It’s felt like such a long time coming, so please, let’s all dance.

I can’t make my body move like that, but if I could, I would.

Honestly, I’m still sort of processing it all. When you go from sending query after query, and feel hope slowly wane after being ghosted on full requests (which happened far more than was polite) you begin to wonder if you’re on some sort of list. So when someone comes along believing in you and your work enough to want to help make your dreams come true, it takes a minute to feel real.

In any case, the day I hastily emailed her about an agent 1-1 at the Meet Cute romance festival back in June, I wasn’t expecting that she’d have any slots left, because I was late in getting my act together. It was a real shoot your shot moment.

But, she did.

And I ummed and ahhed on what material to send. After all, I had two manuscripts I believed were in a queryable state: The Matchmakers, a MAFS inspired romcom set in London, Derbyshire and Kent, about a couple competing to win a reality TV show with an exec producer who goes rogue, or Love Unchained, about a pro cycling team’s social media manager, who falls hard for the rider pipped to win the world’s biggest bike race.

In the end I settled on Love Unchained, because it was fresher in my mind and so easier to yap about, and also because I was going to France to watch the Tour the following week, which I figured was a fun talking point, and demonstrated my commitment to book research.

And I never skimp on research. It’s one of the best bits of writing a book and I love to become a subject matter expert on really niche things.

You can ask my husband who drove us halfway up the M1 so I could visit the food court at Leicester Forest East services because I wrote it into a scene in The Matchmakers and needed to know whether the seating area was directly above the flow of traffic (pedantic? moi?).

Or my friend Ve, who accompanied me to a specific brunch spot in Hackney, because that’s where I wanted Fran in Swipe Right to have an awkward breakfast with her horrible boyfriend (and also I wanted to try the eggs benedict).

When I write stuff, I want readers to be able to imagine themselves there, in the moment, and for me to do that, I have to have been there, in the moment. I have to know the vibe. I have to have tried the eggs benedict.

So, off went the opening and I sweated over the whole thing for days.

Because I’ve had 1-1s before… and, one in particular did not go well. I was asked why someone would read a book about MAFS when they could just watch it instead? Okay, but by that logic why would you read about any situation you could just consume another way? Why would you read an enemies to lovers when you could just hate on someone until you realise you fancy them IRL? Why leaf through a sports romance when you could just watch a game? Why pick up a rockstar romance if you could simply step onto the tourbus and… be a groupie?

I still think about that comment. And honestly, after the initial shock I decided it was an absurd take. Reality TV is, whether you like it or not, a large part of the zeitgeist. So why wouldn’t you write a romcom about it?

In any case, the time came, we sat down, she hugged me, said she’d enjoyed the beginning of Love Unchained, and asked for the full manuscript. We talked about Call Me Maybe and Swipe Right, and my experience of publishing to date. She asked if I had plans for a follow up, and I mentioned The Matchmakers.

‘It’s loosely based on MAFS,’ I said. ‘Not sure if you’ve ever seen it.’

‘You’ll never meet a bigger MAFS fan than me,’ she replied.

And that, you guys, that was the second I knew I wanted us to work together, because what pure fortune! And there’s little I like more than a yap about MAFS.

I thought, oh fuck, I sent the wrong book! And then decided that if she passed on Love Unchained I’d ask if she wanted to read The Matchmakers anyway. Why not? The worst she could say is no, and it’s not like I haven’t heard that before. Anyway, the vibe of the conversation was marvellous and I left it feeling buoyed up and confident, and dare I say, hopeful.

A week after Meet Cute, my husband and I went to watch the Tour de France in person. We hired a van and did hashtag van life for a week, following the peloton around northern France, pitching up in a farmer’s field and in a car park at the foot of a big climb because you can do that in France and nobody minds. Especially during Le Tour. The national pride surrounding it is unmatched.

Van life was fun… Even though the living space was très petit, and there was the constant whiff of chemical toilet, and we got stuck in a field after heavy rain and had to be towed out by a farmer, and our van didn’t have a tow hook. Duolingo doesn’t have a section for that scenario. Maybe it should.

I learnt stuff, too. How to get rid of grey water, for instance, and also that when it’s necessary I can make myself understood in French without relying solely on mime or the translate app on my phone, but anyway, I digress.

Whilst hopping from étape to étape, I got the email all querying writers hope for. The one following the full manuscript request where you’re asked if you’d be up for a call, and I paced (around the outside of the van) and text a couple of friends. Only a couple, mind, because I believe in jinxes.

By the end of the week, I was back in the UK a jittery wreck, and honestly, my bowels were fighting for their life.

Look. I know, okay. I know. I’m an oversharer, and I’m not even sorry. But I wanted this so much that my body went into fight or flight and nervously purged.

The call went well. Obviously, otherwise I would not be writing this. I’d still be wondering if I was on a list somewhere.

My friend is right.

I have worked so fucking hard. And I cannot wait to see what comes next! 💖

And if you’re interested, here are my query stats:

Books queried: 3 (Love You Too Esty Mackie, The Matchmakers, Love Unchained)

Love You Too Esty Mackie
Queries sent: 23
Rejections: 11
Full requests: 0
No response on query: 12

The Matchmakers
Queries sent: 29
Rejections: 15
Full requests: 4
Revise & resubmit: 1
No response after full or revise and resub: 3
No response on query: 11

Love Unchained
Queries sent: 26
Rejections: 11
Full requests: 3
Revise & resubmit: 0
No response after full: 2
No response on query: 12
Offers of rep: 1 - TA-DAAHHH

For those who don’t follow road cycling, the Giro d’Italia is the first of the three grand tours on the race calendar. The second being the Tour de France, and the third, the Vuelta a España.

The Giro is just as glorious as my favourite, the Tour, but has a pink jersey, the maglia rosa, so not only is it brilliant to watch, but it’s also cute.

Today’s stage is an individual time trial, where each rider in the peloton rides the course alone, against the clock.

And to celebrate this, I’m posting the time trial chapter from Love Unchained, the Tour de France sports romcom I’m currently querying.

(two fulls out, and a lot of form rejections, incase you were wondering. This really never gets any easier.)

Onwards, to the chapter - hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 8

Stage 5 - Changé to Laval

A lot of people find individual time trials boring, and although I love them as much as any other stage, I can understand why. For many people, the best bit of racing is the battle.

It’s madly exciting watching a sprint, and even more so when the rider you’re rooting for wins. When it’s heads down and power through the pedals so explosive that the bike tips with every push. When the lines are set and the end is so close that it’s a photo finish, and thousands of images, each only one pixel wide, are analysed to see whose wheel crossed the line first.

And the attack on a climb; something you’re looking out for because you know it’s going to happen, and you're pretty sure who’s going to do it, but you’re on tenterhooks waiting for the moment.

And then, that massive burst of energy, all those watts and that determination and drive to get in front, to break the slip stream and go. Not as fast as a sprint, but just as brilliant.

But time trials are a little different. Each rider has a set time to start, and they ride alone, contre la montre, in reverse order of their race positions. Meaning today, Sem is going last, and the only thing he’s racing is the clock.

Today I’m keeping things simple with photos of everyone’s race and some clips behind the scenes. None of the Udemy-Swift riders are up until the afternoon so I have time to record Chris, one of our mechanics, do a full cassette change, and Sean Lamont and Rafael Martin giving soundbites to press, and to grab some cute shots of Bas with his wife, Nina, and their toddler, perched on his forearm. The scene is achingly familiar and seeing them makes me want to call home.

‘It’s hard to get family photos,’ Nina says, looking down at their daughter, after Bas has disappeared back inside the bus, and I know, acutely, how she feels. Even though Mum and I came to Dad’s tours, we didn’t get to stay with him. We had our own hotel rooms, and he was busy warming up or down, or racing, or doing press, or being massaged, or having drug tests, or… the list of reasons why he couldn’t always felt endless.

‘Let me airdrop these to you,’ I say. ‘Then they’re yours.’

‘Don’t you want them for your Instagram account?’ she asks, but I shake my head.

‘If you post it, I’ll re-share, if not, then no big deal.’

We hold our phones close as the pictures transfer and she scrolls through them.

‘Are you busy now?’ she asks, and it feels sort of tentative.

‘I mean… I have to get clips of the guys as they come down the start gate, but Ryan’s first and he’s not for another hour yet. Do you want to grab a coffee? Maybe this one can help me get some more photos.’ I look down at Bas and Nina’s child. ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t know her name.’

‘Fleur,’ Nina smiles. ‘A coffee would be great, but only if you have time.’

‘I definitely have time,’ I say. ‘I’ll grab a couple from the bus though. It’ll be better than what’s at the village.’

‘We’ll wait here,’ Nina says, strapping Fleur back into her pram. ‘If she sees–’ she nods towards Bas on the bus, ‘–she’ll cause a fuss.’

‘Got it,’ I say.

Nina and I walk with our drinks along the line of team buses, past riders warming up in their skin suits and aero helmets, and mechanics working on bikes, and spectators ambling around with cameras and intrigue. It starts to spit with rain and she fixes a plastic cover to the pram and we both put our hoods up.

‘I wanted to thank you again for the photo,’ she says. ‘I really appreciated it.’

‘Ah, you’re very welcome,’ I say, wafting my hand about. ‘Fleur will really love them when she’s older.’

‘Do you have many of you and your dad? I don’t want her to feel like she’s missing out.’

Christ, even the WAGs know! Probably best to assume knowledge of my parentage is common.

‘Erm. A few, but not as many as I’d like, but then people weren’t walking around with smart phones when Dad was racing so pictures weren’t so abundant. Obviously lots of copies of photos from his wins, but fewer candid ones or snaps. It would be nice to have some that capture the atmosphere of this, you know?’

I gesture up and down the road, at everyone milling round. A Caixabank-Telefonica rider glides past on his way to the start gate. The team cars inch along. ‘I’m sure she won’t feel like she’s missing out though. She’ll be super proud of him.’

‘Have you worked for the team for a long time?’ Nina asks.

‘A little over a year,’ I say. ‘Joined at the beginning of last season. Certainly wasn’t expecting to be let loose here, untethered.’

‘Well, we especially loved the video on day one, didn’t we, Fleur?’

She peeks over the pram and little Fleur Jansen gurns up at us.

‘I’m glad,’ I laugh. ‘Wasn’t sure how it was going to be received, you know. And Sem wasn’t into it.’

‘Bas said,’ Nina admits, thoughtfully. ‘But Sem’s...’ She trails off.

‘Very focused and competitive, I know,’ I say. ‘Everyone tells me this.’

‘He’s just completely in his head about winning,’ she says. ‘Okay, you know his giant headphones?’

I think back to our first encounter, when he was wearing them, and he’d stepped back and bashed into me. ‘Yeah?’

‘Affirmations.’

‘Really?’ I laugh. ‘How do you know that? I assumed it was something really angry… screamo or death metal or something. No idea why.’

Nina joins in with the laughter.

‘Yeah, really. We don’t live far from him, so we see him socially sometimes.’

‘Amazing,’ I say, and I think that’s a good little nugget of information to have and wonder who else knows. Lisette, mainly.

‘The rivalry is going to be fierce today,’ she says. ‘If Kévin gets in that hot seat… Sem will go full gas. Tunnel vision, like a bullet.’

She makes a zoom sound and cuts through the air with her hand. ‘Shame about this rain, though. It’ll slow everyone down.’

‘He was so pissed at Matej Plečnik in the final sprint yesterday,’ I say.

‘Of course,’ Nina shrugs. ‘That was a real dick move.’

‘He told me he’s a little prick,’ I admit. ‘Oh, shit, sorry! Argh. Fleur! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to swear in front of your child.’

But she laughs it off with a wave of her hand.

‘Oh yeah?’ she says. ‘You spoke to Sem about it then?’

‘A little,’ I say. ‘When I posted the giveaway.’

‘He seemed to be into the cap photo,’ she muses. ‘Did you speak to him about that, as well?’

She’s looking at me now, eyes glinting a little, and the question feels pointed, and I can feel the beginnings of a blush start to bloom up the back of my neck.

‘I did, yeah,’ I say, staring ahead. ‘Just asked for it. No big deal.’

I don’t tell her how I was both scared to ask and thrilled when he agreed. I don’t mention that he found me on Instagram after I’d posted it and when he slid into my DMs, every single cell in my body felt like it was ablaze. I certainly don’t let on that the way he always calls me Raleigh Faber and not just Raleigh makes me feel warm in places that should remain completely indifferent.

‘It was cute. We don’t see that side of him often during a race.’

‘Ah, well… I don’t know him well enough to know one way or another,’ I say, and I take another gulp of coffee, mainly just for the pause.

‘All I’m saying is… I’ve never seen Zoe get jokey little photos of him posing in a cap, you know?’

I did know, but I’m unsure if that’s because she never asked, or if she was refused, so gave up, or because I’m just way more fun than she is. In any case, Nina’s clearly noticed my furnace face because she changes the subject. ‘Who are you sharing a room with?’

‘Lisette,’ I say. ‘From hospitality.’

‘Ahh,’ Nina says. We walk a few steps further. ‘And you knew her before? You get on?’

‘I didn’t know her before…’ I say, wondering if I should read anything into the question, and deciding not to. ‘But she’s been very welcoming.’

‘She and Zoe are thick as thieves,’ Nina says, and I find that interesting because Lisette hasn’t really even mentioned Zoe much since I arrived, other than to ask about the content plan, and why wouldn’t you talk about someone you were work besties with? We’re back at our bus now, and Fleur is getting restless, so Nina and I say goodbye. ‘Catch you later,’ she says. ‘Maybe at the starting gate?’

I get what I need over the course of the afternoon: video clips of warm ups, some candid footage and cheeky vox pops. I throw up a post on Instagram asking followers to guess what the riders’ times will be today, and the estimates come rolling in.

One by one, the bikes are checked over and cleared to race and one by one, the boys rocket down the ramp and up the road. Ryan goes first, then Sean, then Nico. A little later is sweet Rafael, who bounded onto the bus earlier and announced his cousins were in the crowd, and then Joshua, and Bas cheered on by Nina and Fleur, until it’s only Sem left.

And when he sits on the turbo trainer with those giant cans on his ears, all I can think about is that he wants this so badly that he listens to affirmations that help him to get there. He asks a soigneur for something, and as he scurries off to fetch it, Rufus offers me a ride in the team car, and only a fool would refuse, so I’m not there when his bike is checked or to wish him luck as he makes his way up to the gate, or even as he gives one of his bottles to a little boy watching at the sidelines. Instead, I am strapped in the back as they attach Sem’s name to the front of the car, and I watch him zoom down the ramp, like over a hundred and seventy other riders have done before him today, and charge up the road out of Changé.

The TV motorbike immediately follows, with a cameraman with his kit perched on his shoulder, and then we’re signalled to go. Rufus is in the passenger seat, James is driving. And I’m next to Leon, a mechanic, my eyes bouncing between the screen in the centre console, and Sem, in front of us. And he’s mesmerising to watch from behind. So smooth; almost swaying as he rides.

We’re soon in the countryside and as Sem bears left around a corner, James grabs hold of the race radio and starts talking into it as he drives.

‘Speed it up now, Sem,’ he’s saying. ‘Move the legs. We’re not rolling, we’re pushing.’

Meanwhile, Rufus is scrutinising race times on a tablet.

‘Three seconds behind Letexier,’ he murmurs, and James repeats it for Sem, and as I watch out of the windscreen I’m sure he speeds up. He’ll hate knowing he’s behind. We head straight on for a while longer, with James yelling encouragement directly into Sem’s ears, before turning left again, nipping around a tight corner straight after.

‘Four seconds behind,’ Rufus says, and I can’t help but worry. This is tense. If Sem loses this stage, the chances are he’ll lose the yellow jersey as well because the race is that close. We’re hugging the edge of a village now and Rufus points out we’ve done seven kilometres. In front of us, Sem speeds up again. We cross a river and James tells him to keep it up over and over down the radio.

Rufus confirms the time gap is back down to three seconds, and Sem gets his head down, quickly managing to bring it down to two. We follow him into another village and there’s a sharp right turn coming up.

‘Easy, Sem, easy,’ James commands. ‘It’s still wet on the road. Take this one carefully.’

But Sem doesn’t take it carefully enough and he skids hard on the turn, water droplets spraying out behind him.

‘Fuck!’ Rufus howls, and my hand whips up to my mouth. I press myself into the back seat, and next to me, Leon tenses, ready to jump out if Sem needs assistance. The time that follows seems to stretch out. The bike wobbles, the back wheel skidding hard to the left, jerking him off course. He struggles to maintain balance, but ultimately rights himself and propels forward again. We all collectively breathe.

But that wobble has put him back to four seconds behind Kévin, and as soon as we hit a straight stretch on the way out of the village and are heading towards Laval, Sem’s off again.

‘Full gas,’ Rufus hypes, and Sem pedals harder. ‘Three seconds behind… two seconds… one second.’

We’re getting close to the end of the stage now. Suddenly there’s only five kilometres left to go, and Sem and Kévin are neck and neck.

‘Come on, Sem,’ James urges. He’s steering single-handedly and holding the radio to his mouth, leaning forward as he drives, his yellow lanyard swinging side to side. ‘Right turn coming up, be careful, take it easy… okay there’s a left turn further up ahead and then we’re crossing the river again.’

I think back to everyone on the bus listening to this. To the rest of the team who’ll be sitting together. To Mike who’s probably prepping food and Inger and the other mechanics and swannies who will be on tenterhooks. And to Kévin Letexier, riding just a little further up the road, and I wonder if he’ll know they have exactly the same time. As it stands, if it stays this way, Sem will keep the yellow jersey, but this is far from over.

The route takes us parallel to the river, past a park with a playground, under a railway viaduct and quickly onto a smaller side street. We zigzag quickly, through roads lined with spectators, and Sem is getting faster and faster. Rufus keeps calling out the time gap and the excitement in the car is mounting. He’s now a second faster than Kévin. Two seconds faster than Kévin. Three seconds faster than Kévin, and James is yelling words like power and speed and push and urging him to give it just a little bit more for just a little bit further.

And suddenly, there’s only one kilometre left, and that’s nothing. Twenty-seven kilometres have flown by. The stage finishes at Espace Mayenne, a modern sports and conference centre on the edge of Laval, and its white facia looms ahead. The spectators are packed tightly behind barriers and even with Rufus and James yelling into the radio, I can hear them pounding on them and screaming for Sem outside. He rounds the final corner smoothly and the end is finally in sight.

‘Faster,’ James is howling. ‘You’re five seconds ahead, five and a half. Six.’

And Sem raises his arms over his head as he flies over the finish line at over 50 km/h, now eight whole seconds faster than Kévin, with the fastest time of the entire peloton. We’re all screaming, Rufus and James and Leon and me. James parks up and plants a hefty kiss on the side of Rufus’ head and Leon hugs me tightly round the neck.

‘You fucking legend,’ Rufus screeches into the radio.

Outside, Sem slows down and yanks his radio from his ear. He’s met by Inger and followed by press and a camera operator. He leans over his bike, panting heavily. Inger hands him a bottle and leads him out of the throng. I want to get out of the car and go to him, but by the time I’ve retrieved the camera from its spot on the dashboard, filming our reactions, and hopped out, he’ll be gone. So I stay with Leon instead.

In fact, I don’t see him again until the podium presentation. Nina and I decided to get a fan’s perspective and so headed into the crowd, just a little behind all the photographers. Sem stands in the middle, in a fresh yellow jersey and cap, looking tired but happy as he’s presented with another toy lion that’ll end up on the bus, and a pretty bouquet of flowers. I’m ready with the camera, holding it up high and squinting as I zoom in on him. If nothing else, it’ll be a few seconds for my best bits round up post.

‘Oh my god,’ Nina laughs. ‘Of fucking course.’

Christ. I’ll have to mute that. ‘Raleigh?’ she says.

‘Yeah?’ I ask, but I don’t look at her because my attention is held elsewhere, and we both know it. I’m too busy looking up at the podium in front of us, grinning at Sem, holding up his toy lion and flowers, and I know what she’s seen and what she’s going to say, and it’s made my heart bang in my chest, because Sem is grinning too. Not out at the crowd, and not even down the lens of the camera, held high above my head, but right at me.

On Thursday morning the Instagram account I’d been nurturing for fourteen years, that had hundreds of photos, reels, memories, and most of my writing network (especially since Twitter went to shit), was arbitrarily banned.

I’d celebrated so much on there. My children’s first days at school. Their milestones. Date nights. Visits to my best friend. Time spent with my family. Trips abroad. My ill-fated stint as a vocalist in an electropop band. My book deal. Random moments. Items I love. All those things gone in an instant, because a computer somewhere decided I was a fake account.

I, of course, appealed, but:

And the first question I was asked (by quite a few people actually, as if I’m some sort of troublemaker) was what I did to get banned, but the truth is nothing at all. Rien du tout.

My movements on Thursday morning were a quick scroll, a meme sent here or there, and a coffee walk with my husband before work.

And I’m nice online. I don’t start drama, I just watch it from the sidelines. I send memes to my sister and my best friend telling them how much they mean to me. I champion other writers. The spiciest thing I’ve done recently was comment that Adam Blythe’s jumper on TV was a bold choice and honestly, I stand by that.

When they disable your account, you can’t get into it and they don’t tell you what’s wrong, rendering, I think, the appeals process entirely fucking useless, because there’s no way you can actually speak to a human, or fix the thing they don’t like. So I guess that’s that.

RIP stephiecwrites.

Get bent, Meta.

Someone on Facebook told me to quit with Instagram altogether, but is it really as simple as that when social media is such an important part of book marketing these days? Felt a bit myopic. My initial reaction, caught in the crosshairs of upset and anger at the injustice of being kicked off my most engaged platform for nothing, was, okay boomer.

