‘I mean, did you like him? Or, I guess … what was he like?’ I knew what he was like, of course. But I wanted to know what he was like with her.

‘He was great. He was patient and understanding and had this, essence, I guess. Just really warm. Funny. I get why you loved him so much. Of course I do. I know that’s part of the job but he never made it feel like that.’ She paused. Swallowed once. ‘And he gave me incredibly discounted sessions.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. Like, almost free. My parents were – they’re weird, about that stuff, so, yeah.’

‘What do you mean weird?’

‘Like …’ She let out something between a sigh and a grunt. ‘It’s hard to explain. Sorry, I don’t want to dump this on you or anything, but my parents are divorced and I’m not close at all to my dad, and my mom – eh. She’s one of those people that thinks mental illness can be cured with, like, a positive attitude and multivitamins. And she would not have agreed with me going.’

‘So she didn’t even know?’

She shook her head. ‘She doesn’t really know anything about me at all.’

‘Yeah. I get it.’

We were quiet for a moment. Longing for all the things we lacked filled the empty space.

‘So,’ she continued, ‘I guess I was kind of on my own trying to figure stuff out. Yeah. He was a good dude. Or maybe I was such a head case that he thought it was his civic duty to sort me out.’

‘Did he?’

‘Eh. Almost.’

Something about the conversation made it feel like Dad had been sitting in the back seat this whole time, but I’d just never turned to look.

Of all the issues with my less-than-innocent fondness for June, the most physical was Heath.

I caught myself looking out for him at school, paranoid he’d be able to tell how I felt just by seeing my face when I looked at her. But truthfully, I didn’t really want anything bad to happen between them because as much as everything in me fought against it, I liked the guy. I couldn’t help it.

In December, while I was waiting for June after school, I was on the ToD, watching this particularly incriminating video of a building jumper, and Heath had come up beside me without me noticing.

He ran a hand through his hair, exhaled and puffed out his cheeks. Yeah. He saw. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to –’

‘No, it’s not your fault. I shouldn’t be doing that here anyway. Uh. Yikes. That’s embarrassing.’