I gave up trying to keep my feelings in check and found a tissue, blotting my eyes as I replied. ‘At the time, it was devastating. You know what it did to us all. And teenage heartbreak feels like the worst, doesn’t it? But we mended. I moved on. And you can’t compare it to what happened with Brayden, especially given that my children were involved.
‘I’ll probably dream about being sixteen tonight. I can’t promise I won’t be going over it in my head a few times.’ I took hold of her hand. ‘But I’ll be fine. Iamfine. Jonah was a good guy, underneath the issues. I honestly did love him.’ I gave a weak laugh. ‘It’ll be nice to catch up, see how the vampire turned out.’
‘And you never know…’ Nicky arched a sly eyebrow, before catching the look on my face. ‘Too soon to tease you about that?’
‘Yes, too soon! It’llalwaysbe too soon to in any way whatsoever imply that there might be the possibility ofanythingat allbetween me and him! Ever! Anything!’
‘Wow.’ She laughed. ‘Just to clarify, am I right in picking up that you’d rather I didn’t raise the topic ofanythingpossibly ever happening between you and Jonah? Ever! Or did I read that wrong?’
I rolled my eyes in exasperation but couldn’t help the smile tugging at my mouth.
‘We were kids. Completely different people. Us being together has some horrible memories associated with it. And you know I’m not in the right place to even think about stuff like that at the moment.’
‘Atanymoment in the five years since your marriage ended,’ she interrupted.
‘While Isla’s going through her thing, and Mum’s threatening to come home…’
‘Wait, what the hell do you mean, she’s coming home?’
‘Didn’t you get a postcard?’ Usually, they were sent in pairs.
‘If I had, don’t you think I’d have mentioned it?’ Nicky looked shell-shocked. ‘Why the hell didn’tyoumention it?’
‘I don’t know, it felt like an in-person conversation, and you had to rush off straight after the session yesterday. It only arrived on Tuesday…’
Subject successfully changed, we went on to discuss this traumatic family scenario until our glasses were empty and Theo messaged Nicky to check she’d not been in a car crash because it was nearly midnight and she had a wild swim arranged for five-thirty the following morning.
Which was, it turned out, about the time my brain finally ran out of steam, stopped unpicking every Jonah memory for the squillionth time and let me get a pitiful ninety minutes of sleep.
11
THEN
The first time that I dared to wonder whether my awkward, mixed-up feelings for Jonah might not be completely one-sided was the first Saturday of the Easter holidays, nearly two weeks after it had been agreed that he was staying at least until the court made a decision about his long-term care in the autumn.
We had a family outing to the cinema to watch some bland film that Mum had deemed suitable for traumatised teenagers, stopping off first at a cheapo chain restaurant because some of the kids we looked after had never eaten out before and found fancier places more overwhelming.
My parents pretended not to get antsy when Jonah slouched back in the diner’s bench seat, not even opening the menu. However, when the waiter came, he ordered an obscure burger with no hesitation.
‘Have you been here before?’ Mum asked, once the waiter had left.
‘Sometimes.’ He shrugged. ‘When Warren wasn’t around.’
Warren was his mum’s boyfriend.
‘Ah. I’m sorry.’ She screwed up her nose in apology. ‘I should have checked.’
‘It’s fine. It was another one, near where we lived.’
‘Still. We can always leave. There’s a Nando’s across the road.’
He gave a short, sharp shake of his head and the table descended into uncomfortable silence. Unable to bear the awkwardness, I did an uncharacteristic thing and blurted the first thought that came into my head.
‘I like your hat.’
Everyone turned to look at me. Everyone except for Jonah, who was already sitting opposite and so simply flicked his hooded eyes up to meet mine.
‘Do you really?’ Dad asked, sounding confused. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that was your style.’