But as I said, I don’t start drama online. So I flicked the V at my computer and humphed off instead. It’s easy, isn’t it, to say it was just an instagram account, but it really makes you realise that you own very little online. Sobering moment. Something to think about.

I’ve started another account, (and made a back up) firstly in an attempt to get it quickly verified so I could speak to a person and get the old one reinstated, but there’s a waitlist for verification, because of course there is. And anyway, I don’t want to give my money to Meta. So perhaps a forced reboot will do me good? Drop the bots invariably accumulated in over a decade of being on the platform. Hide from people I don’t want to speak to, and all that jazz. Curate my feed and steer my algorithm from things that make me cringe (for real, why do I get shown mukbang content?) to things I actually like. Nail art, for instance. Bookish things. Boys on bikes and Korean skincare.

And whilst we’re on the topic of boys on bikes, not only have the Spring Classics started, but I have started querying Love Unchained. Slow going because of the London Book Fair, and also because querying is often glacial, but so far I’ve had two form rejections and nothing else.

That’s all for now. Bye!

This time last year I was beginning to query The Matchmakers, and even though it had a promising start and a number of full requests, it seems to have really just died in the slush pile. Of those full requests, they were whittled down to no responses and one revise and resubmit, which I never heard back about.

It’s a brutal world out there, kids.

Anyway, I wasn’t dwelling on it because everyone knows the best distraction technique is to write something new, so voila! My Tour de France book. Love Unchained, which started off as a working title but actually I am fond of it, so it’s staying.

Unlike the Netflix documentary series on the Tour de France, which they have axed, and I’m grumpy about that because it was wonderful. I rewatch it when I’m on the bike at the gym. Helps me to feel energised.

I’m not pulling 300+ watts for 5 hours though. I’m not even pulling 300 watts for thirty seconds.

And, I say this about every book because I am forever optimistic, but maybe this is the one? It’s definitely helped that I live in a cycling-obsessed household. And that I quite fancy a few pro cyclists.

Made writing about boys on bikes fun, y’know?!

In any case, the big question is…

Will it be l’amour on Le Tour?

Being unexpectedly sent to cover the social media for the Tour de France was not on Raleigh Faber’s bingo card when she turned up late for work. That’s fine, though, she’s the daughter of a retired pro cyclist, so it’s not like she doesn’t know the sport inside out. She’ll get in, get the job done, and get home again.

But neither was Sem de Haas, the team’s (breathtakingly gorgeous) star rider. Sem’s focused and driven. Coming second isn’t an option, he is here to win, and he doesn’t want to appear in her content.

As Raleigh struggles to keep her manager happy, and Sem battles to keep the yellow jersey, the spark between them is ignited. But tour trysts are not the only secrets being kept during the world’s biggest bike race, and he’s never been one to play by the rules. So why start now, on his final chance to win?

Wish me luck, guys. There’s little more to do now than to start querying.

And perhaps I should start thinking about the next one?

As all querying authors know, feedback on a manuscript is scarce, simply not getting a reply is common, and sometimes, if you can afford it, you should just throw money at the situation to get to know the state of the nation. So recently, I put my big girl pants on and booked an agent 121.

Here’s a rubbish stat: Out of all my full requests, only one agent responded, and I’ve been thinking about that since, and wondering whether it means no one else was into it, or if they’ve just been busy and/or forgotten about it.

Either way, the fact is, something isn’t landing, and I was at that stage for ages where I didn’t want to look at it, was convinced it was shit, was moving on to something else, etc etc. I’m sure we’ve all been there.

So in prep for my call, I re-read it, and it’s amazing what simply not looking at a manuscript for half a year can do. In one pass, I cut 5000 words without even denting the plot.

And to be clear. I wasn’t sending off a first draft. That book’s been through beta reads and multiple editing rounds. Five thousand filler words that I didn’t even see were filler before. Gone! Bye! Arrivederci! I felt like that’s a start.

So I had my 121, and the upshot of that was that the writing? Excellent (thanks, girly, love that for me), the hook? Needs something. Okay. Ouch, but okay. Finally, an insight we can work with.

I immediately sent a hyperbolic and slightly teary OMGWTFIWROTEAPILEOFSHITANDVERYONEISLAUGHINGATME voice note to a friend, who suggested adding some impossibility to the plot. After all, there are no rules. It’s my book, I can do what I like. What if they’re exes? What if he’s already married and hasn’t told anyone? What if she takes one look at him and nopes out of there?

Well, it just so happened that one of my nails broke at the gym earlier in the day. Part of my BIAB mani snapped clean off on the elliptical, and so I’d booked an SOS appointment to the nail bar to get them all soaked off and to give my paws a break for a few weeks.

And it was whilst I was in the chair, my fingers soaking in pure acetone, ready for the efile, that the epiphany came, and I could do nothing but sit and ponder as the gel on my nails melted away. I worked through all the possibilities in my head, examining how it affected every character and every plot line, and guys, I got that feeling where you just know. Another voice note was sent: ‘LIA! What if…’ The response; ‘Steph, I really think this is it!’

The nail tech laughed, but I’m sure I’m not the only person to have ever re-plotted a romcom novel in the chair. I felt better about things. My nails look like shit and are weak as fuck, but I think my book might have a new lease of life.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that I’m completely delulu, but I’m not even touching that right now.

(No Esty Mackie this week because, as you’ve probably guessed, I’ve been busy with The Matchmakers version 3.0 and I don’t have space in my brain for concurrent editing right now.)

Bye!

Read from the start

Previously: Neil shows his cards at a house viewing, and Esther's worlds collide.

Read the previous chapter

Ash (17)

Esty asks if the reason we don’t hang out at her place very much is because I’m scared of her dad after the whole Brighton incident.

‘I ain’t scared of him,’ I scoff, all bravado and lies on the bus back to mine. ‘Mum likes someone at home when she’s at work… for Tyler mainly.’

‘But, Tyler’s never there,’ she says. ‘And also, he’s fifteen.’

‘Yeah, but, I don’t know if you know this, but he’s a fucking idiot.’

The woman sitting in front of us turns her head and tuts. ‘What?’ I ask her. She looks away.

‘Ash! Stop,’ Esty laughs. She grabs my hand. ‘Is it actually because we get the house to ourselves?’

‘Couldn’t possibly say,’ I tell her and I kiss the top of her head as she leans on my shoulder and runs her finger along the seam of my jeans. ‘But that said,’ I continue, in a stage whisper, ‘I can think of worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon. Mum’s working til late, and Tyler’s fucked off out for the day anyway.’

The woman turns around again, and this time she catches my eye. ‘Can I help you?’ I ask.

‘There’s no need for that language,’ she mutters. ‘It’s very telling of how you’ve been brought up.’

‘What was that?’ I fire back. She makes a big point of looking away again but I can see her watching me through the reflection in the window.

‘Ash, leave it,’ Esty says. She leans forward and presses the button for our stop, and we shimmy out of our seats as the bus slows down.

‘You don’t know shit about how I’ve been brought up,’ I say, looking back as we step off. She stares at us as the bus peels away, her faced pinched in disapproval. Esty zips up her jacket and adjusts her beanie, pulling strands of hair down around her face. 

‘Come on,’ She links our hands. ‘Let’s go, forget it. Horrible woman.’

All the way home I do try to forget it. What does some dried up, dusty old bitch on the bus know anyway? But it’s rattled me; More than anything I hate it when people make assumptions about my upbringing, because they have no idea how much mum’s struggled, and by the time we get in there’s a whole atmosphere.

Esty flicks on the kettle to make tea.

‘PS2?’ she asks.

‘Yeah, fine, whatever,’ I say, ungraciously. She blinks.

‘We don’t have to. We can do something else,’ she says, but I shake my head and follow her up to my room. She kicks off her shoes and climbs on to my bed. Switches on the console and passes me a controller.

We’re on our third game of Mario Kart when the phone rings and I make no moves to answer it. 

‘Do you need to get that?’ she asks, pausing the game.

‘Nah,’ I say. ‘Probably a call centre.’

It rings off, but starts again almost immediately. She glances over and I stamp back downstairs, ready to hang up if it feels like a scam, but what I’m completely unprepared for is for it to be my dad.

‘Ashley,’ he says, and instantly my back is up. ‘Is your mum there?’

‘What do you want?’ I snap.

‘There are a few things I need to discuss with her. Can you put her on?’

It’s been like this since he left. He’s never friendly, never fatherly. Not like a dad talking to his son at all. Frustration and anger and sadness churn up my stomach.

‘No one here is interested in discussing anything with you,’ I say. Dad breathes out, heavily, down the line.

‘I don’t think that’s your call to make,’ he says, and there’s an edge to his voice.

‘Well, I don’t give a fuck what you think, and you don’t get to say shit about it anymore.’ 

And now there’s an edge to mine.

There’s a creak from upstairs; Esty’s standing on the top step, hanging onto the bannister, watching. Her eyes are round and worried. And I point to the phone and make a wank gesture with my hand and roll my eyes.

‘Not a good attitude,’ Dad continues, brusquely. ‘I don’t expect you to understand, but I would like you to put her on the line.’

‘Yeah, well, I’d like for you to get back in your little plane and fucking fly off somewhere.’

‘Ashley–’ he begins, but I’m done with his shit. We’re all done with his shit.

‘Nah, fuck off,’ I spit into the handset, and I jab at the buttons to end the call, yank the phone jack out of the wall and kick the lounge door.

And then Esty’s there with me, and if I thought her eyes were round before, they’re like dinner plates now.

‘Are you okay?’ she asks.

‘I hate that prick,’ I tell her.

‘Your dad?’

‘Yes, Esty. My dad.’

‘What happened?’

She pushes the lounge door open and I pace the room, moving from the TV in one corner to the stereo in the other, and back again, over and over.

‘Remember I told you we used to live near you? Well, he’s a pilot. Flies big fuck off aircraft. 747s, proper long haul stuff, so he was away a lot. And it turned out he had a side piece in the cabin crew, because of course he did, the fucking cliché.’

My hands are clenched now thinking about it. ‘He did my mum really dirty. Called from Singapore, and said he’d be back to collect his stuff, but then he was moving in with her.’

‘Oh no,’ Esty says, her hand over her mouth. ‘That’s horrendous.’

‘He did it as well. Turns out it had been going on for years. They sold the house and we moved here, and it’s not the same at all, but obviously I can’t say anything to Mum. Our old house had so much more space. We used to go on holidays. She never worried about stuff. She was happier, and now she has two jobs and he doesn’t even reliably give her money for us anymore.’

I sit down on the sofa and I’m so pissed off and overwhelmed at how Dad wrecked everything and at what the stupid old bitch on the bus said that I grab a fistful of my hair and pull at it. ‘Not like he can’t afford it. You ever see a skint 747 pilot?’

There’s a ball of rage in my stomach. The feeling does funny things to my vision. Esty sits down next to me, and she takes my hand, opening it, releasing my hair.

‘I’m so sorry that happened,’ she soothes. She pulls me towards her and I don’t resist because none of this has ever happened before. I’ve never let my guard down like this or even really talked about it with anyone. She knots our fingers together and moves her thumb over mine again and again and we sit in silence for what feels like ages, until my heartbeat slows and the rage melts away to calm.

‘Will you stay tonight?’ I ask, and my voice is croaky.

‘Of course I will’, she says, and she kisses my head. ‘Love you, Ash,’

‘Love you too, Esty Mackie,’ I say.

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This is the second chapter this weekend, so if you missed the first one or you’d like a little catch up, click below for the previous chapter.

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Previously: Ash and Esther reminisce over email and make plans to meet again

Esther

The estate agent is friendly in that keen-for-a-sale-because-he’s-got-targets sort of way. He turns the key, smoothly, in the lock and pushes open the door. Early evening sunlight floods the walls.

‘So you have this well-proportioned entrance hall,’ he says, brightly. ‘Gas central heating throughout.’ Taps the radiator. ‘Lovely big reception room to the right with a gorgeous bay window.’ 

We follow him into the living room, both acting as if we didn’t already know the layout. But it’s only two roads away and is almost exactly the same style, right down to the placement of the brushed chrome plug sockets and handles on the built-in cabinets. Plain decor, magnolia walls, cream carpet. A blank canvas. Just a bit bigger, but ready to move into. Neil looks out the window, at the driveway, the house opposite, the road to the green I sometimes walk in, and I can picture our furniture in here. Probably in exactly the same configuration as at home. We both look around, up into the corners of the ceilings, whilst the estate agent loiters in the doorway.

‘Shall we move into the kitchen?’ he asks, and leads us down the corridor, past the staircase, and into the kitchen diner where he shows us the integrated appliances and the utility room. ‘And then there’s the garden…’ 

It’s nicer than ours, and there’s a Wendy house, and a trampoline, encased in a net. Flower beds along each side, with solar lights stabbed into the ground, neatly cut grass, a gas barbecue and a table and chairs on a sandy coloured patio. And I notice there’s not a single weed growing between the slabs. No moss nestled in the grass. It’s so nicely maintained, and I wonder, if we were to buy this house, if we could keep it like this. And if one day, in the future, there’d be another trampoline or Wendy house or a goal net or a basketball hoop or a swing-ball set, and our own children racing about, making daisy chains, kicking balls, running through sprinklers.

‘It’s lovely out here,’ I say.

‘It certainly faces a better way than ours does,’ Neil agrees, which I take as a sign that he likes it, too.

Back inside we head upstairs, into the room at the front that is ours in our house and would be here, too. This estate agent is keen to point out the en-suite bathroom and the walk in wardrobe. 

‘Oh god, space for more dresses you take a fancy to,’ Neil says, rolling his eyes, and laughing, like he means it to be playful or an inside joke, but like so many of his off-the-cuff comments lately, seems weird and disjointed. The estate agent peers out of the window at the street, and I resist the urge to respond.

There are two further bedrooms, and whereas our one spare room is full of boxes of Neil’s tech stuff, here they are both children’s bedrooms, and not spare at all, and the only rooms in the house that have seen paint that isn’t a variation on cream. A jungle themed nursery with sage green walls, sweet looking animal decals, colourful butterflies fluttering up the walls and on to the ceiling, and a cot with pastel yellow sheets. And a pretty, cloudy princess room, full of pinks and purples and dolls and dressing up clothes and plastic high heeled shoes, lined up against the wall.

‘Do you have any little ones?’ the estate agent asks, almost tentatively, as if he’s trying to suss us out. 

‘No,’ we both say in unison, and then I add, ‘maybe one day soon, though,’ and Neil raises his eyebrows, and says he could take them or leave them, personally.

It’s noncommittal, as if we were talking about a package holiday, or a Netflix mini series, or that Indian restaurant in town everyone raved about but he couldn’t see the fuss over, and not having a family with me at all. ‘Actually, in addition to a guest room, I was thinking this one would make a great home office.’ 

And I have to really concentrate on keeping my face neutral whilst I flip back through all the interactions we’ve had recently about this, because isn’t this what we talked about in the car that one time? Wasn’t that what we were both hinting at? What we danced around in the coy way we did? Wasn’t the idea of a child exactly the hook he used to onboard me to the idea of moving house? More space, Esther, time to revisit the life plan. Now, standing here, in the doorway of the pink princess room, I feel duped, and Neil is oblivious.

After, as the agent drives away, he suggests we take an evening walk in the park, and I know it’s because he wants to talk about the house.

‘What did you think?’ he asks.

‘I liked it,’ I say. ‘It was almost exactly like ours, and I like ours, so… not really a hard sell.’ 

‘That, I was hoping, would be the selling point,’ he grins.

‘Why that, specifically?’ I ask.

‘Esther. You’re a creature of habit.’

‘Am I? Is that what you think of me?’

‘Absolutely,’ he says. ‘You like things the way they always were. You like to know where you are. You like your job the way it is, the last three cars you’ve had have all been the same, you always dress the same way, need I go on?’

God. I’ve never been made to feel more boring in my entire life.

‘What? That’s not true,’ I protest. ‘The dress! The very dress you keep making into a thing.’

‘You know what I mean,’ he says, waving it off like I’m being dismissed. ‘But, it’s okay. I like that about you. You know where you are with Esther Mackie.’

Jesus.

‘But what if I don’t want to be like that? What if I want to be edgy and unpredictable and exciting? What if I’m actually all those things but they’ve somehow been buried over the years?’

‘Esther,’ he says, patiently, like he’s talking to a child. ‘You are full to the brim with lovely attributes, but I don’t think we can count unpredictability as one of them. Shall we ask about taking another look? We’ll have to move quickly.’

‘Sure. Yes, I’d like that,’ I mumble.

Neil takes out his phone and sets a reminder to call the estate agent tomorrow, and I think it’s funny that he thinks I’m the predictable one, but not haha funny.

He’s still happy about the house the following morning. He’s up earlier than normal and I find him on his laptop, his god forsaken Excel spreadsheet of expenditure on screen, complete with conditional formatting and formulae.

‘I’ll call them at nine, Esther,’ he says. ‘I’ve managed to get a day working from home.’

‘Okay… don’t you need to be on site? In case something goes wrong?’

‘I can do it all remotely,’ he says, and he pushes his glasses up his nose. ‘In fact, that’s what I was thinking for the second bedroom. I’ll need a home office. I’d like to work from home more.’

And I’m glad he’s confirmed this because last night I lay awake for ages, trying to find unbreakable links in what he’s said about life plans that would indicate we’re on the same page, and coming up horrifyingly short. Suddenly changes to his life plan could mean working from home. More space could mean that damn office. My heart tightened in my chest, pounding heavily at the same time. I looked at him, sleeping, peaceful, and my breath caught in my lungs.

‘I quite liked it as a kid’s room, actually,’ I say, and I pour us both a cup of coffee. 

‘Let’s not jump the gun here, Esther,’ he says. ‘That would be years off. If ever.’ 

‘Oh,’ I say, “if ever” ringing through my head like an echo down a tunnel. And if he looked up from the screen, he’d see me, hands around my mug, leaning against the door of the dishwasher, and he’d know how badly that stung. But he doesn’t. He’s so absorbed in his spreadsheet, he doesn’t notice me at all. Instead, I dump my coffee into the sink because suddenly I feel trapped and the house is stifling and I need to get out of here. ‘I just remembered I need to be at work early today.’

He opens the front door as I’m starting the car. 

‘Esther,’ he says, motioning for me to unwind my window. He’s looking kindly at me. He’s realised. He’ll suggest we sit down and discuss it later on. He’ll come up with an addendum to the plan, a new tab on the spreadsheet, and we’ll talk about it all this evening, or over the weekend, and I’ll feel reassured that he’d like to take it rather than leave it, and that if ever will turn into when.

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t forget your lunch.’

For fuck’s sake.

‘You have it,’ I say through gritted teeth, shifting the car into reverse and stamping on the pedal.

Anna asks about the house viewing and I tell her, whilst we buy lunch, about the kid’s room and how I looked at it and felt like I might want it to stay that way. And about Neil’s flippant comment there, and about the other flippant comment he made at Amber and Will’s house, and the conversation in the car, weeks ago, that sparked all this off and his office plans. She tries so hard to disguise her reaction and maintain a neutral expression but she’s rubbish at it.

‘You might as well say what you think,’ I say. ‘I’m sure it’ll be similar to my sister’s opinion and she won’t be shy about sharing.’

‘Do you think maybe he’s scared? she asks, sniffing. ‘He wouldn’t be the first.’ But I shake my head.

‘Neil doesn’t really do scared as such.’

She rolls her eyes, so I’m quick to explain. ‘It’s not that he’s fearless, more that he’d never put himself in a position where he could be. Everything he does is so calculated, like he’s worked out all possible outcomes beforehand and has gone with the most favourable. So I’m pretty sure he’d take it in his stride if it was something he wanted. He’d plan and predict and have everything worked out.’

‘Esther… I know you don’t need me to unpack this for you, but you’ve literally just said he’d be planning it if it was what he wanted… and…’ she makes her hands like scales and shrugs her shoulders. ‘instead he’s planning a home office.’

I wish she wasn’t so right, but she is.

‘And what about what you want?’ she continues. ‘Seems like you spend a lot of time doing things his way. Like it’s always you who adjusts.’

‘I think it’ll work out,’ I say. ‘Things usually do.’

She looks resigned.

‘Okay. Well, I just think if you feel like this now, you always will. If this is something you want, with him, he’ll have to work on his flexibility.’ And I nod along, but know in my heart it would fall on deaf ears.

Most days, our colleague Chloe spends her breaks online shopping, or reading celebrity gossip and announcing it to the rest of us as if these were people we knew personally. Sometimes I don’t know who she’s talking about so I do a surreptitious Google search so as not to appear out of touch. Sometimes I couldn’t care less and tune out. Today, as Anna and I get back to the office, she’s engrossed in a news story on her phone, and as we settle ourselves, she holds it up.

‘Did you see this?’ she says. It’s a photo of Ash looking lost at an airport. He’s small and almost green, being supported by a taller, broader man who looks similar but healthier and who I instantly recognise as Tyler. For a second, I can hear my heartbeat in my ears and when the sound returns to normal, she’s talking to Anna about the story, and Ash in rehab, and how he must be a huge fuck up, and I consider my options as two of my worlds collide and decide it’s best to stay quiet.

‘They were meant to release an album last year,’ she’s saying. ‘But it got pushed back and everything went really quiet. And now this! No one’s heard a peep for ages. I’d love to know which rehab he’s at.’

‘Probably one in London,’ Anna muses. She stabs her fork into her pasta and pesto salad. A pea falls off her fork onto her desk, and she picks it up and flicks it into the bin.

‘For heroin, I expect, looking at him. He’s got that gaunt, drug addled look. Plus he comes across really arrogant and difficult, to be honest. I mean, to push everything back like that. He must have really screwed up.’

‘He’s not arrogant or difficult,’ I say, defensive and apparently unable to stay quiet after all, because they’re wrong about him.

‘What?’ Chloe giggles, incredulously. ‘How do you know that?’

