“Yeah, well, maybe so did I, did that ever occur to you? Did it ever even fucking occur to you what it was like to be me? Why I got so wasted, let boys do those things? Yeah, so you had scars all down your arms. I get it. But what about my scars? My way of self-harming? Just because I wasn’t bleeding, doesn’t mean I wasn’t bleeding. And you just...left me, Fern. You just packed my bag and cut me out.”

“After WHAT YOU’D DONE.”

“I was too drunk that night in Manchester to be doing anything other than be taken home by my friend. I know I flirted with him because I was mad at you for ignoring me, which is shit, but that’s all I was going to do. But that’s all I really remember. I was so drunk I got with a boy my best friend liked. Doesn’t that make it clear how wasted I was? And I apologized to you, about the Danny thing. I emailed you and you never replied. And where was my apology? For letting some random guy I didn’t know take me home after about ten shots, and then fucking dumping my stuff into a bag?”

I threw my arms in the air. “I can’t believe you’re doing this. After what I’ve just seen! Ben... Ben is everything to me, Jessica, and you...you...” I start wailing again. Huge guttural sobs of pain catching up on me.

“...Ben is planning to propose to you,” Jessica said quietly.

Hang on. Hang on. Hang on.

I looked up.

“We’re not sleeping together, for fuck’s sake. I’ve been helping him pick out a ring today. He was checking it looked shiny enough before we found a good hiding spot in the bedroom. I’m the one who has made him realize he’s being an idiot by not proposing to you.”

“What?”

She started walking backward, her face stained with tears. “I can’t believe you thought I’d...”

“Jessica! Hang on! What...”

“No. Fuck you. I never should’ve let you back into my life.”

She stepped out into the sunshine, wiped under her eyes, set her chin in a way I’d see her do a million times before. Determined. Steely. And she walked away without looking back.

18

december 2004

The next morning, her bag was gone.

32

now.

I stared at the spot in the bushes where Jessica had been—my life, my memories, my insecurities, rearranging themselves in the air around me. I’d just found out Ben was about to propose, and yet I felt utterly sick. The shock collapsed my knees and I found myself sitting in the dust, wiping tears away as quickly as they fell, shaking.

Until, of course, Ben called again.

“Fern? What the hell? Where are you? Are you OK? You just ran off.”