‘June,’ I said, ‘can you just talk to me?’

‘Sydney …’

‘Please.’

Heath shouted something, but I wasn’t listening any more, because I didn’t fucking care. All that stood between me and eternity was the tree line and I at least wanted her to talk to me. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘so, everything is gonna be fine. Right?’

Seven months since. Seven months since. A million months since. A million years since. Where am I? Where is he?

‘And I want you to know that I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me –’

June grabbed for me.

‘– and that I’m so, so sorry.’

We were at the tree line.

I will not go gentle into that –

It was so funny; I had never said it to myself before. I’d never said the words. But God, I loved June Copeland. I didn’t love her unselfishly. I didn’t love her healthily. But I loved her so badly it hurt.

I will go gentle into that –

‘Sydney, you are so wonderful, and I know what you’re thinking and you need to do it now.’

Find me somewhere in the ether; I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose you for good.

I lunged, grabbed the wheel and heaved.

We barrelled past the tree line. No vision. No sound. Just tumbling, and throbbing, and crashing, flesh and bones and muscle, no up or down or sideways; there were screams but I had no earthly idea which one of us they’d come from. But I would not take my hands off the wheel. Even as Heath’s body crashed against mine, I would not.

Trees reached and scraped and tried to stop us, and the world exploded in perfect incandescent symmetry.

And then we slowed.

Rolled. Rocked backwards.

Stopped. We had stopped.

Breathe.

Breathe.

I assessed.

Alive. I was distinctly alive.

Heath was trying frantically to get the car to move, flooring the gas, but it wouldn’t; the tyres sputtered uselessly below us, no traction to propel us forward.

Quicksand.

We’d made it to the quicksand.

My vision returned; just barely, because all I could see was the glow of the headlights and the steady rain falling within it.

It was so quiet. Where were the screams?

The back seat was quiet.

June.

The window beside her head was smashed, tiny sparkling shards of glass clinging to her hair. Her forehead glistened red. She didn’t move.

‘June,’ I said once, but no sound came out, so I said it again.

She stirred. Moaned.

I gasped for air. ‘June, come on …’