The pair of them are watching me now, keenly interested in how matte, regular Esther would know anything about shiny, irregular Ash at all. I bounce my eyes between them.

‘I went to school with him,’ I admit, after a pause.

‘Tsk! No you never,’ she scoffs.

‘Why would I make up something so easily verifiable? In fact…’ But I stop myself. I can’t go any further into it, and I’m certainly not telling them we were together, not so much because they wouldn’t believe me, but because I don’t fancy the deep dive if they did.

‘In fact?’ Anna prompts, interested now.

‘We were in English class together. He wasn’t really difficult at all.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ Chloe says, sitting back in her chair. She’s sort of right not to. I wasn’t being completely truthful. He was disruptive. He got sent out of class a lot.

‘About any of it, or that he wasn’t difficult in English?’

She looks confused now, and looks between me and Anna.

‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘On one hand, it’s a weird thing to make up, but on the other, I feel like you’d have mentioned it before.’

‘Well, I’m sure his Wikipedia page will say where he went to school. Plus, my parents definitely have a year group photo. And I didn’t mention it before, because, why would I?’

‘Err because he’s really famous, obviously,’ Chloe says.

‘Do you think he’s round here then,’ Anna speculates, correctly. ‘Why else would he come back for rehab?’

She looks at me pointedly, and I shrug.

‘I don’t know. I lost touch with him in college. Just thought I’d mention that I knew him once upon a time, that’s all.’

‘Well, you’re a dark horse,’ Chloe says. ‘Imagine going to school with Ash from Grandeur Looms.’

‘Chloe, she doesn’t have to imagine it. She did go to school with Ash from Grandeur Looms,’ Anna laughs.

‘Whatever. Knowing a pop star is lit! You must have some mutuals. Can we find him on the internet? Someone must know where he is.’ 

‘Beg friend,’ Anna tuts. ‘But can we?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I wish I never mentioned it to be honest.’

‘I’m already on it,’ Chloe says, tapping at her phone.

But there’s nothing online that ties me to Ash at all, so they can search all they like.

Chloe’s work phone rings, and she picks it up and slings her mobile back in her bag, and I’m relieved that no one mentions Ash again for the rest of the day.

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If you’d like a little catch up, here’s last week’s chapter

Read the previous chapter

Previously: Whilst celebrating Neil's birthday, Esther receives news from Gloria

Ash/Esther

Hi Ash,

God. Brighton, yes. Haven’t thought about that for a while. 

Remember how much trouble we got in when we arrived home. I’ll never forget how my Dad looked when we walked into my living room.

Worth it though! 

Esther x

Esty! We were 16! No wonder your dad went mad. And he absolutely knew what had happened on that trip. The look he gave me was chilling, proper sleep with one eye open stuff. Probably why Mum yanked me out of there so fast.

Did you know I saved all my money from my Tesco job for weeks, and I was so nervous that somehow I wouldn’t be able to pull it off.

Anyway, of course I remember. Angry dads aside, it was perfecto! 

Ash x

Ash, Can I ask you something? I’ll say now, it’s a weird question.

Of course! 

Did you ever feel like people might wonder why we were together? I did at the beginning, because you could have gone out with anyone and the fact it was me made me feel all elevated. To be honest, I reckon college would have been a very different experience if we hadn’t been a thing.

Not to be negative, but you were always going to go places. You were always the sort of gold dust person who grabbed at everything and had it all pay off. And I’m still here, and always have been. It’s fine though, we can’t all be gold dust people :)

E x

Eh? I never felt like that for a second. 

Is everything ok? You seem quite down on yourself and you shouldn’t be. Look at where I am now. Emailing under supervision in rehab because I spent a lot of time off my tits. I’m not allowed my phone. The only friend I’ve got here is a twenty-two year old called Daisy who knows an unsettling amount about me via the medium of Heat magazine. I’m trying to get divorced, and almost every minute of my days are planned out, and a lot of it involves time spent sitting in a circle talking about where it all went wrong. It’s not exactly going places and definitely not dusted in gold. Fuck knows what things are going to be like when I leave here. Probably Daisy will sell her story.

I’m kidding. She’s decent.

So I’m glad you’re still around and if you’re still up for coming again maybe we can arrange that? Maybe without being chaperoned by my mother? Maybe we could hang out for a bit longer than 20 minutes? 

Ash x 

I’d still like that. And I promise I’ll be nicer this time :)

Haha! Esty, you were fine! Can you come on Thursday?

Not this Thursday, sorry. I’m looking at a house. I assume Gloria will be visiting you on Sunday? If not, I could.

Oh, well how exciting. I hope it’s the house of your dreams! Mum’s in London visiting Tyler this weekend so that works. Sundays are free visiting hours after lunch so come anytime after 1pm. Hopefully it’ll be a nice day and we can take a walk or something.

Sunday it is. See you then. Around 2.

xx

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Previously: Sixteen year old Ash and Esty take a trip down the coast

Read the previous chapter

Esther

It’s Neil’s birthday weekend, and we booked a table at an Italian restaurant to celebrate. Joining us are two of his colleagues; Ian and Liz, his best friend Andy, and Andy’s new girlfriend, Dot, who sits, shyly, at the other end of the table, and keeps twiddling her necklace between her fingers. Amber and Will, who I suspect were only invited for my benefit, are yet to arrive, and Neil, who can’t stand it when people aren’t exactly on time, keeps nudging me to call them.

‘Do you think they’ll get here soon, Esther?’ he asks, gesturing around the table. ‘I think we’d all like to order.’

‘I’m sure it’s just the traffic into town,’ I say, feeling a little awkward that my sister has let the side down. A waiter approaches with wine and glasses and a blood orange San Pellegrino for me, and as Neil’s making a show of swirling the wine around in his glass before tasting it, Amber bustles in with Will behind her, and I’m relieved.  

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry darling,’ she announces, kissing Neil on the cheek and sliding into the seat next to me. ‘We were waiting for our sitter. And then Pops didn’t want to settle, and… you know how it is.’ She fans her face with her hands.

‘Not really,’ Neil murmurs, and I hope Amber didn’t hear.

‘Happy birthday, mate,’ Will says, and he hands over a gift, a bottle of something in a tall, cardboard bottle bag, with a card poking out the top, and Neil’s all smiles and grace as if he’s forgotten he was irritated with them.

‘I don’t think we’ve met any of your friends,’ Amber continues, looking round the table, and Neil makes the introductions, and comments that finally, we can think about our food. Amber rolls her eyes.

‘Thought about what you’re ordering?’ Ian asks, smirking.

‘Oh, yes,’ Neil says. ‘I scoured the menu online earlier. Bruschetta, veal Milanese, but with a side of buttered spaghetti, and panna cotta to finish.’

‘Did you really have to ask?’ Andy jokes, and they all laugh. Dot looks confused.

‘It’s a thing,’ I explain. ‘Neil always, without fail, plans his order beforehand.’

‘But, what if they’ve run out of what you want?’ Amber asks. She makes no secret that she finds some of his habits a bit much, and this sort of thing is exactly why. ‘Imagine there is no veal Milanese!’

‘I have a backup,’ he shrugs. ‘Lasagne.’

The conversation flows. Wine glasses are topped up. Will asks for a lager and I get another San Pellegrino. Food orders are taken. Neil’s bruschetta arrives, then his veal. Amber and I go for pizzas we can share. Dot burns her mouth on her calzone and smears tomato sauce across her cheek in her hurry to spit out her food. The conversation turns, as I suspected it might, to our plans to move, and Neil tells everyone about the viewings we have lined up.

‘I’m excited for one in particular,’ I say.

‘Oh, which one?’ Neil asks.

‘The three bed up the road from where we are now. With the en-suite and the walk-in wardrobe.’

‘Ah yes, me too,’ Neil says. ‘The third bedroom is a really good size.’

He twirls some spaghetti around his fork and I pat his thigh under the table, and think about colour schemes for nurseries.

‘Honestly, I’m just glad she’s agreed.’ he says, turning back to his guests. ‘I was worried it might become a bone of contention.’

I turn towards him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Let’s just say you didn’t seem very excited,’ he says. Beside me, Amber tuts, and I’m aware of the slight frostiness there always is between them.

‘Why?’ I press. ‘I said I was keen the same day we talked about it.’

‘Yes, but in the car, specifically. Anyway, let’s not have this conversation here.’

Suddenly, I feel policed and small.

‘Are you looking forward to decorating?’ Liz asks, kindly, and I’m grateful for the swerve.

‘Can’t wait to think about colours and textiles,’ I smile. ‘The paint mixing department at B&Q doesn’t know what’s coming.’

There follows a few more move related comments and recommendations for removal companies before Ian starts to talk about work, and Amber nudges me.

‘You do want this, right, Esty?’ she whispers, and her use of that nickname shocks me. She never calls me that. No one other than Ash’s family ever did. It feels deliberate.

‘Of course,’ I murmur.

‘Because your whole body language changed. And if you were hesitant at first… I mean, if it’s not for you—’

‘Amber, it’s fine,’ I insist with wide eyes. 

‘Cut me a slice of your pizza?’ she asks, changing the subject, and I pick up my knife.

Later on, we’re splitting the bill, and as I take my phone out of my bag to calculate my share, I see a text message on screen from Gloria. Hi Esty, please can you call me urgently?

Amber gasps, and I swipe it away because now is not the time. 

‘Seventy-eight fifty for us,’ I announce. ‘And I have some cash for a tip.’

‘Are you absolutely sure?’ Amber asks, an eyebrow raised, definitely not talking about the bill.

‘Yes. The maths adds up,’ Andy interrupts, and he and Ian share a look I’m not wildly keen on.

‘I’m sure,’ I say, and I slip my phone back in my bag.

Neil puts the kettle on when we get home. The same as always. Two mugs, caffeine-free tea. It’s a habit so ingrained that I can’t remember an evening we didn’t do this. He carries it up the stairs and I click off the light and follow him.

‘Did you enjoy your evening?’ I ask, sitting down on the edge of the bed and taking off my shoes. 

He nods, and sips his drink. ‘Is that the dress we saw?’

‘It is,’ I say, standing up to twirl for him.

‘Very… stripy,’ he says, and despite the fact that yes, it is very stripy, it feels like an odd adjective to use. Surely if you’re going to compliment something, you say something objectively nice rather than just state a fact? Perhaps I’m being picky; he didn’t have to say anything at all.

‘Sure is,’ I agree, and part of me wants him to tell me I look nice, that it suits me, that it was a good purchase, that he fancies me in it. But he doesn’t, because that’s simply not the way he is.

There’s another text from Gloria the next morning and it worries me a little. It feels irregular that she’d message again, especially so soon, and I call back, counting the rings and telling myself had it been an emergency, she wouldn’t only have texted, and noticing how my stomach drops as she answers, because I don’t know what she wants to tell me so urgently.

‘Esty,’ she says, her voice hitching, like she’s relieved to hear from me.

‘Gloria, I got your messages, but it was my partner’s birthday so we were out celebrating. Is everything alright? Is he okay?’

‘Ash is fine, love, it’s me. I think I’ve made a mistake. I’m worried I’ve messed things up.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I didn’t know who else to speak to. Ash won’t be happy, and I didn’t want to worry Tyler.’

I’ve noticed this before; rapid talking, an anxious tone, almost as if she’s talking to herself, but labouring hugely on the point. 

‘Did you want to meet for a coffee?’ I hear myself say. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, she would have asked if I hadn’t. 

‘Yes, there’s a place opposite the ferry terminal. Midday?’

I meet her at a bench overlooking the water on the quay. There’s a cruise liner docked, dwarfing all the other boats nearby, decorated with cheerful bunting and painted livery. A flume loops and twists across the top deck. Hundreds of balconies line the outside of the ship.

‘You ever been on one of those?’ I ask, holding out her drink. 

‘Yes. Ash used to buy me trips abroad. I did a Mediterranean cruise, a Caribbean cruise, a week up to the Fjords. I love them.’

I open the camera on my phone and take a few steps away from the bench. Gloria looks back, puzzled.

‘Are they fancy?’ I ask, and I gesture with my hand for her to move in a little, crouching down so the ship looms behind her, a white behemoth in the water. A floating city. 

‘They’re as fancy as you make them,’ she smiles, pulling her necklace - pink and orange wooden beads - from her blouse, and I snap the photo. ‘It’s a lovely way to see the world. Bit choppy sometimes, but you get used to that. Of course, Madam put a stop to it all a few years ago.’

‘Oh,’ I say, sitting myself back down next to her again. What else can you say? I suspect she’s referring to Gina but I don’t know this woman in any capacity to have an opinion.

‘And now I’ve really put my foot in it, Esty, and I don’t know what to do.’

‘You said. What’s happened?’

‘I think she knows about you.’

‘Who knows about me? And why would anyone knowing about me be such a worry for you?’

‘Gina.’

‘Oh. Right. Well, is that really such a surprise? I mean, previous relationships are a common talking point for couples, aren’t they? Especially at the beginning. I would hope she does know about me, honestly.’

Spoken like someone who’s been there and done that, and definitely not like someone whose boyfriend doesn’t know she used to date a megastar. Gloria continues:

‘Luna and I have been texting, and of course she’s asking about her dad. And I mentioned that whilst he’s been here he’s been in touch with an old friend from school and college – you – and that I thought it was nice for him to have a friend here. I thought it would make her feel better about it all. Like she wouldn’t worry so much if she knew he had someone looking out for him.’

Oh, I think. She knows about me now. Gloria pulls off the lid of her coffee cup and sips, wincing a little because it’s still too hot. And I use it as a chance to speak.

‘But none of that is untrue, and all of it is good. Though, maybe calling me a friend is a little bit of a stretch; I’ve only seen him once.’ 

I don’t mention the emails.

Gloria turns the cup around in her hands and stares up at the boat.

‘But then yesterday Gina called me,’ she continues. ‘And she wasn’t outwardly horrible, but she started off as if she’s concerned. Asking when I think Ash’ll be out and ready to go home, and if he can leave early, and I can’t answer that, can I? He’s got weeks left, and what if he wants to stay a while after? So I tell her as much and she gets frustrated. Replaces this concern with a clippy tone. Tells me she’s seen Luna’s phone, and asks if you’re the same Esty he used to go out with.’

‘Riiiight,’ I say, and I can’t deny the flicker of excitement at knowing for sure that I was right, and I have cropped up in conversation between them in the past, and she doesn’t know that I’m the E in The High You Give.

‘And I got fed up and snapped at her. I said, “well, how many Estys do you think there are, Gina?”’

‘I mean, I’m just… me. Why would some Australian socialite care about me?’

‘Because you’re here, and she isn’t. And you’re you, and she isn’t.’

‘But she’s Ash’s wife,’ I say, and swallow. ‘And the mother of his child. I’m neither of those things, and I have Neil. What did you tell her, anyway?’

‘Just that you were his college girlfriend,’ and for a moment it stings that the sum of Ash and Esty is capable of being whittled down to just a college romance. 

‘Well I’m sure it’s fine. She’ll realise she has nothing to worry about.’

‘I worry it’ll affect the divorce,’ Gloria continues. ‘If she feels that he has other reasons for being here, she’ll make things harder for him than they already are.’

‘In that case, do you think I should stay away?’ I ask, wondering if that’s what she’s hinting at, and feeling conflicted by the idea. 

‘No, not at all, love,’ she says, and she smiles kindly at me. ‘I wouldn’t have contacted you if I thought that. No, you’re good for him. You always were.’

‘Well, perhaps, a long time ago,’ I say.

‘Esty,’ she starts, but she doesn’t finish the sentence, and instead I watch a seagull peck at the remnants of a sausage roll.

‘Look, if she’d make things difficult for him because an ex from years ago happened to see him, then she’s a piece of work,’ I say, eventually.

‘I wanted to like her,’ Gloria says, looking sorry that she couldn’t. ‘I really tried. I think I’ve mentioned it before. She isn’t warm. Makes me worry for little Luna. She’s such a sweetheart. I’d hate to see her end up spoiled like her mother. She’s been pretty much raised by the housekeeper? I don’t know why they need a housekeeper; you know Ash wasn’t brought up like that, but there you have it. Airs and graces for days.’

We sip our drinks in silence for a few minutes. A container ship chugs past, pulled by a little tug boat, and piled high with dully coloured, slightly rusty containers. Must be so heavy, I’m amazed they float.

‘Can you do me a favour?’ she asks, and I think, another one? ‘Please can you not tell Ash about this. He’ll only worry about it.’

‘Okay, but, so you know, I really think Gina isn’t going to give a shit about me,’ I say. ‘And she shouldn’t. She has nothing to worry about.’

‘I wish she did,’ Gloria mutters, but I pretend it got lost in the breeze.

Read from the start

Previously: Ash comes to a difficult realisation after speaking with Gina.

Read the previous chapter

Esther (16)

Ash pulls a can of Coke out of his bag and hands it to me.

‘For the journey,’ he says. Then he follows it with a small bottle of vodka. 

‘Where did you get that?’ 

‘I bought it, Esty. From work.’

‘How did you manage to buy alcohol from Tesco when they know you’re not eighteen?’

‘Everyone does it. I got my mate to buy it.’ He rolls his eyes, and nods at my can. ‘Anyway, drink a bit and I’ll top you up.’ 

‘This is very exciting,’ I say.

‘Would have been better if we could have got away for two nights,’ he says, and looks rueful.

‘It’s going to be perfect,’ I tell him, sipping my drink and handing it back. He pours in some of the vodka and swills it around. Light brown Coke fizz bubbles up into the rim with a hiss.

‘And your parents definitely think you’re at Bethany’s house?’

‘Mmhmm,’ I nod. ‘Where did you tell your mum you were going?’

‘I didn’t,’ he says. ‘She’s working late tonight. Tyler’s at a friend’s house, and if she looks in tomorrow she’ll assume I’ve gone out early.’

The train speeds along the coast. Through all the villages towards Portsmouth and Chichester and beyond. Through Angmering and Worthing and Shoreham and all the seaside towns until finally it slows to a gentle rumble and we pull into Brighton. 

‘What do you want to do first?’ Ash says, as we leave the station. He stretches out his arms as if he owns the whole town. You can see the sea at the bottom of the hill and I swing my bag over my shoulder.

‘The beach,’ I say. ‘For an ice cream. And photos. And maybe another drink.’

‘Done. This way,’ he says, and he takes my hand and leads me down the road.

‘Do you come here a lot?’ I ask, later on, from our spot on the stoney shore. It’s a hot day, and the beach and seafront are packed with hordes of people. We stack a pile of flat pebbles into size order, and then I pull out my camera.

‘No. Haven’t been here since last summer,’ he says, and he pushes his jeans up his calves and kicks off his Vans. 

‘Have you ever come here with a girl?’

I can’t bring myself to look at him as I ask this, so I line up my shot instead; the tower of stones sharp, the sea blue and out of focus, dotted with twinkling points of sunlight. Click.

‘Not one who isn’t you,’ he says. ‘Or, you know, my mum. Why? Did you think it was some sort of signature move?’

‘Not specially. Just wondered.’

And now that I know, I can look at him again. Perfect coils of curls. White framed sunglasses. A cigarette. A smirk. And I think, I love this boy so much.

Click.

‘I like it when you try to act all cool,’ he laughs.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean,’ he says. ‘Do you really think we’d have done this if I’d brought other girls here?’

I shrug. ‘I don’t know. No.’

‘After everything you said about wanting it to be perfect. Esty, I’m hurt!’

‘Oh, is that what’s happening?’ I joke, because, well, obviously. Now it’s his turn to try and style it out.

‘Dunno. Maybe. If you like. We’ll see.’

‘You’re not really hurt,’ I say, and I look away from him, out to sea.

‘Course I’m not,’ he says, and he pulls the vodka out of his bag again and sips from the bottle before passing it over. A breeze blows through his hair and he pushes it behind his ear. He takes a drag of his cigarette, leaning back as he exhales.

‘I’m having a really nice time,’ I say.

‘Good,’ he says, and he slides his hand up the back of my t-shirt and pings my bra strap. ‘Me too. Shall we get some chips?’

I’ve never checked into a hotel room without my parents before, and I don’t know what to expect. I don’t know if Ash has, but he’s acting as if he does this all the time. We’re a few floors up, with a room overlooking the seafront and esplanade, and the burnt out pier to the right, and the Palace Pier to the left. After our chippy tea, we scrambled along the shingle and walked right to the fairground at the end of it.

‘Here, toss this over the side and make a wish,’ he said, and handed me a penny.

‘I’m not sure you’re meant to throw stuff over,’ I replied, hesitant.

‘Well, I won’t tell if you won’t. Look, I’ll do one too.’ He fished another coin out of his pocket. ‘Ready?’

We held hands and threw the coins over the side, too high up to see the splash or hear them hit the water. Lost forever to the sea. I imagined our pennies sinking down to the bottom, wedging themselves between the stones, getting slowly buried by silt, still together, and always so, and I closed my eyes and made my wish, and squeezed his fingers and didn’t let go.

And now I’m looking out at the view in the dim August evening, and the strip of orange on the horizon, reflected on the water, changes to blue higher up in the sky. Behind me, Ash switches on the TV and stretches himself out on the bed and I’m suddenly nervous for the things that are going to happen, and for how things will be between us afterwards, and if anyone will be able to tell.

‘What are you watching? I ask, sitting down next to him and pulling my knees up to my chest.

‘Whatever is on… I’m not really.’ He hesitates, and looks at me and there’s something nervous about his expression. ‘There’s probably a film on somewhere if you like.’

‘I’m not really into watching a film right now,’ I say, and I trace a finger along the inside of his arm to the crease of his elbow, swallow my nerves, kiss him. 

He reaches for the remote to switch off the television and pulls the duvet over us both. We shuffle down and he pulls his t-shirt over his head and shakes out his hair and I reach around my back and unhook my bra.

