Page 12 of If We Were Young

Okay. I might have taken that too far.

Ma tutted, but then I caught a ghost of a smile.

“Ange, how was it?” I flopped myself down on the edge of the sofa and picked her legs up and put them over my lap.

“Well, you mean apart from flying solo again?”

Her skin had tinged to a frogfish green. Tequila teal I’d have called it. When she spoke, a wave of acrid vodka breath fanned over me.

“Oh my god, you stink.”

“You stink.” She groaned into her hand, her fingers working her forehead along her eyebrows. “As a friend.”

“I’m sorry.” My chest tightened, that snap of bands pulling my ribcage together. “I just…?”

“Freaked out?” Lifting her hand, she frowned at me.

“I didn’t mean it. He was just… right there… I panicked.”

Ange grunted. “You know you won’t see him again now? There won’t be another reunion for five years. So, by the time there’s a chance of you bumping into him again you would have been like this for twenty years.” She took the pain of opening her eyes just so she could glare at me. “Twenty years, Ron?”

“No, it won’t be like that.”

“No? Why?”

“Because I saw him now. I can move on.”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

“So what was he like?” God. I had the willpower of a gnat.

“Who?” She lifted an eyebrow but then winced and made a strangled sobbing noise.

“You know who.”

“He was… wonderful. Life and soul of the party.”

“Oh.”

“He was like a different person, really.”

“Oh. Did he ask about me?”

Groaning, she reached over and patted my hand. “Ronnie?”

“Yeah?” My heart marched.

“Let it go, love. He’s married and has been for a very long time. Can we just enjoy what’s left of my time down here?”

My stomach sunk; my skin clammy with prickly sweat. “Oh.”

He hadn’t asked after me at all, had he?

Right. This needed to end now.

“Are you staying here today then?” I pushed her legs off me.

“Please, I’m dying.”