‘I can squeeze up!’ Rodney says.
I’m really going off Rodney.
‘It’s such a long journey, Deb,’ I say, pressing my fists to my eyes. ‘Hours and hours stuck in the same car with Dylan. I’ve spent almost two years tiptoeing around Chichester trying not to bump into this man for even a second, let alone eight hours.’
‘I’m not saying do it,’ Deb points out. ‘I’m saying let’s go.’
Dylan has moved the Mercedes to somewhere safer to wait for the tow. I turn in my seat just as he’s getting out of the car again, all lean, scruffy, almost-six-feet of him.
I know as soon as our eyes meet that I’m not going to leave him here.
He knows it too. I’m sorry, he mouths at me.
If I had a pound for every time Dylan Abbott’s told me he’s sorry, I’d be rich enough to buy that Mercedes.
Dylan Sometimes a poem arrives almost whole, as if someone’s dropped it at my feet like a dog playing fetch. As I climb into the back of Deb’s car and catch the achingly familiar edge of Addie’s perfume, two and a half lines come to me in a split second. Unchanged and changed/Eyes trained on mine/And I’m— I’m what? What am I? I’m a mess. Every time I look at Addie something leaps inside me, dolphin-like, and you’d think after twenty months it wouldn’t hurt quite like this but it does, it hurts, the kind of hurt that makes you want to fucking wail.
‘Shove up, would you?’ Marcus says, pushing me into Rodney’s shoulder. I throw a hand out and just about avoid landing it right in Rodney’s lap.
‘Sorry,’ me and Rodney say simultaneously.
My palms are clammy; I keep swallowing, as if that’ll help keep all the feelings down. Addie looks so different: her hair is cut almost as short as mine and dyed silver-grey, and her glasses – miraculously recovered from the boot of the Mini after the crash – are chunky and hipster-ish, unapologetic. She is quite possibly more beautiful than ever. It’s as if I’m looking at Addie’s identical twin: the same but different. Unchanged and changed.
I should be saying something, clearly, but I can’t think quite what. I used to be good at this sort of thing – I used to be smooth. I cram myself into the narrow middle seat and watch Marcus’s father’s car being driven away down the dark street, clinging forlornly to the tow truck’s back, and I wish I could reclaim some of the cockiness I had when I first met Addie and didn’t have the foggiest idea of how completely and utterly she would change my life.
‘What were you doing heading off so early, anyway?’ Addie says, as Deb pulls away from the side of the road. ‘You hate driving early.’
She’s putting on make-up, using the mirror in the sun visor above the passenger seat; I watch her blend a paste from the back of her hand into the cream of her skin.
‘You’re a little out of date,’ Marcus says, trying to get comfortable in his seat, and elbowing me in the ribs in the process. ‘These days Dylan has very strong opinions about why road trips absolutely must start at four a.m.’
I look down at my knees, embarrassed. It was Addie who taught me how much better a road trip is when you leave in the thick quiet before dawn, the day still heavy with hope, though she’s right: when we were together, I always complained about how early she made us set off for a long drive.
‘Well, it’s a good job we started early!’ Rodney chirps, checking his phone with his elbows tucked as tightly to his sides as possible.
Marcus is making no such sacrifices to my comfort: he is spread-eagled with his knee carelessly thrown against mine and an elbow half in my lap. I sigh.
‘We’ll be tight getting to the family barbecue as it is, now,’ Rodney goes on. ‘Over eight hours of driving and it’s already five thirty!’
‘Ah, you’re coming to the pre-wedding barbecue?’ I ask.
He nods. The question is a blatant attempt to work out what Rodney is doing here, but I’m hoping it passes for friendliness. For one awful, lead-weight moment when they first got out of the car, I thought he was coming to the wedding as Addie’s plus one – Cherry had said a few months ago that she might be bringing somebody. But there’s no obvious sense of connection between them; Addie seems to be largely ignoring him.
She’s largely ignoring everybody, actually. After those first few heart-jolting, gut-wrenching moments of eye contact, she’s been studiously avoiding my gaze every time I try to snag her attention. Meanwhile Marcus is tapping a loud, inane rhythm on the car window; Deb flashes him an irritated look as she tries to concentrate on joining the Chichester bypass.