‘Well then, we won’t watch a film,’ he says into my neck, and it tickles just behind my ear.

‘What did you wish for, Esty?’ he asks, later on, after the sun has fully set and there’s no orange on the line of the horizon at all anymore, and what we came here for has been done, and I take his face in my hands in the darkness and kiss him and shake my head. 

‘I’ll tell you if it comes true,’ I whisper.

We’re slow to get up in the morning, and I lie watching clouds roll across the sky for ages before Ash wakes up. And when he does, he shuffles closer whilst pulling me towards him and saying good morning into my hair, and we stay where we are, fitting together like a game of Tetris until we both admit we’re starving and it’s time to check out.

We buy fat, flakey, custard-filled pastries and mochas from a bakery and eat them wandering through The Lanes until we come to a music shop Ash is keen on. He plugs a shiny blue electric guitar into an amp and plays for a while, stopping to chat to the guy behind the cash desk when he isn’t serving, telling him about the band he formed for GCSE music, with two friends, Matt and Ryan. How this band, Grandeur Looms, has carried on since school ended, heavily influenced by My Bloody Valentine and Talking Heads and Sigur Ros and Depeche Mode, and they’ve been getting together during the summer evenings to jam. Always at Ryan’s house, because Ryan has a drum kit and a big garage.

‘Send me a demo, if you get that far,’ the shop guy says, as he’s ringing up the guitar strings Ash has bought.

‘We will,’ he promises, beaming. ‘Watch this space! Oh, and this, too,’ and he picks up a badge which says Hey! Ho! Let’s Go! and pins it on the lapel of my jacket.

All the way back to the station he talks about saving up for that guitar, and then it’s time to board a train and go home, but I wish we didn’t have to. I wish we could go back to the beach, and build little towers with piles of stones. I wish we could stand on the pier again and throw chips to seagulls as the sun sets over the sea. I wish we could stay another night.

There’s no vodka laced Coke on the journey home, but we share a king size Twix and a packet of crisps instead and clutch on to each other the entire way.

‘Did you have a nice time, Esty?’ he asks, when we’re almost home. He seems a little less self assured and it makes me wonder if he’d wanted to ask before. ‘Was it how you wanted it to be?’

‘Ash, it was perfect. I don’t think it could have been any better.’

‘Good. Mission accomplished then. We can go away again some other time, if you like. Maybe for your birthday?’ 

‘I’d really love that,’ I say, and I take his hand and hold it in my lap and lean my head on his shoulder and watch us in the reflection of the window.

‘Will you come back to mine for a bit?’ I ask, back home. He could carry on up my road towards the bus stop, but I’m not quite ready for the trip to be over.

‘Okay… but, remember you were meant to be staying at Bethany’s.’

‘So we’ll say we met up after I left. I’m sure you could stay for dinner, even. I don’t want to say goodbye yet. I’d miss you.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he laughs. ‘But sure.’

I turn my key in the lock and push the door open, and he follows me inside. I drop my bag by the bottom of the stairs and hang my jacket on the hook. 

‘Hello?’ I call through the house, and then, ‘not sure anyone’s in,’ when no one answers. I link my arms around his neck and kiss him as I lean against the living room door, pulling us both into the room as it opens. But it turns out people are in. Both my parents and Gloria are sitting on the sofas. Mum jumps up and her face is ashen, and yet, completely relieved. Gloria does the same, but her eyes flash, angrily. Ash baulks and extracts himself from my arms. Part of me wants to die.

‘You. Home. Now,’ Gloria says in a voice I’ve never heard her use before. Clipped, stern, cold. Nothing like lovely, warm Gloria who chats to me in her kitchen when I go round. She jabs her finger at Ash, who flinches, and instinctively, I step aside and press myself against the door so she can pass.

‘Ash,’ I start, but he shakes his head in small, quick movements.

‘I’ll call you later,’ he mutters, and he widens his eyes at me.

‘You’re calling no one, Ashley, come on,’ Gloria says, again. ‘The car’s outside. We’re going. Pete, Susan, I’m so sorry. He hasn’t been raised to lie.’

‘Can’t we just—’ I begin but Dad interrupts.

‘Sit down, Esther.’

I do as I’m told. Gloria hurries out of the house and Ash goes with her, and we hold eye contact as he pulls the door until the latch clicks shut. Both my parents are staring at me.

‘Bethany called this morning,’ Dad begins. ‘To speak to you. Imagine our surprise. Imagine hers.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, choked up. My eyes are hot and shimmery. My vision is blurred. Five minutes ago things were lovely. Five minutes ago I was floating on air, my head full of nothing but Ash and the things we did and the night we had, and all these big, intense feelings I’m having. I’d give anything to go back.

‘Where were you?’ Mum asks, taking a different, softer approach. 

‘Brighton,’ I whisper, because there is no point in lying anymore. ‘We went to Brighton.’

‘Overnight?’ Dad asks, and I can’t look at him, so I concentrate on the carpet between my feet instead and nod my head. ‘You’re sixteen years old. Anything could have happened and we wouldn’t have known where you were. And your phone is off. Why is your phone off?’

‘Because…’ I begin, and realise I don’t have an answer that won’t infuriate him. ‘I’m sorry,’ I repeat instead, and I’m mortified, truly, I am. ‘Nothing bad happened. We just wanted—’

‘I don’t want to know. Hand over your phone, and get to your room,’ he bellows, and I don’t need to be told twice.

Upstairs, after a solid half an hour of crying into my pillow, I roll over and something on my mirror catches my eye.

YOU ARE SO DEAD in dark pink lipstick and capital letters, the work of my sister, judging by the handwriting. XOXO.

Read the next chapter

Read from the start

Previously: Ash keeps his promise to write to Esther, telling her something no one else knows.

Read the previous chapter

Ash

Waking up to a message from Gina sets me right on edge. Waking up to a message from Gina expressly demanding I call her immediately is even worse, and I can’t even prepare myself. I just have to bite the bullet, my heart thumping as I dial, because what if it’s about Luna?

It isn’t, and Gina’s saccharin on the phone, like we’re not in the middle of getting divorced, and she hasn’t sent across ridiculous demands, and there’s the pinch of a gut feeling that I should make an excuse and end the call. But those are easy to ignore.

‘I was wondering,’ she says, ‘when you were thinking of coming back? We miss your face.’

‘Gina, what?’ I ask. ‘You know when I’ll be home.’

She makes a hmm sound.

‘Is this partly for publicity, though? To buy a bit more time for the album. You know you can tell me if it is. I won’t tell anyone.’

‘No?’ I say. The question is awful and weird. It was Gina who found me after the overdose. Gina who called the paramedics. Gina who made all the calls. ‘Definitely not a publicity stunt.’

‘Alright, just checking,’ she laughs.

‘Guess I’ll have to sort somewhere to live,’ I say.

‘What do you mean?’

She sounds surprised.

‘I mean, if you’re in the apartment, I’ll need to find somewhere. Should probably get on to that.’

And now her tone changes from jokey to cold. Sweet Gina has given way to snappy Gina.

‘Right, so actually you’ve got no intention of coming back then?’ 

‘Not to be like it was, no.’

‘I mean, it’s such a shame, you know?’ she continues. ‘Luna’s growing up so fast. You do remember her, right? Luna-Moon. Your daughter? Our daughter.’

‘Not fair, Genie,’ I say. ‘You have no idea how much I miss her.’

‘I’m surprised you’re not making more of an effort then. We’re all a bit sad here. We’re your girls.’ A big sigh. ‘At least, I thought we were.’

‘We’re getting a divorce,’ I say, slowly, confused by the turn of the conversation. ‘You wanted that. You said you didn’t want to be married to me anymore. And I accepted that, so part of the reason I’m here is so arrangements can be made for Luna that involve us both.’

‘Well, you know I say stuff, but I don’t always mean it. I’m not always serious.’

What? What? Why is she talking about the end of a decade of marriage like it’s nothing?

‘And how do you know you even have an addiction problem?’ she continues. ‘Maybe you were just in a bad place. Temporarily. Araminta wondered if you were dragging it all out.’

‘Okay, that’s not a helpful or useful thing to say.’

Go fuck yourself, Araminta.

‘What would be helpful then, Ash?’

‘Support? Encouragement? Not talking to your mates about stuff I’m dealing with privately.’ I lower my voice and turn towards the wall. ‘Touch less of the gaslighting?’

Gina inhales sharply. She loathes being accused of manipulation, and if there’s a way to rattle her, it’s that.

‘How could you say that to me? After everything?’

It’s her whiniest, most nasal voice. One reserved for princess moments.

‘You asked me for a divorce, Gina,’ I repeat. ‘So I’m not sure what you think it is you’re doing.’

‘I’ll tell Luna you’re staying in the fancy hospital for the foreseeable then.’

‘Look… it’s not that fancy. Actually, is she there?’

A pause, then; ‘No, out,’ said too quietly.

She’s not out at all. She’s probably right there, but I can’t argue with Gina; it’s not like I can prove it.

‘Well, I’ll be back in Australia soon,’ I say, dryly, trying hard not to think about Esty’s email asking me not to chuck her again. Reminding myself that she has a boyfriend anyway. She’ll be fine. ‘But, I think it’s probably best if we communicate via lawyers for now.’

Gina huffs. ‘Why?’

‘Because you don’t seem to be acknowledging that we’re splitting up, and we are splitting up, because being here is really helping me to see it’s for the best.’

‘Come on, Ash,’ Gina scoffs. ‘We all know nothing’s going to change. It’s absolutely pointless. It’ll be Malibu all over again.’

And now I’m gripping the handset so hard my fingers ache.

‘Case in point about our communication, Gina. I’m off.’

A deep breath, this one audible, all the way from Australia, and she switches again. I can almost see her composing herself. Eyes closed. Deep breaths. The little shakedown she does of her entire body.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, I reckon through gritted teeth. ‘That wasn’t fair of me.’

None of this has been fair, I want to say, but instead I disengage.

‘I’d like to speak to Luna, at some point. If I was to call at this time next week, could I?’

‘Actually, I’m thinking of taking her to see my parents. She should spend time with at least some of her grandparents.’

Another dig, best not mention those texts to Mum. 

‘Well, that’ll be nice for her,’ I say, with all the charm I can muster, which, admittedly, isn’t very much.

It’s not that I don’t like the Belgiornos, they’re nice in a nouveau riche look-at-us-and-our-rare-earth-minerals-fortune sort of way, and there’s no doubt they love Luna, but I’ve never felt comfortable with the brash, showy way Mick tosses money about as if it’s nothing. Or how Glenda, a retired soap actress, and the daughter of a wealthy cattle station owner, name drops relentlessly and has been slightly too friendly with Ryan when Mick isn’t looking.

And Gina’s enjoyed all the spoils of a very charmed life. A self-titled rare earths princess, if there’s ever been anything she’s wanted, Mick’s made it happen. A penthouse apartment in an affluent part of Sydney? Done. A job in PR she lasted a week at? No bother. Private jets and charters on luxury yachts around the Whitsundays or the Med? Of course. Exclusive parties arranged on private islands for her and her cotillion of socialite friends? Obviously.

And I can’t deny that latterly I’ve enjoyed all that, too. But it’s wildly different to my own upbringing, and this time apart has widened the chasm. I know Mum would do anything to spend more time with Luna, and it would be a different sort of time to what she gets from Mick and Glenda. A quieter, more normal time. Walks in the forest and dinner cooked by Tyler in my flat where he’d light candles and serve a tasting menu and pour Appletiser into a flute like it was Champagne. And all that low key stuff is part of the reason I’m here. Because once Gina and I are no longer married, there’s no reason Luna and I can’t be here more.

Gina signs off with a vague but not unexpected threat that I’ll be hearing from her representation, as if it was her idea to begin with, and I think good, and head off for breakfast. 

Daisy’s already seated, and she nibbles on a slice of toast and jam and slops soggy Rice Krispies around a bowl of slightly dusty looking milk. 

‘I have a question,’ she says. I sip my coffee. It smells like Bisto.

‘Shoot,’ I say.

‘Who was that who came to see you on Sunday? Not Gina…’

‘No, not Gina,’ I say, remembering that Daisy is an avid reader of Heat magazine and knows all about my life. ‘I’m honestly amazed it’s taken you this long to ask.’

‘I was waiting to see if she came last night, but I only saw your mum.’

‘That was Esty, an old friend of mine from school and college.’

‘Was she your girlfriend?’

‘Well,’ I laugh nervously, and sit back in my chair, fidgety now. ‘You’re an insightful little miss, aren’t you?’

She shrugs. ‘I’m just good at reading people.’

‘What gave it away?’

‘Her body language. Yours. The way your mum sort of wandered off and hovered around the rose garden for a bit. It wouldn’t have taken an expert to figure it out.’

‘Interesting,’ I say. ‘I didn’t notice you around.’

‘I know. I walked right past you a few times. I was trying to get a better look, but neither of you clocked me. It was all quite intense. Anyway, I think you still like her even though you both seemed pissed off.’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘Is she lined up to be your shoulder to cry on after your divorce?’

‘Absolutely not. And you saw us once, for a few minutes, so I think all this is doing a lot of heavy lifting.’

‘Alright, tetchy,’ she says, but her eyes dart around the room, and for a few seconds she can’t look at me. ‘I just know what I saw. But we can leave it.’

She gathers up her plate and bowl and finishes her drink. ‘I have to see the dietitian now,’ she says, and she leans in closer to me. ‘But so you know, she’s into it, too.’

There are eight of us in group therapy, sitting in a circle on itchy chairs. Behind us is a table with a hot water urn, individually wrapped tea bags and sachets of instant coffee. Jugs of water and orange juice and milk. A plate of biscuits. Mugs with matching saucers and slightly tea-stained spoons. When everyone is settled, the session starts with the usual introductions.

I’m Ash, and I’m here because I’m dependent on prescription drugs and cocaine. I’ve been sober just over a month, and in the last week I’ve been to therapy every day, pretended to be mindful, avoided yoga, and argued with my wife.

(and had a surprise visit from my ex-girlfriend.)

‘We’re going to look today at triggers,’ Jude, the therapist, begins. She has the sort of soft voice you could listen to for hours. There’s patience there, and kindness. She really likes to encourage participation, though, and that makes me want to die.

‘Commonly,’ she says, ‘triggers are caused by something external to us. Something that’s happening in the surrounding environment or situation. So what I’d like to start with is for you to think for a few moments about what triggers you, and write it down.’

She passes a wad of paper to the person on her left, and a box of pens to the person on her right, and we each take one and pass the rest on. I stare at my sheet for a minute or so, and think hard, but only one word comes to mind. And it’s not the one I want because the volume it speaks is deafening. Still, I write it down and fold the paper in half, almost like if I can’t see it, it isn’t really there. Jude sits, her legs crossed at the ankle, until we’re finished.

‘Would anyone like to share?’ she asks.

Everybody’s silent, and if no one offers something up soon, she’ll pick on one of us, and even though it’s okay to say no, each time you do it feels a bit like failure.

Maybe I should speak today. Everyone here is wondering about me anyway. I could just eliminate the intrigue by laying it all out there. Perhaps then I wouldn’t feel so watched. 

‘Anyone?’ Jude prompts, and just as I’m working up to raising my hand, a sharp looking, put together sort of man called Harry beats me to it and I bat away the instant wash of relief.

‘My job is very high pressured,’ he ventures, in clipped, private school tones, and I immediately think, banker. Or hedge fund manager. Something involving investments and lots of money. He spreads his hands out in front of him. ‘The competition to excel is stiff. The stakes are high. I regularly pull hundred hour weeks, yah. And alcohol and… well, drugs, are widely accepted as part of the culture. You need to feel like you fit in. You need to be on the ball, constantly.’ 

He snaps his fingers rapidly and Jude nods. ‘So when I pull in a huge deal, I get absolutely trashed. Because I want to celebrate feeling like the king of the world… but also – and I haven’t really ever said this publicly before – I know I’ll have to do it all again, sometimes still massively wasted, so the cycle repeats. But I’ve started blacking out, losing time, whole days sometimes, and that’s a problem. So the pressure of success is my trigger.’

He stops talking and his eyes dart around. Bloodshot and grey around the sockets. Poor bastard. Bet he’s never been as vulnerable as this at his money job.

‘Thank you, Harry, for sharing with the group today,’ Jude says. She looks kindly at him. Other group members nod and offer support, and the man next to him reaches out and pats him on the back. 

‘Would you like to look any deeper into that today?’ Jude asks, but he shakes his head. ‘That’s fine, would anyone else like to share? Remember, this is a safe space. We’re all here to support.’

Slowly, tentatively, I raise my hand. If banker Harry can admit he does his money deals whilst off his tits then I can, too. For a second, Jude looks surprised, but she’s quick to mask it. 

‘Ash, you’d like to share?’

‘Yes,’ I say, hoarsely. Everyone’s eyes are on me now and my left ankle is trembling, knocking my shoe against the chair leg, making my leg bounce. I fix my eyes on Jude, and she nods her head a fraction. I unfold my paper over, expecting people to react. But they don’t. It’s a circle of blank faces. ‘So when I arrived here I wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint exactly what it was that triggers me. But it’s become pretty apparent, especially today, that it’s one thing in particular, and I’m not blaming other people for my choices, truly, but one of my main triggers is Gina.’

‘Who’s Gina?’ someone asks. Oh. Okay. Wasn’t expecting that.

‘Oh, sorry. I thought you’d know. She’s my wife.’

Money man Harry winces.

‘Christ,’ he whispers.

‘Tell me about it,’ I say.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jude says. ‘And before we go any further, I want to acknowledge what you said about blame.’ She gestures to the whole group. ‘Because when we place blame on others, we’re not taking responsibility. What was it about today that has triggered you?’

‘Things have really broken down and we’re getting divorced. But she makes me so fucking angry,’ I continue, and I know now it’s out there I’m going to run my mouth like a wind chime in a hurricane. ‘We spoke earlier, and she said that by being here I wasn’t making an effort for our daughter.’

Jude, who usually tries so hard to keep her face neutral, presses her mouth into a thin line.

‘She also asked if I’d considered that all this is in my head. Then said she didn’t mean it about wanting a divorce and for a moment I wondered if I had misinterpreted her, until I remembered we’re literally fighting it out via lawyers. The whole thing made my head spin.’ I take a deep breath. ‘And afterwards I went to breakfast, but I didn’t want toast and jam, what I wanted was a fat line of coke. So no, I’m not blaming her as a person, but the fact is, she’s a gaslighter and that’s what’s triggering.’

I cast my eyes around the circle for the first time since I started talking. Everyone is watching me. A girl three seats away dunks her biscuit in her tea and sucks it, never looking away.

‘I knew I recognised you,’ she says, slowly. 

‘Yeah. It’s me. Hi,’ I respond, and then turn back to Jude. ‘Probably shouldn’t have said that about the coke, should I? And I know I’m not easy to be with either. We bring out the worst in each other, but that’s not meant to be what it’s like, is it? You’re meant to bring out the best in your other half.’

I’m musing now, mainly, going off on a rambly tangent.

‘I can’t say nothing good has come out of being with Gina; our daughter’s perfect and it used to be good. Just… not lately. And I think people would be surprised about the things she says. She’s very protective of her image. Especially surrounding our marriage. Hates to look bad, you know?’

I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees, mainly to stop the incessant shaking in my leg. The person next to me reaches out and pats my back, in the same way Harry got. ‘So I suppose that’s sort of it. Never really said any of that to anyone before. Maybe my mum knows; she’s pretty insightful. But we haven’t talked about it.’

‘Thank you, Ash,’ Jude says, and there are murmurs from the circle, which I acknowledge with awkward eye contact and a nod here and there. And then I tune out for the rest of the session, exhausted and unable to concentrate, so everyone’s voices merge into a modulated hum, and I lean back in my seat and stare down at my lap, feeling an uneasy blend of fairy lightness and solid weight. How can you come back from admitting your spouse triggers the very worst, most destructive of all your habits? Habits that have caused career setbacks and tested friendships and upset the people you’re closest to.

There’s no way. You can’t. You just can’t.

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Previously: Esty is spending a lot of time at Ash’s house, and Gloria gives her a gift

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Ash/Esther

Hi,

Told you I’d be in touch. Sorry it’s taken a few days to, I don’t have much access to the internet, and I’ve had business to take care of which has taken up a lot of that. (Nightmarish divorce stuff mainly, which I won’t bore you with.)

How are you doing? 

First things first; I know I offended you on Sunday when I mentioned your photography dream, and that really wasn’t my intention. I was just surprised. So, in the interests of clearing the air, I’m sorry and I won’t mention it again. Consider all camera talk off the table.

I also want to apologise for everything that happened between us years ago. It’d been weighing on my mind a bit, and I know you said you didn’t want to talk about it, and that’s cool, but, just so it’s out there.

It really was a surprise to see you. After you left I thought of loads of stuff I wished I’d asked. I’m going to be here a while longer and I know it’s a lot but if you wanted to visit again, I’d be down for that.

I have to go now, dinner time. 

Take care, 

Ash

PS: There’s a song on our first album, and it’s called The High You Give. And everyone thinks it’s about dropping molly, but actually you were the E referred to in that song. I’ve wanted to tell you for years. No one else knows. And you now you do.

Ash! Hi!

It’s good to hear from you, honestly wasn’t sure if I would, and I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have said any of that stuff about you giving up on yourself. That was unfair of me. It’s been years, wtf do I know?

But since you did mention my photography, I thought you should know that what you said struck a chord, and I went out afterwards and took a bunch of photos. I’ve attached a couple to this email. Hope that’s ok and that you can open them. It’s nothing untoward. Obviously. That would be weird.

What did you want to ask me? I guess maybe I can answer some basic stuff. I mentioned my job, and I live with my partner Neil out by the airport. It feels weird telling you about him. Which logically I know is mad, but this whole thing is a bit mad, isn’t it?

