by Beth O'Leary
‘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‘You’re a little out of date,’ Marcus says, trying to get comfortable in his seat, and elbowing me in the ribs in the process.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.
‘Can we get some music playing or something?’ Marcus asks.
I know what’s coming before Addie’s hit play; as soon as I hear the opening notes I have to swallow back a smile. I don’t know the song, but American country music is undeniably distinctive – you only need a few chords to know you’ll be hearing tales of late-night kisses on porches, trips to the honky-tonk, long drives with pretty girls in passenger seats. Addie and Deb have loved country music since they were teenagers; I used to tease Addie about it, which was particularly hypocritical of me, as a man whose ‘Long Run’ playlist is almost exclusively populated by the works of Taylor Swift. Now I can’t hear the twang of a banjo without thinking of Addie dancing to Florida Georgia Line in one of my old shirts, Addie singing along to Rodney Atkins’ ‘Watching You’ with the car windows down, Addie undressing slowly to the tune of ‘Body Like a Back Road’.
‘Maybe not this one,’ Addie says, hand hovering over the phone.
‘I like it! Leave it,’ Deb says, turning it up.
‘What the hell is this?’ Marcus says.
I watch Addie’s shoulders square up at his tone.
‘It’s Ryan Griffin,’ Addie says. ‘It’s – it’s called “Woulda Left Me Too”.’
I wince. Marcus snorts with laughter.
‘Oh, is it now?’ he says.
‘It’s on the Country Gold playlist,’ Addie says; a pale pink blush blossoms on the skin of her neck, uneven, its patches like petals. ‘And that’s what we’re going to be listening to for the next eight hours. So you better get used to it.’
Marcus opens the car door.
‘What the—’
‘Marcus, what the fuck—’
There’s a scrabble in the back seat. Marcus elbows me off. The door is only open a few inches but the wind rips through the car, and Rodney is leaning over me now, trying to reach the handle and pull it closed, until there’s four or five hands clawing at the car door, and we’re scratching one another, Rodney’s greasy brown hair in my face, my leg somehow tangled over Marcus’s—
‘I’ll hitchhike!’ Marcus is yelling, and I can hear the adrenaline in his voice, the buzz he gets from doing something stupid. ‘Let me out! I can’t do eight hours of this! Turn it off!’ He’s laughing even as I slap at his hand so hard it stings the skin of my palm.
‘You’re insane!’ says Rodney. ‘We’re going at sixty miles an hour!’
The car swerves. I catch sight of Deb’s eyes in the rear-view mirror: they’re narrowed in grim concentration as she tries to hold her lane position. On our right cars flash by in a stream of over-bright headlights, leaving yellow-white streaks across my vision.
Addie pauses the song. Marcus closes the door. Now the music is off and the wind isn’t roaring through the door you can hear every noise in the car: Rodney’s laboured breathing, the sound of Deb relaxing back into the driving seat. With the rush of physical adrenaline from the scuffle comes a startling desire to punch Marcus on the nose.
‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ I hiss.
I feel Addie turn to look at me then – surprised, maybe – but she’s back to the road before I can meet her eyes.
Marcus swallows, side-glancing me, and I can tell he already wishes he’d been better behaved, but I’m too irritated to acknowledge it. After a moment he forces a laugh.
‘We want road-trip music!’ he says. ‘Put on some Springsteen, will you?’
For a long moment Addie says nothing.
‘Deb,’ she says eventually, ‘take the next services, please.’
‘Do you need a wee?’ Deb asks.
‘No,’ Addie says. ‘We need
to drop Marcus off. So he can hitchhike. As requested.’
She hits play on the country song again.
Addie
It turns out there are no services for ages. When we eventually reach a petrol station, I really do need a wee. And some air. This is suddenly feeling like the smallest car in the whole bloody world.
‘Are we actually dropping Marcus off here?’ asks a worried voice from behind me.
I’m power-walking across the petrol station forecourt to the building. The aim is to move fast enough that Dylan can’t catch me up for a chat. So far I have managed to avoid direct eye contact with him since we all got in the Mini. I reckon this is a sustainable plan for the next four-hundred-odd miles.
Rodney can move very fast for such an ungainly man. I glance over my shoulder at him.
‘Probably not, no,’ I say. ‘Marcus is prone to dramatics. Best to nip them in the bud or he’ll act out all day.’
