‘I forgot how much stuff you know,’ I say, laughing. ‘Well, left or right?’
‘All entirely useless knowledge, I can assure you. Left,’ Dylan says, already heading down the left-hand corridor.
I smile. He catches my expression.
‘What?’
‘Two years ago you’d have asked me to decide,’ I tell him, as we make our way down a corridor I am one hundred per cent certain we’ve been down before. Not that I’m complaining. Getting lost is pretty much perfect right now.
‘You always pushed me to make my own choices,’ Dylan says, falling into step beside me. ‘I never really noticed it until we were apart.’
His hand brushes mine and I take the chance to interlace our fingers. Holding hands is as far as we’ve got, like a pair of Year Sevens. The thought makes me smile. He looks so handsome – he and Marcus recovered their tuxedos from the car once we’d got the keys off Rodney, and the sight of Dylan in a tux is doing dangerous things to my imagination.
‘Before you, I’d always had my father, or Marcus. Someone to tell me what to do,’ Dylan says, rubbing his thumb across the back of my hand as we walk. We couldn’t be walking much slower – clearly he’s no more keen than I am to get these chocolate truffles to Rodney.
‘And now?’
‘Now I have a therapist to tell me what to do,’ he says wryly, and I laugh. ‘No, I’m getting there. I’ve built a life for myself. I’m working on my Masters dissertation; I moved into a little shoebox flat on Cooper Street.’
I’ve wondered so many times where he’s living. Imagined bumping into him in Bishop’s Palace Garden or having a drink at the Duke & Rye. Thought about how it would feel to stand in the same room as him again, wondered if I’d be able to do it without bursting into tears.
‘I want to hear all about your dissertation,’ I say. ‘Will I understand the title?’
‘I hope so, or I’m doing it wrong.’ He smiles. ‘I’m writing about the idea of the quest in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and the works of Philip Sidney. Journeys. Oh, hey, there’s the door!’
Dylan points to a door with a note stuck on it in my handwriting. We have somehow managed to make our way to the bridal preparation chamber. We both hesitate slightly outside the door, and Dylan shoots me a look.
‘Do you want . . . a minute? Before we go in?’
There’s a sofa underneath the window to our left, a love seat. We sit down together, knees dialling towards one another. I don’t let go of his hand.
‘I want to ask . . .’ Dylan clears his throat. He’s looking down at our linked hands, our knees just touching. ‘If you’re able – if you want to tell me – what happened after I left, after we broke up . . .’
My eyes begin to prick and I steady my breathing carefully, but my heart is beating too fast already.
‘I’m sorry,’ Dylan says quickly. ‘I just – I want you to know I want to talk about it. When you’re ready. It kills me that I couldn’t be there for you through that, and I . . .’ He looks at me helplessly. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I know.’ I squeeze his hand. ‘I left the school. I guess that’s not a surprise. I have a new job now – you know the girls’ school over Fishbourne way? Yeah, there. It’s good, you know. I’m good.’ I grin. ‘I wasn’t at first, but I am now.’
‘You wouldn’t have said that two years ago,’ Dylan says, knocking his knee gently against mine.
‘Well, I have the World’s Best Teacher mug to prove it these days.’ I sober. ‘I tried dating. Jamie, actually – one of the teachers from Barwood.’
I hate how my voice still catches on the name of Etienne’s school, and I push on as I feel my face heating. Dylan is very still.
‘It was . . . a mess. He was a weird choice – another teacher from Barwood – I don’t know. There was clearly something weird going on in my brain with that. And he knew about what happened to me – I don’t know how, but he did.’
‘I saw Etienne was suspended,’ Dylan says quietly. ‘But you didn’t press charges?’
‘No, I tried,’ I say, arching an eyebrow. ‘The police said there wasn’t enough evidence. But there was enough for Moira to make sure the school got rid of him. She was . . . she was good to me.’
‘And . . . Jamie?’ Dylan says with difficulty.