Mum and Dad still live where they always did, and Amber lives by the sea with her husband and kids.

I don’t have any children, and I’ve never been married.

Thank you for telling me about The High You Give. I watched a video of you playing it, and the audience was singing along, and I thought it’s crazy that it’s about me, and only you and I know that. Truthfully, I actually hadn’t heard it before, so I’ll never have those ecstasy connotations!

I would like to see you again but I can’t be a crutch for you, and I can’t be something you chuck away again, so if that’s how you think this might end up, please know I don’t have any intention of allowing that to happen, and you should probably be upfront about it now. Sorry if that sounds abrupt, but… you know.

E x

Yikes, Esty, firstly, to be clear, you were never something I chucked away. At least not the way you think. I wish I could change what happened but the fact is that I can’t.

Secondly, I don’t want you to be a crutch ffs. I have enough people to help me deal with stuff and I don’t need that from you. Seeing you again reminded me of a lot of really good times (like when we went to Brighton, remember?) and I just thought it would be nice to reconnect. No pressure though. It’s OK if you’re not feeling it.

Ash

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Previously: Esther feels conflicted after her encounter with Ash, but is spurred on to pick up her camera again, and Neil makes things awkward over dinner.

Esther (16)

Mum’s sitting on the edge of my bed after my shower and it makes me scream.

‘Jesus! What are you in here for?’ I gasp, clutching the towel a little tighter around me, relieved I took my underwear into the bathroom. ‘You’d better not have been snooping.’

She leans back against the wall and crosses her legs.

‘No need to be suspicious, Esther, of course I wasn’t,’ she says, but her eyes flicker quickly towards my bedside table so I’m not sure I believe her. ‘I haven’t seen you much lately, that’s all. Just fancied a catch up with my big girl.’

‘Right, well, can we maybe do this when I’m dressed? Or better yet, later on this evening. I’m going out in a bit.’

‘To see Ashley?’

‘Ash. Yes,’ I say.

‘You’ve not brought him here yet.’

There’s a slight tone there. A lick of disapproval. I can see it on her face, too. A nostril flare. An eyebrow slant.

‘Actually I have. You were out, and we didn’t stay long. Amber met him.’

I step into a spotty black skirt and pull on a t-shirt. What a little cutie!

‘I’m sure Amber’s seen him at school, love. Maybe you can bring him here so we can all meet him?’

‘Erm. Perhaps, yeah,’ I say, scrutinising myself in the mirror. A little cluster of tiny pimples has appeared overnight just below my hair line. Alright, slightly less cute. I pull my hair over to hide it.

Behind me, Mum tuts. What now? I think.

‘There’ll be no third degree, Esther. You’re obviously pretty taken with him; you’re together every day.’

No third degree? As if. She’s hardly going to be mute over dinner, and now I can’t work out which scenario I’d hate more. Still, I let her catch my eye through the mirror.

‘We’ll see,’ I say. ‘One day. Just, maybe not right now.’

What I’ve left unsaid hangs in the air: I don’t want to scare him off.

‘It’d be nice to see a little more of you, that’s all. I’m sure Bethany feels the same. She’s called here a few times.’

‘Yep, I’m calling her later, for a proper catch up.’

‘You don’t want to abandon your friends for a boy,’ Mum continues.

‘Mum! No one’s being abandoned. I’m having a summer of love,’ I say, batting my lashes. ‘I’d have thought you’d have been pleased after all that pre-prom chat about going with a boy.’

She opens her mouth to speak but I’ve got her with this and she closes it again and stands up. ‘Please can I do my makeup in peace?’ I ask.

She straightens out my duvet before she leaves and I brush mascara on my lashes, and blow myself a glossy kiss in the mirror.

Ash is waiting at the bus stop, like he always does, and now there is no shyness or tentative chat. Now we’re all goofy grins and lingering kisses and he holds my hand all the way back to his house because both of us are having a summer of love.

Gloria sends him upstairs for the dirty laundry and she and I sit at her kitchen table and chat, and before she leaves for work she presses a necklace - a mother of pearl moon pendant on a strip of leather - into my hand.

‘I found this in my jewellery box and thought it would bring out your eyes, Esty, sweetheart. You can keep it.’

My heart swells and I think about how much I love coming here, how easy it is, and how Ash’s mum always makes me feel so welcome.

‘Are you sure? It’s so pretty,’ I say, turning the crescent-shaped pendant over and over in my hand.

‘Course. I picked it up in Spain when I was nineteen,’ she says. ‘A lifetime ago now, really. Bought it in a little tourist shop by the beach.’

She looks a bit wistful. ‘Anyway, I found it the other day and thought you’d like it. Thought it might go with your star necklace.’

I reach around my neck and put it on, and thank her, and she smiles at me and sips her tea.

Shortly after, Ash thunks down the stairs and saunters in, a full laundry bag slung over his shoulder. He drops it next to the machine and empties the contents into the drum before grabbing a packet of biscuits from the cupboard and two cans of Fanta from the fridge, and then he hovers, expectantly, next to the table and nods towards the stairs.

‘You coming, Esty?’

Our chat now over, Gloria announces it’s about time she got moving, and as she leaves the kitchen, she squeezes my shoulder and I hope I get to sit and have tea with her forever.

Up in his room, Ash puts on a film and we sit, like we have done most times I’ve come round, on his bed, and eat our way through the biscuits. 

‘Look what your mum gave me,’ I say, holding out the necklace.

‘Yeah, she said she was going to. She likes you,’ he says, casually, and he strokes back some of my hair. I turn my face towards his hand. Perfect stripes of golden sunlight beam through the slats of the blinds and stretch across the wall. ‘In fact, after I took you back to the bus stop that first time you came round she had all sorts of questions.’

‘Did she?’ I giggle. ‘About what?’

‘You, mush,’ he laughs, and shifts. ‘Just about how long we’d been friends. And how come I’d never really talked about you before prom.’

‘Friends,’ I laugh, and he smirks. ‘You mentioned prom?’

‘Well, yeah. I was home late, and she’d left some pizza out I didn’t really fancy, on account of all those chips we had, and told her I’d seen you home. Think she was surprised. Told me I could be a nice boy when I felt like it.’

‘Who’d have thought it?’ I giggle. ‘Bad-to-the-bone Ashley Ramsay is actually a nice boy.’

‘Shh, Esty, don’t go saying that too loud,’ he laughs, and kisses me hard on the cheek. ‘I’ve got a reputation to uphold.’

‘Does she give gifts to all your girlfriends?’ I ask, and immediately I’m struck by the fact I referred to myself as his girlfriend when he’s still yet to. He looks thoughtful for a couple of seconds and my stomach drops.

‘No, actually. Just you, thinking about it.’

‘Well, I thought it was really nice,’ I say, quickly, and inside, I feel something, triumphant almost, that Gloria has singled me out of all the glossy, trendy girls at school who vied for his attention.

‘Is that what you are then?’

Oh god, oh god, oh god. My mouth instantly dries up, and I have to gulp some of my Fanta before replying. Be cool, Esther, I tell myself. Do not fuck this up.

‘Erm… I guess? Unless this is more of a low key summer thing?’

There’s nothing low key about how I’m feeling right now. Nothing low key at all.

Ash laughs. ‘Course not,’ he says, and we kiss again, orange flavoured and sweet, and this time we don’t stop. It’s like we’re sealing it, this acknowledgement that we are properly something. The film’s forgotten. The biscuits are knocked to the floor. Gloria calls up the stairs that she’s going now and dropping Tyler at a friend’s, and we stop long enough for Ash to yell an acknowledgement in return. The front door slams and the house is silent except for the high pitched whine of the washing machine on its spin cycle. 

We wait, silent and completely still until we hear her drive away, and as soon as we’re alone we shuffle down, barely even an inch apart, and I know my heart is banging like it always does when we do this. He shifts until he’s half on top of me, warm and solid, and I let him, encourage him, even, to push his legs between mine and put his hand inside my t-shirt and I don’t stop him roaming over my thigh and pushing my skirt up towards my waist.

‘Esty?’ he asks, into my hair, and my stomach twists, because we always get exactly to this place, and it’s probably nothing to him, but it’s everything to me. And I want to go further. I do, I really do, but only when not a single part of me will worry about Gloria coming back unexpectedly. When we aren’t somewhere we’re supposed to keep the door open, and I don’t have a niggling feeling in the back of my mind that all this has happened before, in this room, on this bed, with other girls. ‘Do you want to…’ he starts, and then stops, and I know it’s because I’ve tensed up. He sits up and pushes his hair back and takes the hem of my skirt and pulls it back down my legs, agonisingly slowly. Painfully deliberately, and I’ve got goosebumps all over my arms.

‘I do, Ash, but… I don’t know. Not right now.’

‘That’s okay,’ he says quickly. ‘Zero pressure.’

‘I don’t want to have to get the bus home afterwards, you know?’

He nods, takes my hands, pulls me up so I’m sitting. ‘I get that,’ he says. ‘Me neither.’ But still, I feel like I have to justify it further.

‘I want it to be perfect, with you. Just, really perfect.’

‘Then it will be,’ he says. And when we kiss again, my heart flutters, and I feel like I might burst. 

‘This is Beth’s phone. I’m not here, but if you love me, leave a message. Byeeeee.’

‘Hey Beth, it’s Esty. Hope you’re good. Sorry to have missed you so much lately. I’m on the bus home so I thought I’d give you a call. Haven’t seen you in a while and I miss you, so can we do something? Go into town or to the cinema or even just to the park. Call me. Love you!’

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Previously: Ash gets a visitor he isn’t expecting, and no one knows how to handle it when things get heated

Esther

I don’t know what I was expecting from visiting Ash in rehab, but it categorically wasn’t whatever that was, and I stare at my steering wheel for a good ten minutes before snapping myself out of it. There’s no way I can still be in the car park when Gloria leaves. If she saw me, she’d try to speak to me and I don’t know what I’d say if she did. Because what the fuck just happened?

I’m frenetic, a buzzy mess after that encounter, and how he looked at me, and the way he told me I’ve let go of my dreams, and how I told him he’d let go of himself, and how pissed off I was at both how judged I felt and how right he was about everything.

I also can’t go home like this, so instead, at the end of the tree-lined driveway, I flick my indicator right and head into the forest, along roads that cut through flat, shrubby heathland, until I come to an empty car park by a copse of trees.

Because something stirred in me when he mentioned my camera, and my thoughts turned to it, still in the boot of my car from when I went to Amber’s, a memory card full of photos of Poppy, lying on a crocheted blanket on the lawn, and Jacob, in little cargo shorts, his pockets stuffed with toy cars, his knees grubby, sitting on the swing in their garden.

I grab it now, because how’s that for forgetting myself, Ashley? Fix on a lens, connect my headphones to my phone and search Spotify for Grandeur Looms, because even though I’ve always avoided it, right now I need to hear how his dream turned out, especially since he was so snotty about me abandoning mine, and my trepidation gives way to curiosity and masses of indignation.

Turns out he has millions of followers and monthly listeners. A bio briefly details the band’s rise to meteoric fame from humble roots in the South of England, and there’s a gallery of photos at the bottom. A black and white, wide angled shot taken outside on a blustery day. Ash is wearing a zipped up hoodie and stares moodily past the camera. Ryan’s looking at his feet. Matt’s got his hands shoved deep in his pockets. In another they’re bundled together on a blue sofa. Ryan has his arms tightly around both Ash and Matt’s necks, drawing them close. Ash is grinning, crinkly-eyed, legs crossed, in tight jeans and a flowery shirt.

And I realise, as I’m listening through their most popular records, whilst picking my way through the forest with my camera around my neck, that I haven’t been quite as diligent at skirting around their music as I’d thought. I’ve heard these songs in shops, or snippets of them on the TV, but always passively, so I didn’t register Ash’s vocals, or the fact that some of their earlier releases sound familiar. I heard un-evolved versions of them in Ash’s bedroom and in Ryan’s garage. At gigs they played locally. On a hastily ripped demo, unmixed and rough, but with the bones of the song there. The chords and the beat and skeleton lyrics.

I stop by a patch of sunshine yellow gorse and focus in on the tiny flowers, rendering the background to hazy bokeh, shift a little so the sky’s more visible and the light changes, and the click of the aperture is nostalgic and exciting all at once, and, as much as I don’t want to admit it, so is hearing Ash in my ears again. I walk further on towards a marshy pond and photograph the reflection of the clouds in its stillness. I pass a pony on the way back to the car and capture its sandy mane and glassy eye. 

When I’m finished, my heart isn’t pounding as much as it was when I left The Pines. The anxious, prickly heat on my skin has subsided. The lead-heavy feeling in my gut has dispersed and I feel brave, so I search YouTube for them, because hearing studio-produced songs isn’t quite enough and now I want to see what he’s like on stage. I avoid the official videos. He’s polished and pretty in the thumbnails. Lined eyes and that lock of curly hair he never could push out of the way. I scroll further, landing finally on a live video titled The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, and I know exactly what it is before I even press play.

The song opens with a riff I know so well, and Matt singing the intro, and Ash bouncing around, hyping the crowd, barely making it back to his mic stand in time to start the verse and as he does, I’m transported back to an afternoon spent in Gloria’s living room. Her record player scratching as the song starts because we’re listening on vinyl. Ash, shiny-eyed and excited, explaining how much he loves this song, and laughing as he tells me Tyler used to be scared of the dancing hot dogs in the video. He’s in the middle of the room now, and he beckons me over and wraps an arm around my waist and makes me sing the chorus an octave higher, as he twirls me round and round until the room spins. We collapse onto the sofa at the end, puffed out from the dancing he definitely does do, but just not at prom, and he tells me, earnestly now, that Prefab Sprout are massively underrated and that we should listen to Cars and Girls next.

‘Hot dog,’ he sings in the video I’m still watching. ‘Jumping frog.’

The audience joins in for the last line.

I sit for a while and think about that afternoon listening to records, and how easy it was. How easy it always was. And how so not easy it was today, and how I don’t know if he’ll contact me at all and if I even want him to, and that maybe I stepped back into being Esty for an afternoon, and that was enough for me. But mainly what I’m going to say to Neil, because I can’t keep this from Neil.

He’s outside, watering the hanging baskets as I pull into the driveway, and I feel a pang of affection. A pang of something else simmers underneath, too. Guilt, perhaps, that he’s completely in the dark about all of this, although at this point, years in, where would I even start? He turns around as I park up, but there’s no warmth in his eyes.

‘Esther,’ he says, and he stares at me. ‘Where have you been?’

And it’s like he’s my dad and not my boyfriend at all.

‘I went to the forest,’ I say. ‘Took some photos. And also, met up with an old friend.’

It’s an opener that invites questions, ones I want him to ask because I don’t know how to start. What old friend? Where did you meet? What did you talk about? But he doesn’t. It’s as if it didn’t even register, and so I stay quiet, but I can’t hold his gaze. I’m aware of every movement I make. My hands are so clammy.

‘I tried calling a few times.’

I check my phone. Eight missed calls and a text; but only, I notice, within the last twenty minutes.

‘Oh! Well, I was driving home. I couldn’t have answered even if I had seen it.’

‘But what if something had happened?’

‘Then I’d have found out just now and reacted accordingly. Did something happen?’

‘No,’ he sulks, ‘But that isn’t the point.’

‘Seems to me,’ I snap, bothered now that two men I’ve been in a relationship with have needled at me today, ‘that very little of this conversation has a point.’

Neil goes back to the hanging baskets, and I briefly wonder if I’m the problem.

‘I’m going to edit my photos,’ I say. ‘Do you want to see them later?’

‘If you like,’ Neil says, picking a dead petal from one of the flowers, but he really doesn’t seem interested at all.

The following Tuesday we visit my sister for dinner, and I fret all the way there, not least because the road to Amber’s passes The Pines. What if Gloria’s there today? What if she’s leaving as we drive past? What if she pulls out behind us and recognises my car?

None of that happens and I instantly chill out a bit.

Amber and Will pass Poppy between them as we eat, and I jiggle her on my knee whilst they clear plates and bring out dessert.

‘Be you two next,’ Will says, good-naturedly, over bowls of Eton mess, and I gaze down at little Poppy. 

‘Perhaps,’ I say, thinking back, not for the first time, to our conversation in the car, and the way the air changed in the nursery section of John Lewis.

‘Hmmm,’ Neil says, at the same time.

‘Is that a good hmmm, or a bad hmmm?’ Amber asks, hopeful.

‘Well, let’s not get too hasty,’ Neil says, quickly. ‘Esther can’t even be relied upon to answer her phone so I’m not sure she’s quite ready for motherhood just yet.’ 

He means it to be funny and chuckles but the comment stings, and I don’t laugh along with him, and neither does anyone else. Instead the table falls silent. Will looks down at his bowl, and Amber stares pointedly with her eyebrows raised.

‘What does that mean?’ she asks, and Neil shifts in his seat. ‘Esther not always being available to take a phone call isn’t really relevant to anything, is it?’

‘Just being flippant,’ he says, his eyes darting around, and he holds up his hands. ‘Didn’t mean anything by it.’

‘I just don’t see how the two correlate,’ she says, and shrugs.

‘It’s okay,’ I say quickly, keen to keep the peace, at least here, and I cuddle Poppy, now sleeping, her wispy hair tickling the crook of my arm, her little fingers curled into tight, dimply fists, her rosebud mouth slack. 

‘Well,’ Will says, breaking the tension with a thigh slap as he gets up. ‘I’ll put some coffee on, shall I?’

‘Yes please,’ I say, quickly.

Afterwards, Amber drags me out for a walk under the pretence of going to the shop.

‘Just what was all that about?’ she blusters, when we’re halfway down her road.

‘I don’t know,’ I shrug.

‘Dickhead comment, but I hope I didn’t overstep.’ She links her arm through mine.

‘I saw him,’ I say, staring ahead. ‘That’s the update you want, isn’t it? That’s why we’ve come for a walk. I know you’re not really out of Fairy liquid.’

‘Of course I’m not.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘So yes, that, because I knew you’d go, but also you definitely needed fifteen minutes away from Neil.’

‘I really wasn’t going to, but then Neil and Anna made me feel boring and risk averse, so I decided not to be.’

‘How kind of them both,’ Amber sniffs, and I know Neil’s sunk even further in her estimations.

‘I mean, they were pointing things out that definitely track,’ I say, shrugging. ‘So I chose to see it as a favour, because I didn’t want to be like that. I don’t want to be boring and risk averse.’

‘You’re not boring, Esther,’ she says. ‘Don’t let people make you think you are.’

‘Maybe not but I am in a bit of a rut. So, I called Gloria. And I went to see Ash on Sunday.’

She makes a squeaking sound and stamps her feet.

‘And? Did you get the answers you wanted?’

‘Absolutely not,’ I laugh. ‘I bottled it completely. Panicked from the get go and fucked it all up!’

‘What? Esther! You had one job!’

‘I know,’ I groan, covering my face. ‘Even when he asked if I wanted to talk about stuff.’

‘You idiot.’ Amber rolls her eyes. ‘He was literally handing you the keys to the kingdom!’

‘It gets worse,’ I cringe, and Amber’s eyes are like full moons in their sockets. ‘I sort of flounced. Only stayed about twenty minutes.’

‘Oh nooo!’ Her mouth remains an O.

‘Oh yes,’ I say, puffing out my cheeks.

‘Damn,’ she says. ‘So, what’s he like these days?’

‘The same, but different. Same mannerisms.’

‘That hollow druggy look? Heroin chic?’

‘No. He looks pretty good actually.’

‘Oh yeah? Now we’re getting to it.’ Amber raises her eyebrows at me and I make a face. Wrinkle up my nose. Because I didn’t want to admit that I still think he’s attractive, but when he wriggled in his seat and pushed his hands through his hair and bit his lip, I turned to mush, and every thought in my head vanished.

‘Okay, so what’s different about him?’

‘He seemed like he’d been through a lot.’

‘Yeah, a lot of cocaine. Kilos of the stuff.’

‘That’s a remarkably tasteless joke, Amber,’ I say, but we giggle nonetheless.

‘Sorry, too easy. I’ll be serious. I imagine things have been very tough. So if you didn’t talk about the big stuff, what did you talk about?’

‘This and that. His life in Australia. He mentioned his soon-to-be-ex wife and then things got a bit prickly.’

‘What, like, a lovers’ tiff? All electric and sexy?’

‘No, we were mean to each other. He told me I’d ditched my dreams, like he hasn’t been out of my life for years, and it pissed me off, so I told him he gave up on himself.’

‘Fucking yikes,’ she gasps, and then smirks. ‘But honestly, it does sound a bit like an electric and sexy lovers’ tiff.’ We walk on some more. ‘How did Neil take it?’

‘Erm, I made a very small attempt to tell him. I told him I’d seen an old friend, hoping he’d ask who, but he didn’t, so I didn’t go there.’

‘Oh.’

‘To be honest, he’d have no idea how to deal with any of it. And I have no idea where to start.’

‘How about with, “so, Neil, light of my life, when I was sixteen I went out with Ash from Grandeur Looms, and now he’s in rehab for drugs and that’s the old friend with whom I caught up”?’

‘Would that it was that easy, Amber! I’ll handle it, though, so please don’t mention it. To anyone.’

She shrugs. ‘Not my story to tell.’

‘Hopefully it’ll all just blow over,’ I say.

‘As if. When are you going back?’

‘I don’t know that I’ll be invited, or even if I want to,’ I say, feeling the indignation return.

‘Come off it,’ she says, knowingly, and then; ‘You’ve perked right up, you know?’

‘What do you mean? Since when?’

‘Well, on this walk, for one. But it’s when you talk about Ash. There’s something about you that’s like it was. Little flickers of it, and I haven’t seen it for years. You get this gleam in your eye, like a spark. I noticed it at the beach.’

