sydney, I promise you, you don’t want to –’

‘Hey,’ Heath interjected, facing me. ‘I think you should calm down.’

I was calm. ‘I am calm.’

‘You seem very antagonistic.’

‘What are you –’

‘We’re here!’ June said, too loud. ‘We’re here anyways, so. This conversation can end now.’

We turned on to the cul-de-sac, then into my driveway.

I didn’t move. None of us did.

And then I got out, said nothing and slammed the door behind me.