He sounds surprised. It hurts to hear that surprise. It feels like a betrayal. I’d forgotten he knew them first. That they were all friends years before Bella and I came into the picture. No, not forgotten. I’ve very deliberately not thought about it because I always wanted Max to be mine, not theirs.

“I see Sean for a drink sometimes. Not often.”

“And Jack?”

He shrugs. “Not as much. Jack is…well, Jack is still Jack, I guess. Only not as…”

Not as what? Angry? Scary? Intimidating? Bitter? That’s what I remember about Jack. That and his bloody shark smile. At least I always knew where I stood with Sean, with his obvious anger and hate. Jack would smile that wide smile of his, but his eyes…there was never a smile in his eyes.

“You know he got married?”

I nod. Dad told me.

“He got married, had a son. I have to say, I never thought he’d be the one to settle down and be the grown-up.”

I can’t imagine it. Like Bella when she appears as dream, ghost, or hallucination, whatever it is, I imagine the others being the same age as they were the last time I saw them. Jack, married with a child? Does not compute.

I put my bag in the trunk and climb into the car next to him.

“I never thought this is how we’d meet up again,” Max says as he pulls out into the main road.

“Really?” I say. “It seems to me that all our meetings have been surrounded by death.”

He winces at my words and I look over at him, this oh-so-familiar stranger, waiting for some memories to come flooding back, but there’s nothing. Did you kiss me back? I want to ask. When I made my clumsy love-filled pass at you, did you kiss me back, Max? Was it you who helped me upstairs, was it you, your lips brushing mine?

But ten years is a river too wide. So we sit in a strange car and my memory remains blank.

Lena wakes up nearly two hours into the journey, as we pull off the highway onto the lanes that lead home.

“Jesus Christ, I need a drink,” she says, leaning forward, hooking her arms over the back of both our seats.

Max’s face twitches and I squeeze his hand where it rests on the gear stick.

“Bloody hell, fast work, Tess. Ten years apart and already you’re holding hands.” She laughs as I snatch my hand away.