‘Oh,’ I say. I hadn’t realised, and yet, now she’s said it I know she’s absolutely right.

Neil’s contrite on the way home. He doesn’t outwardly apologise, because, well, he’s Neil, but he comments on everything we see.

‘Oh look, there’s the house with the dragon pattern built into the bricks.’ ‘Oh look, there’s a flame coming from a chimney at Fawley Refinery.’ ‘Oh look, Tesco is still open, do we need anything? Are you out of tampons?’

I wish he’d just say sorry and move on. I’m not out of tampons.

But as we drive past The Pines again, the sign outside now illuminated by uplighters, his tone changes.

‘What’s it like in there then?’ he asks, nodding towards it.

‘How should I know?’ I say, quickly. Too quickly.

‘Thought you met Roni there?’

‘Oh. Yes. Seems nice.’

Neil sniffs. ‘Full of wasters and addicts,’ he mutters.

‘People there are trying to turn their lives around,’ I say. ‘Don’t be so judgmental, it doesn’t look good on you.’

I think back to sitting opposite Ash on Sunday afternoon, the sunlight making him squint. His tattooed hands. The way he rubbed tobacco between his fingers and deftly rolled a perfect cylindrical cigarette, and how he kept pushing back the curl from his face, too short to tuck behind his ear, too long to ignore. How I know he bought his mother a house and allows his brother to live in his flat. The way he’s trying to get better. Someone with an illness, and not a waster. Never a waster. And right here, in my car, I realise there’s nothing I want more than to hear from him again.

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Previously: After conversations with her sister and a colleague, Esther makes a big decision

Ash

Mum cancels her usual Thursday evening visit, and honestly, it’s a pisser. It’s been nice to see her, even for just an hour or so each time, when I’ve lived so long with months between spending any time with her at all.

‘I’m sorry, Ash,’ she says. ‘It’s just that something’s come up. I was hoping to come on Sunday instead. Will you be busy?’

Will I be busy? Let’s see, mindfulness in the morning, then lunch, followed by whatever riveting activity they have organised for group, then social time, and finally, bed.

‘No, I won’t be busy. Come after lunch. What’s come up? Everything okay? It’s not Tyler, is it?’

‘No, love,’ she says. ‘I’ve just been asked to help out a friend on Thursday, that’s all.’ 

‘Oh, right, okay.’

‘You’ll be alright, though?’

‘Course. In fact, someone here has been badgering me to do a yoga session, so maybe I’ll do that.’

‘Aw, it’s nice you’re making friends,’ Mum says, and I snort a laugh. 

But Daisy’s parents show up on Thursday evening, and there’s no way I’m going to yoga on my own, so I curl up on a sofa in the communal lounge and stare at the TV instead. She shuffles in fifteen minutes before dinner.

‘Fancy a smoke, Ash?’ she asks.

‘Sure,’ I say, and we make our way to our usual bench, and sit on the back with our feet on the seat. ‘You okay?’

She looks glum. ‘My family are going on holiday on Sunday.’

‘…And?’

‘Obviously I won’t be there this year, and I’m bummed about it.’ She nods at my cigarette. ‘Can I have a bit of that?’

‘I… We’re not meant to share stuff,’ I say, and she rolls her eyes.

‘It’s literally one drag. Who fucking cares?’

I discreetly pass it over and she inhales and holds her breath, releasing it slowly.

‘I wish I was better,’ she sighs, smoke pluming from her mouth, shoulders hunched over, hood up. She looks like a baby dragon.

‘You’re smashing it,’ I say. She hands back the cigarette.

‘It’s so hard though, isn’t it? I know I have this, but then there are moments where I still feel completely out of control. Which is silly, because the only thing I have ever been able to control is what I put inside my body.’

‘Yeah, I get that,’ I tell her.

‘Do you actually?’

‘Of course, Daisy. Why do you think I’d regularly get fucked up on all the shit I did? It was always control. And then it got to the point where I always needed something, and it was controlling me. And then… shit really hit the fan and I overdosed and the next thing I know I’m on a plane coming here, to sort myself out… I think I’ll always be sorting myself out.’

‘Mmhmm,’ she says, and she looks up at the trees, her big eyes glassy. I pat her back and can feel the jut of her spine and her shoulder blades through her hoodie, and it’s shocking. She’s so fragile, like if she fell back onto the ground from here she’d smash into a thousand pieces. She flinches a little. I remove my hand.

‘I’m sorry you don’t get to go on holiday this time. But next time you will, and it will be super special.’ 

‘Hope so,’ she says, looking forlorn. ‘Your mum didn’t visit tonight then?’

‘No. Changed to Sunday this week.’

We sit on the bench a bit longer, listening to nature sounds until Daisy looks at her watch. ‘Time to eat now,’ she says, climbing off the bench. ‘Let’s go.’

Sunday is sunny and warm, and begins with a mindfulness session outside on the lawn. They have us sit quietly with our eyes closed.

‘Be present,’ the practitioner soothes. ‘Be exactly where you are in your life.’

But where I am in my life is on the edge of a forest in Hampshire where almost every moment of every day is planned out for me, and it isn’t where I want to be, and hearing that from someone in a tie-dyed skirt and Birkenstocks is irritating, so I tune out. I’m not feeling very zen. I do not want to feel mindful, and I clench my fists and imagine the fizzy chaos in my head leaking out of my fingers. At the end of the session I stalk off to my room and don’t come down for lunch.

Shortly after one, one of the nurses peers around the door, and I know I’m in for a bollocking. We’re categorically not allowed to miss meal times.

‘Don’t think I don’t know you weren’t at lunch today,’ she scolds, and tells me next time she’ll report it.

‘I wasn’t hungry, or feeling sociable,’ I snap.

‘Well, I hope you’re feeling sociable now,’ she says. ‘You’ve got a visitor.’

She steps aside and holds the door open and Mum bundles in and stands by the foot of the bed, hands on hips.

‘Come on Ashley,’ she says. ‘It’s a nice day, let’s get you outside.’

‘I’ve been out,’ I say, grouchily. ‘Played pretend at being a hippy for a bit.’

She’s not having it.

‘Chop chop,’ she says, clapping her hands. ‘Stop being petulant. And leave your tobacco.’

‘No. Stop telling me what to do. I might want it. What’s the rush anyway?’

I pull on my shoes, but she stops on the stairwell and squeezes my shoulder.

‘Actually I have something to tell you, love,’ she says, softer now. ‘Promise me you’ll be open to it.’

‘No can do. I don’t know what it is, do I?’

She looks momentarily anguished, as if she’s weighing up what she’s going to say. Like she’s finding the best words to use. ‘It’s not just me here to see you today.’

‘Who’s here? Tyler?’

I daren’t ask if it’s Luna, because I want it so desperately to be, but there’s no way Gina would have agreed to that, and I couldn’t bear Mum’s disappointment at telling me it isn’t. We’re by a door now, and she pushes it open and I follow her gaze towards the small metal tables on the patio. ‘Oh, fuck!’ I whisper.

Esty Mackie hasn’t changed a bit. The same shiny dark hair, the same neat way she holds herself. Fiddling with her fingers the way she always did. She looks up, and it knocks out all my angst and annoyance. And the words in my mouth. And the breath in my lungs.

Mum’s smile fades, unsure that she’s done the right thing, and honestly, I don’t know if she has. I don’t know how to react. In this moment, I don’t know anything at all, except that somehow my feet have carried me over to her and she’s staring up at me from her seat with her hand pressed to her mouth.

I pull out the chair opposite and sit down and she hasn’t broken eye contact for a second.

‘Ash,’ she says. ‘Hi.’

‘Esty, Jesus!’

‘He’s not here.’ She’s still staring. It’s vaguely unsettling.

Mum audibly exhales. ‘I’m going to take a walk,’ she says. ‘I expect you two have a lot to catch up on,’ and she ambles away, crunching over the gravel towards the lawn.

‘So,’ Esty says, and stretches, arching her shoulders back and tightening her ponytail. ‘I’d ask you how you’ve been, but… I don’t know. Seems crass.’

I bite back a laugh.

‘I’m doing alright,’ I say. ‘For the most part. I think.’

She chews her lip.

‘I was really shocked to hear about what happened, and that you were here… I don’t know. The feeling was… This is weird, isn’t it? And the last time I saw you–’ 

I shift a little in my seat, run my hands through my hair, suck my bottom lip between my teeth and refocus on her, and she stops talking abruptly.

‘The last time you saw me?’ I prompt, but she shakes her head.

‘Nothing. Just, it was a long time ago, wasn’t it?’

She lays her hands down flat on the table. Pearly nails. A thin silver chain around her wrist. No rings.

‘Right,’ I say, but I’m unconvinced. ‘Yeah, I guess this is a bit weird.’

She looks towards the tall pine trees that line the grounds and the bench Daisy and I gravitate towards.

‘How long are you here for?’ she asks.

‘Another few weeks yet.’

My mind is racing. There are things I want to say to her about the last time we saw each other, but I don’t know where to begin. I’ve pushed it all aside for so long and that’s easy to do when you’re not face to face with the person you hurt. And Esty was definitely hurt. I want to explain that every time Ryan or Matt reminisce about the beginning of Grandeur Looms, I always drift to a place where she’s walking away after our last conversation, quickly, stiffly, and without looking back. Of how later on, and at various times after, I typed out text messages I never sent. How, at night time, usually when I was alone somewhere new, all I would think about was her, and I’d stare at her number in my phone but never call.

‘Esty,’ I begin. ‘Did you want to talk about it?’

‘No,’ she says quickly, and shakes her head. ‘Not right now.’

So instead we sit at the little circular cafe table in silence. ‘But I actually don’t know what to say to you,’ she admits, eventually.

‘Why?’ I laugh, and she wrinkles up her nose and smiles.

‘Because you’re you. And I’m still just me. And I can’t decide how I feel about this.’

‘Allow it, Esty!’ I scoff. ‘You were never just anything, and I’m still basically the same, I think.’

I open my packet of tobacco and pull it apart into thin, brown strands. She looks at the tattoos on my fingers.

‘Ash!’ she laughs, I think a little sardonically, and shakes her head. ‘Be serious.’

‘What? I am,’ I say, and she laughs again and rolls her eyes. 

‘Okay, if you like.’ 

Silence for a few seconds, and then a backtrack; ‘Gloria told me about her house, and about Tyler living in yours… and I thought that was really nice.’

‘Yeah? Well, you know how hard she worked after my dad left. Easing that up for her seemed like a no brainer. Same for Tyler. Hospitality is shit when you’re starting out. Felt like the least I could do for him when I moved to Sydney.’

‘Ah yes, Australia. Is it nice there?’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Very.’

She nods, slowly. ‘You’ll be keen to get back then.’

‘Conflicted, actually, because of… I have a daughter.’

‘I know you do.’

Her eyelids flicker.

‘So, yes because of her, but otherwise I’d cut my losses. Everyone else who matters is here.’

‘Everyone? What about your wife?’ 

‘She’s not going to be my wife for much longer though, is she?’ I say. Esty swallows.

‘Right.’ She presses her lips together and looks away and I realise I don’t want to talk about Gina with Esty, and furthermore, I don’t think Esty really wants to hear about Gina from me. ‘I shouldn’t have asked that,’ she says, and I shrug. 

‘Not like it’s not all out there for the world to read about, should they wish to.’

She looks past me and sighs.

‘This is what I mean, Ash. It’s like you’re on another level.’

I’m really not, and being here has humbled me enough to see that, but okay.

‘So what do you do now?’ I ask, changing the subject. ‘Photographer?’

She looks as if she’s surprised I remember. But of course I do. She always had her camera with her. And she’d whip it out for pictures all the time. The first Christmas we were together she got a Polaroid and we took endless photos she tucked into the frame of her mirror, or left for me to find in my bedroom, or stuck on the notice boards at college. And her photos were good. The subjects were considered. She had a way of playing with light. Of course she was going to be a photographer. What else could there possibly be? But she shakes her head.

‘No. Nothing like that at all, actually. I work at the hospital. Have done for years.’

‘You still take photos though, right? For a hobby.’

‘Not like I used to. Mainly just snaps of Amber’s kids these days,’ she says, and looks away, like it’s a sore subject.

‘Why?’ I ask.

Her eyes snap back and flash, like I’ve hit a nerve. Like she’s not been asked this before.

‘What do you mean, why?’

‘Exactly that, really. What happened to your dream?’

‘Erm… things change I guess.’

‘Only if you let them,’ I say, shrugging, and I’m sort of annoyed with her and I don’t know if I have any right to be. ‘You loved it. That was your whole thing. Honestly, it sucks a bit. What do you do for you?’

‘You what?’ she asks, angling her chin upwards. ‘You don’t know anything about me anymore. Or my “whole thing”.’

She makes air quotes and sits back in her seat, but dodges the question.

‘Maybe. But I know you loved your camera. It was always Esty and her Leica. Always thought I’d bump into you on set somewhere, honestly, so I’m just really surprised.’

She shakes her head and chews her lip for a few seconds.

‘Well, what about you?’ she asks, eventually.

‘What about me?’

‘What do you do for you? Because from where I’m sitting it seems like you’ll do lovely, considerate things for your mum and Tyler, but you’ve forgotten how to prioritise yourself.’

Ooft. If this was anyone other than her, I’d tell them where to shove their spicy takes.

‘At least I’m living,’ I say instead. ‘At least I didn’t give up on myself.’

She flinches, but then leans in, lowering her voice. ‘Is it true? About your overdose. Opioids? Really, Ash?’

I nod at her. Small, quick movements because it’s all I can manage. She looks disappointed and it stings and I hate myself. ‘Yes.’

‘Then, I’m sorry to say it but you did give up on yourself. And that sucks, too.’

We both sit back and cross our arms, mirroring each other with challenging, hostile body language. And her eyes flit from one part of me to another, and then another, and then another. Chest heaving, eyebrows slanted in what looks like pity.

Mum’s strolling back towards us now and she nods towards her. ‘Look, this isn’t really it. I’m going to go.’

‘Esty, wait,’ I say, moving my hand towards her as she goes to stand, but stopping just short of touching her.

‘What, Ash?’ She shrugs.

‘I don’t want this to be like that. I’m sorry I upset you.’

‘You didn’t,’ she says. ‘It’s fine.’ But she won’t catch my eye, so I don’t think it really is. Mum, now within earshot, looks panicked. This is so not what she’d planned. ‘Gloria, I was just saying it’s probably time for me to go.’

‘So soon?’ Mum asks, and Esty mumbles something about Sunday lunch. ‘Well, are you two going to keep in touch?’

‘Yes,’ I say, quickly, firmly, and Esty looks surprised.

‘Are we?’ she asks.

‘I just thought… It’d be good to have some normality.’

‘Is that code for boring?’

‘No, it’s not code for anything. But if you don’t want to...’

I’m calling her bluff and she knows it. ‘How do you propose we keep in touch?’ she asks, finally.

‘Email? I don’t have my phone in here.’

‘Email? You going to write to me? Like a penpal? In our thirties?’

‘Yeah, actually.’

To my left, Mum’s eyes are glinting. She now seems incredibly pleased with my suggestion.

Esty looks like she’s weighing it up in her mind. ‘Alright,’ she says. She writes something on a page of a notebook Mum’s quick to whip out, folds it in half and hands it over. ‘Don’t give me yours. That way, if you decide it’s not a good idea after all, then, well, you know… and I’ll know, and it’ll be fine.’

Now we’re standing opposite each other, and she spins her keyring around her index finger and it feels like we’re both unsure how to say goodbye.

‘Thank you for coming,’ I say, finally.

She shrugs. ‘No problem.’

‘I am going to write to you, Esty.’

‘Course,’ she says, and the corner of her mouth is slightly quirked, like she’s not sure whether to believe me.

As she walks away I’m struck by something; even though things got borderline heated, the ever-present knot of tension and worry wasn’t there the whole time we were sitting together. I push my bag of tobacco back into my pocket, and Mum sits down.

‘Well!’ she says, leaning back and tilting her face towards the sun. ‘Esty Mackie. Who’d have thought?’

‘It was her with my art therapist, wasn’t it? Why didn’t you say at the time?’

‘I didn’t know what to make of it.’

‘Sure you didn’t.’

‘Are you upset about it?’ she asks.

‘No… Not at all. I just… I– She’s feistier than I remember.’

‘You seem calmer, so perhaps it’s just what you need.’

‘Ah, that’s probably just the Valium.’

Mum tuts. ‘Don’t joke, Ashley.’

‘Sorry. You’ve only just sat down. How could you possibly know if I’m calmer?’

She rolls her eyes.

‘Because I’m your mother, and I’ve seen it all before.’

‘Can we talk about something else?’ I ask, embarrassed now and unsure of exactly why. ‘Have you heard from Luna?’

‘Yes. In fact–’ she takes her phone from her bag and opens up her messages. An entire conversation between her and Luna, and reading it makes me ache. I scroll through. ‘She misses you,’ Mum says. 

‘I miss her.’

‘I’ve always thought that girl was the making of you,’ Mum says, wistfully, looking back towards the car park, but right now I’m not sure which girl she is referring to.

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If you’d like a little catch up, here’s last week’s chapter

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Previously: In a flashback to when they were sixteen, Ash invites Esty over to hang out.

Esther

The day after my coffee with Gloria, I drive to see Amber, and we bundle her kids into her car and carry on to the beach. It’s blustery by the sea, and my nephew Jacob runs screaming in circles around us, picking up stones and lobbing them, laughing as they land in the water with hollow splashes. He brings us long bits of seaweed, filling up a bright red bucket by our feet. Amber and I sit on the shingle and she feeds baby Poppy and the wind whips around my hair and chaps my eyes, making them sting. A ferry crosses the water towards the Isle of Wight. A cruise ship leaves port.

‘Do you remember when that cargo ship ran aground just out there?’ she says, nodding towards the sea. ‘The one with all the cars on board. Listed at some dodgy angle in the mud for days.’

‘I do. Do you remember that Mum dragged me out specifically to take photos of it?’

Amber laughs and looks at her baby. ‘Your Nana’s a funny one,’ she coos. Poppy stares straight ahead and sucks down the milk from the bottle.

‘Mum says you’re feeling it now Will’s job’s ramped up,’ I say.

Amber side eyes me.

‘Don’t listen to Mum. You know what she’s like. We’re fine, aren’t we Pops? Got a nice little routine going, actually.’ 

‘Good,’ I say. ‘I should have come before now, I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, it’s fine,’ she says. ‘Don’t worry about it. We’re not short on things to do and people to see. How are things with you? Bought a house yet?’

‘No, but I’m having all sorts of fun scouring listings.’

‘Where are you looking?’

‘Just where we are. We like our area.’

‘Well, that’s a party line if ever I heard one,’ she laughs.

‘Eh… only a little bit maybe. To be honest I really like our house. So it would have to be perfect to warrant the upheaval.’

‘Uh oh,’ Amber says, turning her attention again to her baby. ‘Auntie Esther isn’t keen, Pops. No she’s not! No she’s not!’

I don’t tell her what Neil has said about wanting the extra space. I haven’t told anyone that, Roni aside. If Amber knew, she’d mention it to Mum, who’d flap and get excited. And that might scare Neil off. So it’s best I keep that to myself.

‘It’s Neil, isn’t it?’ she says, and it shocks me.

‘No, of course not,’ I say, quickly.

‘Relax, I was kidding. He’s alright. A bit dry perhaps, but as long as you’re into that, then cool.’

Jacob trots over and asks me to hold out my hand, depositing a dead crab squarely into my palm when I oblige; its legs limp and mangled, its body pecked out by birds. He laughs his dirty little three-year-old boy laugh and Amber looks horrified.

‘Jacob, no, that’s icky,’ she scolds, but I just sit there inspecting it.

‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘Shall we put him back in the sea though?’ I hold my crab-free hand out for Jacob to take and we pick over the shingle to the shore. ‘Bye bye, crab,’ I say, tossing it back into the foam, its lifeless husk of a body dragged back out by the pull of the water.

‘Bye bye crab,’ he repeats and waves. When we get back, Amber’s winding Poppy over her shoulder, and we stroll up the beach, Jacob running in front and splashing in the sea. 

‘Something weird has happened,’ I say. ‘But I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, and I’m only telling you, so please don’t mention it to Mum and Dad. Or Neil. Or, tell me now if you don’t want to know.’ 

‘Have you killed someone?’ Amber laughs, widening her eyes.

‘Nothing so simple,’ I say. ‘I heard from Gloria Ramsay. As in Ash’s mum.’

Amber’s head whips around.

‘What? Out of the blue? Incidentally, I saw something about him recently. About some pretty serious drug problem. And how he’s basically a deadbeat dad.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say that’s quite the picture Gloria painted,’ I say. ‘And sort of out of the blue. I was meeting Roni at The Pines, after work, and she walked past me in the car park. Then a couple of weeks later, Mum came over with a letter for me, and it was from her. So I called her, and we had coffee yesterday.’

‘So he’s in The Pines then,’ Amber says, thoughtfully, putting two and two together. ‘How sad.’

‘She said he’s trying his best and wants to do right by everyone but is being taken for a ride by his soon to be ex-wife. Then she asked if I’d go and see him. Clearly I said no.’

Amber wipes a little spit up from Poppy’s mouth. ‘Why did you say no?’

‘Because… think about what happened.’ 

‘I know. And I remember how awful it was and how sad you were.’ 

‘Exactly, so why would I want to revisit that.’

‘Right. But also, this is your chance to get answers and you might not get another. I think you should take it. Anyway, aren’t you curious to see what he’s like?’

‘No,’ I say, shaking my head because I’m sure it’s the right decision. ‘I’ve moved on. So has he. I know Gloria wants to help, but really I think it wouldn’t be a good idea.’

