“I mean, I promise, now we’re grown adults, I won’t have breakfast at yours every single morning.”

I smiled. “Mum and Dad even bought you your own cereal bowl, remember?”

“I loved that bowl.”

I wondered where it had ended up. If they’d lost it in the move, or whether it was still stored away in a cupboard, somewhere in St. Albans, a lost relic to a lost friendship.

“This new chapter is all about Jessica being Jessica. A cool hipster independent mum, living in a place where she doesn’t have to bump into twats she slept with when she was young. Where nobody knows me...well, apart from you.”

I kept forgetting she wasn’t who she used to be. How we’d both changed, grown up, become adults. How, apart from a few blips, she seemed different. Trustworthy.

“So,” I asked. “Whereabouts were you looking?”

Her whole face relaxed into the warmest smile, as she sensed I’d given my permission.

“Well,” she said, “there’s this great two-bed, right across from the park...”

When Ben eventually returned, brandishing a tray of red wines with a war-worn expression, he found us huddled over her phone, swiping through floor plans.

“Ahh, so you’ve told her then,” he said to Jessica, handing over her wine and greeting me with another proud kiss as he sat by my side. His palm found my knee and I leaned my head into him.

“Hell yeah, neighbor,” Jessica said. “See you at the local council meetings.”

“Cheers to this.”

Ben held out his arm, brandishing a crimson globe of wine into the center of our circle, and Jessica and I joined him, clanking so hard we wet our hands with overspill.

“Cheers,” I said, telling myself to let go of the past. Embrace the future. Enjoy having her back. “Cheers cheers cheers.”

17

april 2003

I knew something was wrong from the moment we landed. My phone lit up like a Christmas tree the instant I’d turned it on—a floodgate of messages arriving in my in-box before I’d even disembarked the plane.

Jessica: Hey it’s really important u call me when u land. I want to speak 2 u first.

I love you btw. I hope you had a lovely holiday xxx

“What the hell?” I muttered, clogging up the airplane aisle as I reread the messages. Then another one came in.

Jade: Hey hon. Umm, so, I hope u r ok. Jessica n Liam r together. Long story. Call me when u hav landed. I love u, Im here. I know u said u didn’t like him any more but still. hope u are ok xxx

And, just like that, all the relaxation from my holiday vanished. Blood hardened in my veins and my phone shook in my hand while my parents gently tapped my shoulder, and said, “Fern, honey, you’re holding up the people behind you.”