‘Oh my God, love turns people into the grossest humans. This is like watching my parents get off.’

Dad pops his head in again, and Cecelia and I both shout, ‘No!’ before he can say anything inappropriate.

As soon as the kiss is over, we’re back in a car chase again, whizzing our way through some American city, causing all kinds of carnage as people hang out of windows and shoot everything but the person they’re trying to hit.

And as I’m watching the world in the film fly by, I see splashes of colour. Shops selling flowers. A person sitting on the pavement with a guitar and singing. A balloon that’s uncurled from somebody’s hand, floating up and up.

Wesley never saw any of that. He set his adventures by his watch. But if Rowan were the hero here, I think we’d be seeing everything differently. We’d have our noses in the flowers. We’d be listening to the music. We’d have our eyes on the sky.

Perhaps Wesley’s note was right. There is something special about him.

‘Well, that was crap,’ Cecelia says as the credits roll. She turns off the TV and swings round to look at me, so our noses are nearly touching. She has this wild look in her eye – like she might take off at any moment – and I reach out and grab her arm, so I can float away with her.

‘What did you do today?’ she asks.

I think for a moment about the long recovery nap I took. The new meds I started. The time spent on my laptop. But she doesn’t want to hear about that.

‘I played minigolf. The one on the beach.’

Her eyes light up. ‘The one with the elephant? You know, I bet I could climb that. Jump on the back of Jumbo.’

I nudge her. ‘Break off its nose?’

‘Hey,’ she says, pointing at me. ‘That dinosaur had it coming. That was an impossible hole.’

I laugh and push my forehead into hers.

‘We should go and do something outside together sometime,’ she says.

My heart drums up into my ears. ‘Yes, maybe.’

She squeezes my face. ‘And you know what’s coming up, don’t you?’

‘My facial reconstruction surgery?’ I say, wriggling out of her vice-like grip.

‘No, stupid. My birthday! And it’ll be my sixteenth, which will make me even sweeter. And I’m thinking I’ll have a party. An actual party with beer and everything. BEER.’

My heart seems to stop and blast forward at the same time, and I miss a breath. I turn away, but she catches my wrist and squeezes it, tight.