‘Do you still have the letter?’ she asks, and I think about it, zipped up inside the compartment of the handbag currently looped over my shoulder. We climb up a hill and take Jacob to the playground, and she reads it as he plays. ‘What does it mean, he was at his best when he was with you? No offence, Esther, but don’t you think that’s a bit of a reach. You were kids! Imagine peaking at seventeen.’

‘Well. Yeah, I don’t know.’

She wrinkles up her nose. ‘You don’t talk about any of it, you know?’

‘Would you?’ I ask. ‘I was so in love with him. You know how it was. And then… they got signed and off he went. Just, it’s over Esty. You can’t be part of this, get over it. And I was…’ I trail off, gasping now.

‘I know,’ Amber says, she rubs my back. I take a few deep breaths to calm myself.

‘I was so supportive of them. So to be dropped like that. And then to see him go off and meet that socialite and then have their kid so soon—’

‘I understand,’ she soothes. ‘Obviously, don’t go if it will upset you. I just thought, you could get answers which might help to lay that ghost to rest. I guess I didn’t realise how much this still gets to you. Please don’t dwell on it if it makes you sad.’

‘Okay,’ I say, and we look out across the playground for Jake, and I know we both know I don’t mean it.

Neil’s working at the Southampton office again on Tuesday, and this time, he’s made sure to book in his lift home. We meet at the shopping centre, just before six, and mooch around to avoid rush hour.

In John Lewis, we wander through the furniture department, and I linger on retro-looking walnut sideboards and colourful rugs and lighting whilst, true to form, Neil whips out a tape measure and looks at a desk. We amble around the nursery section, and I’m sure the air between us changes. I don’t want to say anything because I’m terrified of jinxing it, but I’m convinced I felt a flicker of something when I stopped by the soft toys and tiny clothes. 

On the way out, something catches my eye. A colourful, sleeveless maxi dress with teal and coral and dark blue chevrons. I don’t have anything like it at home but something about it really tugs at me, the colourway perhaps, and instead of carrying on, I grab my size from the rail and hold it up against myself in front of a mirror.

‘Do you need any help there?’ a sales associate offers. She’s got an armful of clothes she’s returning from the fitting rooms.

‘Maybe,’ I say, and call Neil over.

But Neil is desperately uncomfortable in women’s clothes shops. I’ve no idea what he thinks is going to happen amongst the jumpsuits and dresses, but when we come shopping he walks around, eyes down and silent until it’s time to leave, so usually I prefer to go alone.

‘What do you think of this?’ I ask, still holding the dress, because despite knowing all this about him, I still want him to have an opinion.

‘It’s… well, where would you wear it?’

‘I don’t know. Places? A dinner out? On holiday? I like it. Do you think it’d look nice?’

‘You’re asking the wrong person, Esther,’ he says, holding up his palms and stepping back.

‘Okay, but the colours, and the length. I think it could work, right? Maybe with my denim jacket. And some sandals, or trainers.’ I slip the hanger over my head so the dress hangs down my body and pile my hair up into a messy bun.

‘I just think… Well, it’s so bright. You’d never get lost wearing it, would you?’

He hovers behind as I pose at my reflection. ‘It’s very out there. Not very you.’

The sales associate freezes and I think thanks a bunch, Neil, as I put the dress back and scrutinise myself. I’m so very nondescript and forgettable. Grey, tailored trousers, cropped just above the ankle, and a soft yellow camisole. Ballet flats. A cardigan. Barely there makeup. My hair down and parted in the middle. It’s how I dress every day. Sensible clothes in muted colours. So I guess from his perspective, the dress doesn’t seem very me, but it reminded me of the bold prints and bright colours I’d wear when I was younger, and for a few seconds I felt a sizzle of something almost like longing.

But now, seeing his reaction, I feel stupid and miles out of my lane. It wouldn’t go with anything in my wardrobe. It would hang there, unworn, with the labels still attached, until finally I’d do a clear out for the charity shop. I hang it back on the rail and the sales associate moves to a different section.

‘Shall we go to Wagamama?’ I ask, as we leave the shop. I could really eat my feelings with some some Gyoza right now, and it’s Neil’s favourite restaurant. He likes the ramen, but not the spicy one. Grilled chicken and noodles are as exotic as he gets. It’d be nice, though. A spontaneous dinner date. But he shakes his head.

‘It’s a lot of money when we planned for spaghetti and pesto at home.’

I know he’s probably right to be careful, but we’ve had spaghetti and pesto three times in the last week, and what’s the point in being a DINK couple if you can’t enjoy it once in a while? The low-level hum of annoyance at how regimented my life has become fizzes through me again.

‘Okay. How about a compromise? Instead of spaghetti again, let’s do something different with the pesto? Make a sauce with some crème fraîche and cook up some chicken?’

He ponders this like it’s a massive decision. I’ll buy the fucking chicken, I think. ‘Maybe we can get a bottle of that wine, too.’

‘Wine on a Tuesday?’ he says. ‘What are we celebrating?’

‘Nothing. I just fancied a nice dinner with you. Thought we could look at more houses with a glass.’

He perks up at this.

‘Go on then,’ he says, and he plants a kiss on my temple. 

I put the dress out of my mind, but later, as I’m paying for the wine and the chicken, it hits me; it wasn’t the colours at all, but the pattern.

Bethany wasn’t the only one to reinvent herself for college. I, too, wanted a glow up, and to pitch myself as the cool photographer girlfriend of the edgy, devastatingly gorgeous guitarist, so I’d cut my hair asymmetrically and heavily lined my eyes, and I bought a black and white chevron-striped mini skirt and styled it with a t-shirt knotted at the side and Doctor Marten Mary Janes, and I wore that skirt to death because Ash loved it.

Over lunch the next day, my colleague Anna and I talk about the house viewings Neil and I have arranged. 

‘And you’re dead set on staying where you are?’ she asks, stabbing her fork into a plastic tub of potato salad and falafel. ‘Everywhere you’ve just shown me is where you live now.’

‘Mmhmm,’ I nod. ‘It’s good for the trains, and so therefore good for Neil. What’s wrong with that?’

‘Nothing at all,’ she says. ‘Just, what’s good for you, I guess? He could always get a train from town.’

‘Oh, I’m alright,’ I say, waving away her concern. ‘I’ve got my car. In any case, I love where we are. There’s a park I like to walk in really close by.’

She doesn’t mention that there are parks in town as well. She doesn’t need to. For a second I feel like the most basic of bitches. Who stays where they are for a park?

‘Not that your neighbourhood isn’t nice,’ she says, gently. ‘I suppose I’m just saying, don’t be afraid to shake things up a bit, if you need to.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ I ask.

‘Well, there are heaps of lovely little places around. Go see them all. Go see them without him if he isn’t interested. I can imagine you in one of those nice little houses down by the Old Walls. House hunting is fun.’

And it’s funny she’d say that, because I always wanted to live in exactly that part of town, on one of the really old cobbled streets, tucked away behind the high street. I wanted a cosy cottage with slightly wonky walls and the possibility of ghosts. I wanted to walk under the ruined arches of the Southampton city walls, and know that people had lived in the same rooms as me a hundred years before.

We continue eating for a bit and I think about what she said about shaking things up.

‘Hey, Anna,’ I say, taking out my phone. I search the internet for that dress. ‘What do you think of this?’

‘Lovely!’ she says. ‘Did you buy it?’

‘No. Neil said it wasn’t very me.’

She raises an eyebrow.

‘Does he pick out all your clothes?’

‘Nooo,’ I laugh. ‘He doesn’t pick out any. I just put it back in the end.’

‘But now you can’t stop thinking about it.’

‘I don’t know when I’d ever wear it.’

‘Make somewhere to wear it then. It’s pretty, Esther. Have a date night somewhere.’

‘Tried. It was shut down, but in his defence, moving is expensive.’

Anna rolls her eyes. She doesn’t even try to be subtle. But, she’s not saving for a house, because she lives with her wife in the brand new high rise development by the marina. If Anna wanted a chevron patterned maxi dress, she’d just go right ahead and buy one. If she wanted to go out for dinner, she’d just book a table.

‘Esther,’ she says, as we make our way back to the office. ‘Buy the damn dress. If you decide you don’t like it, return it. Just… you’re so careful about everything. Like, all your choices are so safe.’

‘It’s just the house thing,’ I insist.

‘No, it’s not. I’ve worked with you for years, and I can honestly say that dress is the most exciting garment you’ve ever shown me.’

I feel attacked.

‘Okay.’

‘You misunderstand me. That’s not to say you don’t look nice. You do. You look lovely every day. But always very composed. Sometimes I wonder if you ever let your hair down, you know?’

‘Of course I do,’ I say, sulkily. I don’t think she believes me. I’m not sure I do, either.

All afternoon I contemplate her comment. It niggles at me, and now I’m wondering if that’s what everyone thinks. Composed, safe, reliable Esther who doesn’t take risks. Esther, who will always give people lifts home after team away days and the Christmas party because she’s always okay to drive, so now it’s just expected. Esther, who is happy not to stray from the new build estate she lives on because it’s where her boyfriend wants to be. Esther, who is realising she’s a muted grey-and-pastel version of the girl who wants to be stripy and colourful. The girl who was once stripy and colourful, and decorated in chevrons and big earrings and metallic eyeshadow.

I contemplate Amber’s too, specifically what she said about getting answers, and after work I drive into town, and I buy the dress, and a can of premixed gin and tonic, which I drink quickly in the park near the house. Because I’ve talked myself into something and I’m afraid if I think too much about it, and especially if I see Neil, I’ll lose the feeling. The alcohol goes straight to my head, but it gives me the confidence to jab at my phone and press it close to my ear, and I count nine rings before Gloria answers.

‘Esty?’

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I say, eyes closed. ‘I’d like to see him. Say the day and I’ll be there.’

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Ash (16)

Esty Mackie is wearing black shorts and a t-shirt that says Palm Springs, California on it. She thanks the driver as she steps off the bus and makes her way to where I’m waiting.

‘Hey,’ she says, her hands shoved deep into her pockets. She’s balanced sunglasses on her head and they’re holding back her hair. She has freckles across her nose, shiny, sticky-looking lips, a necklace with a star pendant, Nike trainers.

‘Hi.’ It’s the second time we’ve hung out since leaving school, the first being a walk around the park the week after prom, and we both stand on the pavement until the bus peels away. ‘Back to mine then?’

She nods and we head off down the road. The bus signals and turns right around a roundabout.

‘Have you ever been to Palm Springs, California?’ I ask. She looks down at her t-shirt and laughs.

‘Nah… this is from River Island. Never been to California at all. Have you?’

I shake my head. ‘Nope.’

‘I’d like to, though. One day,’ she continues.

‘Same. Maybe after college,’ I say. ‘If I save up loads of money.’

‘Like on a gap year?’

‘Gap years are for rich kids, Esty,’ I say. ‘Not sure I’d fit in with the Jocastas and the Henrys.’

The lady who lives opposite us in the cul-de-sac is walking her dog and she smiles as we pass.

‘Tell your mum I’ve got that book for her,’ she says, and carries on. We turn into my street and Esty follows me past the cars parked up on the kerb, along the twisty pavement up to the house. Inside, it’s cool and dark in the hallway where the sun has moved across to the back.

‘Ash? Is that you, love?’ Mum calls from the kitchen. ‘Thought you’d be out longer. Did you meet your friend?’

‘Yeah,’ I call back. ‘No, I was just going to the bus stop so… Oh, Elaine from over the road says she’s got a book for you.’

Esty stands awkwardly by the stairs, fiddling with her hands and pushing her hair behind her ear, and I reach over and pull her into the kitchen. ‘So, Mum, this is Esty,’ I say.

Mum puts the plate she was washing up in the drainer and wipes her hands on a tea towel. ‘Esty!’ she smiles. ‘What a pleasure. I’m Gloria. Can he get you anything? Coke? Lemonade? Squash?’

Esty considers her options as I wander over to the fridge. 

‘A Coke would be nice, thank you.’ And it’s only now that she steps further into the kitchen. Hands moved around to the back pockets. Hair still off her face and squinting a little where the sun’s in her eyes.

‘We’re going upstairs, Esty, come on,’ I say, passing over her drink.

‘Door open, Ashley, please,’ Mum calls after us, and Esty stares at me, unblinking. 

‘Yep, got it,’ I say, embarrassed.

Up in my room I sit at my desk and watch as she looks around. I can’t tell what she thinks of it. Not that there’s a whole lot to think about. It’s small and fairly plain; light grey walls and blinds at the window. My TV and PS2 are on the chest of drawers at the end of my bed. There’s a stack of DVDs in the corner. A pile of clothes I sort of wish I’d put away. My guitar propped up against my amp. It’s cramped compared to my room in our old house, but at least Dad isn’t in this one to fuck everything up and upset Mum.

Finally she perches on my bed and scoots herself back until she’s sitting against the wall. 

‘Do you bring a lot of girls up here, then?’ she asks eventually.

‘Er, no? I mean, a couple.’

She nods, still with an unreadable expression. ‘I think Mum was just making a point,’ I say.

‘And what point would that be?’ she asks, and I think, fuck, I walked right into that one. 

‘Just… well, you know.’ I laugh but it’s nervous, and she knows it.

‘It’s alright, I was just messing,’ she says. ‘Anyway, what are you going to do with me, now that you have me here?’

‘What do you want to do, Esty?’ 

‘What’s with this Esty? No one ever calls me that except for you.’

‘Oh. Sorry, I thought that was your name?’

‘I quite like it, actually,’ she smiles. ‘So you may continue.’

She sips from her can and looks me right in the eye. I can’t work out her vibe, and yet the very fact she’s come over at all suggests she’s not disinterested.

‘Glad we got that cleared up,’ I say, and then, because I don’t know what else to suggest; ‘Do you want to watch a film or something?’

‘Sure,’ she says, and she shuffles over so she’s closer to the pillows, and she doesn’t move her leg away when I casually, but so not casually, press mine against hers, and throughout the film, we inch closer to each other on my bed, sitting nearer than necessary, given that it’s a double, and there’s loads of space either side of us. I’m sure she draws out the time it takes to reach over me and put her empty can on the bedside table, and that she flips herself over onto her stomach because she knows I’ll check her out. Sometimes she looks back over her shoulder, and my attention is split until the credits roll. 

‘That was funny,’ she says, returning to her spot next to the wall. ‘So what now?’ And I just shrug because I’ve got nothing. She looks around my room again and nods towards my guitar. ‘Have you played long? Or has the band broken up now that GCSEs are finished?’

‘No, I started learning when I was nine,’ I say. ‘And, for the record, Grandeur Looms are never breaking up.’

‘Oh,’ she says, surprised. ‘Okay. Play me something?’ 

‘You’ve heard me play loads,’ I say, suddenly feeling shy and loose and incapable, like if I tried to play, my fingers wouldn’t work properly. Like they’re made of knotted string. ‘All those assemblies and showcases I had to do with Matt and Ryan.’

‘Yeah, but, I want you to play something just for me.’

‘Uh… okay,’ I say, and I’m all kinds of on the spot. ‘But, not on the electric, it’s so loud. I’ve got an acoustic under my bed, hang on.’

I pull out the case and make a big show of unclipping it, buying myself a few more seconds to get a grip, and she peers down and watches. Back on my bed, I tune up and noodle about for a bit before strumming some chords. ‘Something just for you then… right, okay, here we go. Don’t laugh.’

‘I won’t,’ she says, and she settles back against the wall and watches intently as I play a little chord progression, adding in an arpeggio at the end. ‘Aww, this is nice,’ she smiles, delighted.

‘It’s about to get better,’ I say. ‘Esty Mackie…  She looked pretty… at the school… leavers’ party... Esty Mackie—’ 

‘Ash,’ she giggles, pressing her hands over her face and peeping through her fingers.

‘Yeah?’ I say, going back to my arpeggio. The air’s suddenly thick in here. I’m sure you could slice through it. Neither of us can look at each other.

She leans over and puts her hand over mine, muting the strings instantly.

‘Okay, you need to kiss me now.’

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So near in fact, that I’ve flatly refused to accept it as a rejection.

Usually, I take the thanks-but-no-thanks emails with grace and file them away (and if it was from an agent I’d fallen a bit in love with, cry a bit, pour myself a drink and buy mail order brownies with a pep talk to myself in the gift card.)

And that’s not to say I wasn’t gracious here, but after a very polite follow up with an agent who’d swiftly asked for the full manuscript earlier in the year, I received a long and lovely email saying that it was up there with the best writing she’d been sent (I mean… 👀), and she couldn’t believe she wasn’t scheduling The Call, but that there was something editorial that needs bringing out to make the book shine and she wasn’t sure quite what…

So here’s the thing. I’ve had feedback similar to this from another agent for this very book. ‘I’ve been thinking about this for a while. The writing is beautiful, but I’m not into TV books.’ Okay, cool, that sort of transparent feedback is genuinely helpful and appreciated. And, ‘there’s a lot to love about your prose, but it’s not quite right for my list.’ Again, perfectly helpful and encouraging.

And for another book. ‘The writing is great, but the antagonist wasn’t quite awful enough.’

Okay, I did giggle at that.

Anyway, I quite like data. And by quite like, I mean, I love data. Unless it’s in relation to how much I weigh and how that number simply never changes. And this is suddenly data I can work with, and what it’s telling me is pretty dang validating. Needless to say, I was encouraged. So, I sat on it for a couple of days, and then put my big girl pants on and emailed her back with the ask that I could resubmit if I used my best guess on how to bring out the story and revised the manuscript, suggesting that this might help bring clarity to any further edits that are recommended. I also threw some information about the book I’m currently plotting (and, as of last night, have begun writing 💥) because why the fuck not? It’s good to have your next few ideas in hand and this gal ain’t no one trick pony; I can do reality tv romcoms and rockstar romcoms, and all being well, sports romances about men cycling around France in lycra and socks pulled up their calves.

Reader! She said YES! And that she was very interested to hear more about the TdF book. Maybe a secret Pogi fan? One can only speculate.

So I guess I’d better get a move on. If nothing comes of this, at least I’ve given it my best shot, and kept the communication open.

And as I began serialising Esty Mackie, the fresh eyes on the manuscript helped me to see what I could do better, and I’m not above saying it’s a lot. Amazing what a few months of not looking at something can do. Hopefully this opportunity will offer up the same. Wish me luck?!

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Esther

Gloria’s letter stays in my handbag, and I read it over and over, secretly, sitting in my car before work. In the canteen on my lunch break. In a toilet cubicle. Always in places I know I won’t be disturbed.

I’m probably overthinking it, but it’s the fact she went to the trouble to reach out to me at all, not knowing how I’d react, or even if it would ever reach me at all, coupled with those few seconds of recognition at The Pines, that’s stopped me throwing it away. It feels unkind to dismiss it outright.

But I’m confused as hell. And the longer I keep it tucked away in my bag, the more I wonder if she’d have contacted me if we hadn’t crossed paths like that? And was it only me she wrote to? And how can she possibly say he was at his best when he was with me when the reality is he’s achieved so much since alongside someone else? But what I want to know most of all is if she knew why he finished with me when he did. And if she knew it was going to happen.

And so with all this gnawing away at me, I make a decision to call the number written on the back of the letter after all. Because at least then I’ll know, and maybe if I take a deep breath and talk about it, and him, and us, with her, I’ll be more able to let it go.

So at lunchtime, instead of going to the canteen, or for a walk, I return to my car, my stomach roiling and my appetite gone. The phone only rings once before she answers. 

Her voice is softer than I remember. Tired sounding. Worried, perhaps.

‘Hi, Gloria?’ I ask. ‘This is Esther Mackie… I got your letter.’

‘Oh,’ she says, simply, and there’s surprise there. And relief. Clear, palpable relief. ‘Esty. You rang.’

‘I… er. I did.’

There’s a few beats of silence, but what do you say to the mother of your troubled ex-boyfriend after so many years? And what does she say to you? Ash suddenly feels like the elephant in the room.

‘Are you well?’ she asks, finally, so I guess that’s what you say.

‘I am, yes, thank you. And yourself?’

Oof this is weird and polite and very very stilted.

‘I’ve been better, but I’m sure you’ll know about that.’

There were times when I’d been better as well, I want to say. And it seems to me there’s one common denominator here, and he’s in rehab in the New Forest. So I daresay he’s been better too.

‘Not really, Gloria, to be honest,’ I say. ‘I haven’t kept abreast of what Ash has been up to. Other than the obvious.’

‘He’s not in a good place, Esty,’ she says. ‘Hasn’t been for a long time.’

And this softens me somehow.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. And it’s true, despite everything, I don’t like to think of him in a bad way. The silence hangs between us again, this time for me to fill. ‘It was nice to hear from you after so long. But… I guess I’m a bit confused about why.’

She starts talking, but it’s mumbly, and she stops and begins again. Eventually she sighs and gives up.

‘I know it’s a big ask, but if there was any way we could meet, perhaps?’

I wince a little. 

‘Uh… I don’t know. It was all a very long time ago now. Things have changed. I’ve changed. No doubt you have. Sounds like Ash certainly has.’

‘Please?’ she begs. ‘Just for a coffee. I think it’ll be better explained in person.’

I lean my head back against the headrest and exhale. I’d quickly grown fond of Gloria, and I’d liked the thought of her being more of a permanent fixture in my life, even at seventeen, because things were so intense and I thought... Well, I hadn’t intended to cut her off after Ash left, but it was easier in the end, with the way things panned out. 

‘Esty?’ she says. ‘Are you still there?’

What harm can it do, really? She probably just needs someone to offload to. She’ll realise too much time has passed and that I don’t know Ash anymore. I doubt he even remembers me.

‘Okay,’ I say slowly. ‘In the city centre on Saturday? We can go to the coffee shop next to the Bargate.’

‘Thank you Esty,’ she gasps, and we agree to meet at eleven. Neil will be playing squash, and if, on the off chance he asks, I’ll tell him I’m meeting a friend. More than that would only lead to a lot of questions including, understandably, why he doesn’t know about any of this already.

