I twisted so I could look at June, but there wasn’t much to look at – she was just sort of a heap. Hands clasped together in her lap. Tear tracks on her face glistened in the glow of the streetlights. I tried to get her to look at me, tried to screw my face into some expression pained enough to convey everything I wanted to say to her: What’s happening? What did he do?

What did he do?

‘What’s going on?’ I tried.

Heath grunted. ‘I’m still trying to figure that out myself.’

‘Heath,’ June finally said behind me, ‘this is insane. You’ve crossed the line. This is insane.’

‘Yeah, I’m insane. Sure,’ he mumbled under his breath.

June’s voice was barely hers. It was smaller than I’d ever heard it, the edges shaky and blurred. ‘Please just drop us off somewhere. Anywhere. Please. If not me, then Sydney. She has nothing to do with this.’

He scoffed. ‘She has everything to do with this.’

‘We can’t do this now, baby. It’s not a good time –’

He adjusted the rear-view mirror to get a look at her. ‘Not a good time? What the fuck does that mean? What’s a good time for you, then? Clearly what matters is what you find convenient. No. When you instigate a relationship’s demise, June, you don’t get a say any more. You have none.’

I had never heard him speak like this, to her, to us, some sort of evil villain garbage; my body hung uselessly from me, unfamiliar and heavy and clenching, my brain trying to reconcile all the memories with this new face behind them. I had told myself that knowing was going to make all of this easier. A name and a face were supposed to make me less afraid. But all the unknowns had been limited by my imagination, and the answer was scarier than I could ever have conceived.

‘Why am I here?’ I asked, in a futile attempt to exert some amount of influence over the situation.

‘We needed to talk. Obviously.’

What life June’s voice had lost, Heath’s seemed to have gained; there was something wired about it, too much of it, irrational and unpredictable and hooked.

‘OK. I’m listening.’

‘God. Where do I start?’ Heath tapped his fingers against the wheel impatiently. ‘I just – I take issue with the emotional cheating. You know? Of course I do. It’s not a compassionate thing to do. It’s dishonest, and almost worse than physical cheating – actually, strike that, it is worse, because sex doesn’t necessarily mean emotions have to be involved, but that’s definitely what’s happened between the two of you. Emotions. Right? It’s not compassionate. But neither is June wanting to call off a relationship when her partner is at his lowest point. It’s very selfish.’

Call off a relationship.