Heath played Vivaldi. I wasn’t entirely sure what sort of music I’d envisioned him liking; all things considered, this seemed to make sense. He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel absentmindedly, hitting each note in Summer. I only knew it was called that because the screen in his car said so.

I attempted futilely to get hold of Olivia. The fog in my brain – thinner, thankfully, but still there – meant typing anything was a slow process – in fact an insurmountable task. I couldn’t get the words out. Wasn’t even sure what the words were.

So I gave up. Watched the world outside zoom past. We might as well have been flying through space, each passing streetlight some faraway star; being at the River Styx with June felt like it might as well have been a million years ago. It was even colder, now, and the heated seats made the car smell faintly like burning.

He wasn’t talking so I attempted to make conversation. ‘I think this is giving me anxiety,’ I said, referring to Vivaldi. Good one, me.

Heath kept his eyes on the road. ‘It’s supposed to. “The shepherd weeps, because overhead hangs the fearsome storm, and his destiny.” ’

‘Oh.’

‘Vivaldi wrote a sonnet for each of the four seasons. Pretty groundbreaking stuff for a composer at the time. That’s translated, of course. It sounds much better in the original Italian.’

‘Yeah. Of course.’ I don’t know why I felt like I had to impress him, but I did, like I was hoping for his approval. Anyway, there was something endearing about him listening to Vivaldi directly after leaving a rager.

‘Hey, so, I actually wanted to thank you.’

The steadiness of his voice implored me to turn off my phone. ‘For what?’

‘For everything you’ve done for June.’

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. ‘I mean, yeah, you’re welcome! Happy to be of assistance!’ And then I saluted him, which I liked to think normally would have been caught by the filter that kept me from doing things that were lame as fuck. ‘What do you mean, though?’

Heath shifted. A lock of his hair tumbled forward, and stuck there like a Superman curl. Even with the film of sweat on his forehead and the slight pink tinge to the corner of his eyes, he was still annoyingly handsome. ‘She was having a really rough time this summer. Was in a really dark place, actually, and I don’t know if you know, but she saw your dad for a bit.’

I widened my eyes like this was completely new information. I don’t know why.

‘Yeah,’ he continued. ‘She really liked him. But she’s been happy, lately – I imagine you might have filled that gap for her, in a way. Don’t you think?’

‘Yeah, I mean. Yeah. I guess.’