‘I should probably go,’ I say. ‘I’ve called you on my lunch break, and I need to get back.’

This isn’t true. I still have half an hour left. But my car seems stifling and I feel claustrophobic in the dark, slightly damp corner of the multi-storey. I need a walk to clear my head.

‘Thank you for ringing, Esty,’ she says and I tell her it was a pleasure, but as I hurry back out into the daylight, although the fresh air and open space make it easier to breathe, the heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach remains.

The city centre is busy, and I hurry down the high street and bite back my nerves when I see Gloria already seated in the coffee shop, her hands wrapped around a stout little cappuccino mug. Dark red nail varnish on elegantly rounded nails. She stares into it, only looking up when I’m directly opposite her, and suddenly I feel like shy Esty again. Sixteen year old Esty who hovered, timidly, in the doorway of her kitchen and was welcomed inside and offered a can of Coke and snacks by the same woman sitting, nursing a coffee, worried about her son. She looks older, more tired. Her hair is tied back neatly. The sleeves of her cardigan, pulled over her knuckles.

Last night I Googled Ash. I’ve resisted before but I didn’t want to come here today without the facts. So I know he has problem with drugs, although I’m not sure what exactly. I also know he’s getting divorced and that his wife is beautiful in that hyper rich but also sort of gaunt way socialites often are. She has defined cheekbones and well maintained hair. She looks like she spends a lot of time with a personal trainer, and rarely eats carbs, and not like she’d have an eleven year old daughter, and yet, they do, Luna-Moon. I didn’t delve any deeper than that. Something about researching your ex-boyfriend’s child seemed creepy.

‘Esty,’ she says, and there’s that same relief in her voice as when I agreed to this meeting. 

‘Gloria,’ I reply, stiffly, immediately wishing it had sounded warmer. She gestures to the chair.

‘Please, sit down. How have you been?’

‘Yes. Good. I’ve been good. How about you?’ 

But she waves my question away with a bat of her hand. A waitress appears, and I order an iced coffee and a Danish pastry.

‘It was funny seeing you at The Pines the other week,’ she says, instead.

‘I’m surprised you recognised me, honestly.’

‘Oh, I’d know you anywhere.’

She smiles kindly at me. I return it, weakly. It’s an odd situation.

‘So… About Ash…’ I begin.

Gloria blinks and her shoulders sag.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Well, as you know, he’s not doing so well.’

‘Drugs. I read about it.’

‘Painkillers,’ she clarifies. ‘And cocaine. Oh, it’s awful. Such a waste. He ended up in hospital. He doesn’t remember much but he overdosed massively on the painkillers.’

‘Oh, god,’ I gasp, knocked for six.

Gloria wrings her hands.

‘He’d crushed them up and–,’ she trails off and points to her nose, and I want to comfort her but I don’t know how. ‘They said he’ll be okay, with help. They also said he was very lucky. So Tyler made arrangements for his treatment here. We picked him up from Heathrow and he was a mess. They wouldn’t let me see him during his detox. They say the withdrawal is the worst part.’

‘Jesus,’ I whisper, and I wonder how this has happened. The Ash I knew would never.

Gloria looks around, cagily, and lowers her voice. ‘It’s her,’ she says, as if answering my question. ‘She’s a horrible manipulator. I tried to like her, I really did. And I adore little Luna, but…’ She puffs out her cheeks. ‘I wish he’d never got mixed up with her.’

‘Gina, you mean?’ I ask, but I know. Gloria nods. It’s a tricky one. You hear of families not getting along all the time. It’s not uncommon for a mother to think no one is good enough for her son. ‘I mean, obviously there’s a connection there.’ 

I swallow, surprised at how hard that was to say, even this many years later. Gloria frowns.

‘I was secretly glad when they separated. But now she’s going for everything. His flat as well as their condo, all the money, sole custody, the lot. And he’s trying so hard, Esty.’

My coffee and pastry arrive and I gulp some of it down. The icy cold milk makes my teeth ache. 

‘He just wants to do right by Luna,’ she continues. ‘So he’s trying to come to a sensible arrangement with Gina, but she won’t have it.’ She stops and sighs into her coffee. ‘He was in the foyer the day you went to The Pines, did you know that? He saw you.’

I almost choke on my drink. ‘He what?’

I try to remember if I noticed anyone else, but the memory’s hazy and unremarkable. I was inside the door for less than a minute and certainly didn’t spend any time looking around, and yet that information hits me right in the gut. It’s the idea of being so close to him again and not knowing it.

‘We were talking about his art therapy session and he goes, “you know what’s funny? The therapist’s friend looked just like Esty Mackie.”’

This is suddenly almost too much to take in.

‘Ash does art therapy?’ I croak. Roni would have seen him. Roni will know things about him. Roni will be helping him. Gloria has no idea of the significance.

‘Yes. It’s part of his programme.’

‘Did you tell him it was me?’

She looks rueful. ‘No, because I don’t know how he’d feel if nothing came of it.’

‘Gloria. He probably wouldn’t care. It didn’t seem to bother him to up and leave. He made it clear we were done.’

She opens her mouth to say something, and then swiftly closes it again and I know in my heart I can’t ask her about the end of our relationship. It’d make her uncomfortable and I’d feel bad about that forever. None of anything that happened was her fault; he was chasing a dream I wasn’t part of. And he was right to. Perhaps if everyone knew all the facts, things might have been different. But they don’t, and they aren’t. I gesture between us. ‘What do you mean, if nothing came of it? What are you hoping will come of this?’

‘I was hoping you might come and visit him,’ she says, and she looks right into my eyes. 

‘Oh, God, I don’t know,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’

‘It would be good for him to see someone who wasn’t tangled up in all this mess.’

‘What about his bandmates? I daresay Matt and Ryan know him better than anyone.’ 

‘I asked, but he didn’t want that,’ Gloria explains. ‘Said he needed to be away from everything. And anyway, it’s all been a bit strained there for a while. He has a lot of work to do on a new record that he’s been neglecting. It’s caused friction.’

‘Right, yeah, I can understand why it would.’

‘But Esty, you have to understand, this isn’t him. It’s not his fault.’

Whose fault it is then? I want to ask, because Ash is a grown man, with full autonomy, and nobody forced cocaine or painkillers up his nose. But instead I bite my lip and nod. I can’t see him though. I don’t think it would do either of us any good.

‘I’m really sorry he’s in such a bad way, and I can see how worried you are.’ I reach across the table and take her hand. ‘But I’m not the right person for this.’

Then I tell her she can pass on my best wishes and hate myself for it. Best wishes? So formal. So removed. So not something I ever could have imagined saying to Ash. And her eyes dim right there in front of me. It’s as if the hope she’s been holding on to has been snuffed out. Like she thought seeing me in the car park was some sort of serendipitous pull from the universe and I’d agree to this and it would make things better.

‘I do understand,’ she says but she pulls her hand out from under mine and returns it to her mug. ‘We’ll leave it there, then.’ She forces a smile. ‘Let’s move on. I hope I didn’t make you feel uncomfortable.’

‘Not at all,’ I fib. ‘I wish I felt differently.’

She nods and sips her coffee.

‘It’s nice to see you, Esty,’ she says. ‘How’s life? I take it you’re still local?’

‘Pretty good,’ I say, instantly calmer. ‘I live over in Eastleigh now, actually, with my partner. Work at the hospital.’

Her eyebrows raise a fraction, like she’s surprised.

‘Oh? What do you do at the hospital?’

‘I’m a patient pathway coordinator. I make sure patients have procedures at the correct point in their care, from referral right through to discharge.’

‘Always knew you’d do something worthwhile,’ Gloria smiles.

‘I sort of fell into it,’ I say. ‘How about you? How are things? Aside from the obvious. Do you still live nearby?’

‘Oh, no, I moved out to the forest years ago. Ash bought me a house when everything kicked off for them.’

‘That’s a lovely thing,’ I say, and Gloria looks pleased. ‘And Tyler?’

‘He’s a chef in London. Lives in Ash’s flat up there so it’s not standing empty.’

‘Sounds like a good set up,’ I say, and Gloria nods proudly. ‘I’m amazed you remembered where my parents live, quite honestly, especially knowing you moved away.’

She looks at me with a hint of a smile. ‘How could I ever forget where your parents’ house is? After the weekend you and Ash took off. We were frantic.’

‘Ah the Brighton adventure,’ I laugh, reddening, and she nudges my hand with hers.

We finish our coffees and the conversation winds down. Outside, she admits she understands why I wouldn’t want to see him again, and I think, you don’t know the half of it, Gloria. Our goodbye feels final. I don’t think she’ll contact me again, and I’m surprised by the swell of sadness that brings. For a split second, I wonder if there’s a way we can stay in touch, but it wouldn’t be sensible, and the nostalgia aches.

I think about Ash as I drive home. How could I not? It occurs to me that his success and the lives of his mother and his brother are inherently intertwined; He bought Gloria a house, which has, in turn, eased the pressures in her life. Pressures I clearly remember her being under. He lets Tyler live in his flat in London, allowing him to concentrate on his own career whilst presumably not having to worry about rent. So I can see why she’s so keen to try anything to get him back on track when he’s done so much for them.

It makes me question my resolve a little. But the way he finished with me so suddenly was shocking and awful. And he didn’t look back. And I couldn’t handle it if he did it all over again, so I know refusing her was the right thing to do, for all of us.

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Ash

On my first day at The Pines they ran over some ground rules. One of them was about conduct if we ever happened to bump into our therapists outside of rehab. There couldn’t be any acknowledgement, it wouldn’t be appropriate to stop and chat. I scoffed at the time. As if I’d be sticking around long enough to see anyone from this place. I couldn’t think of anything more excruciating than stopping for chit chat with my shrink.

The other main one was not asking about our therapists’ private lives, because clearly we have lanes to stay in. But when Roni cancelled last week’s session, it affected me more than I thought it would. I knew I couldn’t ask her anything about the friend she met in the foyer. I couldn’t casually mention that she looked a lot like the girlfriend I had when I was seventeen, or use her reaction to try and reach a conclusion one way or another. But I sort of wish I could.

Because I’ve thought about it on and off since then. I’ve delved back into that memory and tried to home in on a specific detail; a singled out snapshot I have of her face as she and Roni hugged, and try to sharpen it up, the way they do with blurry photos in TV shows to hype the drama when people are investigating shit. I even attempted a Facebook search, but they’ve blocked that here. They block all that stuff here.

So it’s fair to say I have more time for my scheduled art therapy session today. When Roni explains the exercise, I give it my full attention. When she talks about character traits, I think carefully about mine. Today we’re focusing on the positive parts of ourselves, but my mind goes blank. There’s nothing but dust and tumbleweed in there.

‘Roni,’ I say, and resignation flickers across her face. She thinks I’m about to disengage again. ‘I’m going to level with you. It’s hard to think of positive things when it’s the bad shit that’s brought me here in the first place.’

She looks thoughtful. Thoughtful and relieved.

‘But is it?’ she responds. ‘You’re here voluntarily, right? Don’t you think taking that step might have been…?

She trails off and looks encouragingly at me. 

‘Brave?’ I suggest, quietly, unsure. Roni nods, enthusiastically.

‘Right! Absolutely,’ she smiles. ‘Consider what career you have chosen as well. It takes guts to get up and perform in front of all those people, and to put yourself out there the way you do. I couldn’t do it, and I don’t know many people who could.’

‘Not sure,’ I say. ‘That could just be me showing off. Maybe I just like being the centre of attention.’

She shrugs. ‘Maybe, but there are easier ways to achieve that, which don’t involve being quite as visible as you are to the world. Without the scrutiny or the pressure.’

‘I suppose,’ I say. 

‘Okay, well, consider this, then; if you don’t think of yourself as brave, what are some of the other reasons you decided to take these steps at this point in your life? Why now?’

‘Besides the fact I probably almost died? Luna-Moon,’ I say, without any hesitation. ‘She deserves for me to be better than this.’

‘So, accountability then? You’re accountable to your daughter.’

‘Definitely,’ I say, firmly, and that’s a trait I can recognise in myself. And one that extends to other people in my life as well. To Mum, and Tyler, and even, though I don’t want to admit it, to Gina. I’ve never felt good about letting people down, and it fucks me off that I have lately. I need to get my shit together.

I pick out a black marker and write the word on the paper. I reach for colours, brighter ones than the grey and murky green I used last time, and draw around it. The exercise becomes absorbing, and once I’ve finished one trait, it’s easier to recognise others. It doesn’t feel like long until the session draws to a close, and this time, on the way out of the room, when Roni tells me I did well, I think part of me believes her. 

Afterwards, Gina’s proposed divorce settlement is sitting in my email inbox, and it’s so mental I briefly wonder if she’s trolling me. By the time I’ve reached the end I have the same tense, fractious energy and tightness in my chest I’ve had thousands of times before. My jaw’s clenched; the pressure, built right up by my temples. I squeeze my fists together over and over and eventually close the browser.

Fuck being accountable to that narcissistic sociopath.

And ordinarily it’s now that I’d reach for my stash of coke and snort the feeling away, or grind up some painkillers and put them up my nose, too. I’d let everything in my head become soft and blurred and dampened. I wouldn’t stop to think about it. I wouldn’t stop to think about anything. Not Luna-Moon, or the band, or the album I can’t seem to finish. Or the calls and voicemails from our manager. Certainly not them. All that mattered was getting high.

But obviously there’s none of that here, so instead, I smoke a cigarette outside, and I listen to the sounds of the breeze through the trees, and to the coo of wood pigeons settling in for the evening. This time when I close my eyes to shut out the world, everything is clear and sharp instead of vignetted and veiled. Really, cigarette aside, it’s all very salubrious, and even though I can’t say I’m not still craving the frenetic, buzzy dopamine rush from the cocaine or the mellow numbness from the demerol, I appreciate the clarity I have to hear the sounds of the forest, and to smell the woody earthiness of the pine trees, and to revel in the calm that comes with not having to be with Gina.

The girl from the dining room tiptoes over, gingerly, and sits next to me on the bench. She breathes in deeply.

‘It’s sweet and sour chicken tonight,’ she says.

‘Yeah?’ I say, still staring ahead. ‘You gonna eat any of it?’

‘Yes,’ she says, unbothered by my jibe. ‘Otherwise they’ll come at me with a supplement shake, and I don’t much fancy that.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I apologise. ‘That was flippant.’

‘It’s fine,’ she says cheerfully. ‘If you’d asked me that last time it was on the menu, I’d have told you I’d have a spoonful of rice and have taken the shake. So, baby steps.’

‘Sounds like a leap to me,’ I say. ‘I don’t think I asked you your name.’

‘You didn’t. It’s Daisy.’

‘I’m Ash,’ I say, and extend my hand. She takes it in hers and they’re tiny and delicate and cold.

‘I know who you are,’ she laughs. ‘Everyone does, if the whispers are anything to go by. Is that part of the problem?’

I shake my head. ‘Not so much that.’

‘Bet it makes it hard for you to get your prescription drugs.’

‘You’d be surprised at what you can get when everyone knows who you are.’

‘I wouldn’t, actually,’ she says.

‘Oh, okay.’ 

Daisy looks up towards the treetops.

‘How come you’re out here, anyway?’ she asks. ‘It’s nicer inside.’

‘I had a really shit email and needed to just breathe for a bit.’

‘What was it about?’ she asks, and I look at her for a few seconds, weighing up if I should tell her. This girl could be anyone and I don’t know who I can trust. But we’re supposed to be able to share stuff in group so it’ll probably be teased out of me and she’ll find out anyway. On account of the whispers.

‘I’m getting divorced,’ I say, finally. ‘And my wife—’

‘Gina Belgiorno,’ she interrupts, excitedly, and I think, fuck my life, this girl knows everything.

‘Gina. Yes. She’s… not being reasonable. It’s messy. Acrimonious.’

‘I mean, you can probably afford it though, right?’

I shake my head. ‘Not the fucking point, Daisy. At all.’

‘Sorry.’ She looks downcast and pulls her knees up to her chest, and I feel bad. She seems really young. Can’t be much older than about nineteen. I could definitely have been more patient.

‘It’s alright,’ I say. ‘Sorry for snapping.’

Daisy brightens up again. ‘Can I sit with you at dinner?’

‘If you like,’ I say, after a few second’s hesitation.

‘I don’t have to, if you’d rather not. I just thought maybe you’d like the company. And they’ll make you sit with someone else, and between us, there are some right head cases in this joint.’ She jerks her head back towards the building and giggles. 

‘Daisy! Can you even say that?’ I laugh.

‘You can, and honestly, you should. It doesn’t have to be gloomy in here, you know? You can allow yourself to have some fun.’

‘Well, company would be nice,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’

‘You can help me to keep the supplement shake at bay.’

‘Alright,’ I say.

‘…Then when I leave here, I can tell everyone I had a dinner date with Ash from Grandeur Looms.’

‘Please don’t do that.’

She laughs a tinkly laugh and then shivers and wraps her arms around herself, pulling her baggy, oversized hoodie tight across her body, and I really notice how tiny she is, how fragile she looks. I flick my cigarette away. ‘You look cold as balls, Daisy. Shall we go in?’ 

‘Can’t you just tell Gina to piss off?’ Daisy asks, a little later, staring down at her plate, and pushing the rice into a puddle of glossy red sauce. She’s separated out five pieces of pineapple from the rest of her food. Lined them up neatly at the side of the plate. A staff member watches.

‘It’s not quite as simple as that.’

‘Alright. What about if you tell her lawyer you don’t want to give her all your money?’

‘It’s not just about the money though. We have a child. You probably knew that.’

‘Obviously.’ She rolls her eyes, and spears a piece of pineapple with her fork, and sniffs it it before pressing it, deliberately, into her mouth. ‘Haven’t had hot pineapple in ages,’ she says, chewing. ‘Quite nice, actually.’

She turns towards the nurse and gives her thumbs up. ‘Ash, tell her lawyer it’s not fair.’

And in that moment, it all seems so manageable, so that’s what I do, early the next morning. Before breakfast, even. Because it’s already late afternoon in Sydney.

‘I thought jokes were meant to be funny?’ I say, when I’m put through.

‘Ashley,’ he chuckles. He and Mum are the only people I don’t correct when they call me that. ‘This is a starting point. We’ll go back with a counter offer. They’re trying their luck.’

‘She’s not having my flat.’

‘Noted, but her housing needs will be considered.’

‘What about mine? I don’t even know why she’d want the flat in London; she didn’t like it much, and her dad has loads of property.’

‘She doesn’t want the flat in London. She asked for it because it’s an asset and she’s making a point. Was it bought within the marriage?’

‘No. Before, and my brother lives in it anyway, so that has to be discounted. What about Luna? Gina’s said she needs money for school fees, but I want to handle that directly. So can we go back with that at least? Also, I want to talk about custody.’

‘We’re going to have to tread carefully here, Ashley, given your current situation,’ he sighs. ‘Your dependence on substances isn’t going to look good in family court. Your overdose will not work in your favour.’

‘But that’s why I’m here. Surely that has to count for something?’

‘We’ll present everything. But it might be decided that Luna-Moon’s best interests lie solely with her mother, at least in the beginning.’

‘For fuck’s sake,’ I say, and I can feel myself tensing up again. ‘Gina’s no angel. She’s done stuff, too. She’s not always been around. There were times she’d leave for days, and we had no idea when she was coming back. And not all the coke was mine…’

‘Respectfully, Ashley, Ms Belgiorno isn’t the one in a rehabilitation facility after a near fatal overdose. Like I said, this is an opening gambit. There’s lots of negotiation to be had, and we’ll go for a full and final settlement rather than spousal maintenance.’

‘You know Gina’s situation,’ I say, frustrated. ‘She’ll get whatever she needs, and more, from her family. They aren’t going to let her go without anything. Her father is Mick Belgiorno!’

‘I’m aware of which family Ms Belgiorno comes from,’ he says. ‘We’ll come to a fair and just division of the assets. But we need to come to an agreement that’s best for Luna-Moon.’

‘Fine,’ I say, resigned. Can’t argue with that.

‘So, email me your thoughts and I’ll put together a counter offer.’

‘They don’t want my real thoughts,’ I say, darkly.

‘It was good to talk to you, Ashley,’ he laughs. ‘I’m glad you’re in recovery.’

Gina’s preposterous request dominates my thoughts all day, and in my counselling session, when I’m asked about art therapy, I bring up that I’m working on being accountable, and how exactly I’m going about it.

‘I spoke to my divorce lawyer this morning,’ I explain, and Joshua, the counsellor, nods, and writes something on a notepad. ‘I just want things to be good for Luna, you know? I don’t want her to think I wasn’t interested. I’m not going to be a repeat of my dad.’

He writes some more. Probably something about daddy issues.

‘And this accountability, these feelings of owning your responsibilities. Is this a new thing?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I’ve always tried to do the right thing… I mean, I know I’ve been shit at that recently, but that’s life, isn’t it?’

‘Is it?’

I stare at Joshua. ‘Of course it is,’ I say.

‘Do you think saying “that’s life” is a good demonstration of your accountability?’

‘For fuck’s sake,’ I mumble under my breath. ‘This is such crap.’

‘Didn’t quite hear that, Ash.’

Yeah, you did, I think, and I wonder what they’d say if I requested a different counsellor. Joshua always makes me feel like I’m in trouble.

‘Everyone goes through shit,’ I say. ‘But that’s what I’m here for now, right? It’s what I’ve come to work through.’

Joshua makes more notes and I look out of the window, and I don’t mention it, because I’m not sure what it means, but I keep thinking about a time when I definitely did not do the right thing, when I let someone down horribly, and it’s been on my mind a lot, way more than it has been ever before, because that someone was Esty Mackie. And being back here again has dredged it all up, and because a very small part of me isn’t convinced it wasn’t her meeting Roni that evening.

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