‘How do you know him?’
Rodney dashes forward to hold the door open for me as we reach the services. I blink. He’s so gawky. There’s something adolescent about him, but he’s got to be at least thirty.
‘Dylan and I used to date.’
‘Oh. Oh. Oh my God, how incredibly awkward!’ Rodney says, pressing both hands to his mouth.
I laugh, surprising myself. ‘Yeah, something like that.’
I grab a handful of chocolate bars from the end of the aisle. Me and Deb packed enough road-trip snacks for two, but Dylan eats like a horse. We’ll run out of food by Fareham if he sniffs out the treats.
‘Sorry you’ve got stuck in the middle of things a bit,’ I tell Rodney. ‘It’ll be fine, though. Dylan and I can be civil for a few hours, don’t worry.’
‘Oh, so it all ended, you know, amicably?’ Rodney asks, holding out a basket for me. I drop in the chocolate bars, plus five packets of biscuits and a bunch of grab bags full of sweets.
‘Uh, amicably?’
The night that Dylan left me, I’d screamed at him. Not in the way people usually mean it – like, yelling – but actually screaming: mouth open wide, the sound clawing at my throat. I’d pounded his chest with my fists, sobbed until my whole body was wracked with it. I didn’t eat for three days afterwards.
‘Ish,’ I say. ‘Amicable-ish.’
When we walk back to the car, Dylan’s leaning against the side, arms folded, staring off to the left. The sun is rising behind him. He looks like he belongs on a poster for something. An indie band or an expensive cologne. He’s still scruffy and dreamy-eyed, but he’s more grown-up now – his edges seem cleaner cut.
I keep my eyes on him a little too long, and he catches my gaze for just an instant before I look back down at my feet.
‘Addie,’ he says, as we approach.
He steps forward to help me with the bags. I twist aside, moving past him to the boot of the car.
‘Addie, please,’ he says, more quietly now. ‘We should talk. We’re going to be stuck in a car together for the best part of a day. Don’t you want to – you know – just . . . make it less . . . awkward?’
I slam the boot closed. I’ve just about fitted the extra snacks in, but there’s not much visibility out the back window now. Dylan and Marcus have packed like Mariah Carey, by the looks of things, and then there’s all Deb’s breastfeeding paraphernalia: two pumps, the cooling bag, bottles . . .
‘I’m going to go for a wander, stretch out the legs,’ says Rodney. ‘See you both in five minutes?’
I shouldn’t have said amicable-ish. He wouldn’t have left me alone with Dylan if I’d told him he ruined my life.
‘Addie . . . can you not even look at me?’
I’m honestly not sure I can. Trying to look at Dylan hurts. It feels like we’re two magnets with the same force skidding away from one another. Instead I look out towards the green where a few people are exercising their dogs. A little poodle going around in circles, a sausage dog in a ridiculous pink harness. The sun is inching up behind them, drawing long shadows on the grass. I spot Marcus, crouched low to say hello to an Alsatian. I hope it’s an unfriendly one. I don’t want Marcus to get bitten or anything, but maybe he could get growled at a bit.
‘Where’s Deb?’ I ask.
‘She got a call from your mum about Riley.’
I glance at him. ‘She told you about Riley?’
His gaze is soft. ‘Just now. I thought you’d . . . I thought you would have told me, you know. Things like Deb having a baby.’
‘We said no contact.’
‘You said. Not we.’
I raise my eyebrows.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Sorry.’
I fiddle with my bracelets. My nails are newly painted for the wedding, but they’re so short they look a bit ridiculous. Little stubs of red.
‘I’m really happy for Deb, anyway,’ Dylan says, when I don’t respond.
‘And a little surprised?’
He smiles, and I start smiling too, before I catch myself.
‘Aren’t you going to ask who the father is?’ I say.
‘I assume she didn’t require one,’ Dylan says. ‘Like Gaea, you know, when she gave birth to Uranus?’
The smile grows despite my best efforts. ‘You know I don’t,’ I say dryly.
‘Right,’ he says hastily. He brushes his hair back, like it’s still long enough to fall in his eyes – an old tic. ‘Greek mythology, very pompous, arsey reference, forgive me. I just meant Deb’s never needed a man, has she? Not that anyone needs a man, but . . . ah, Christ.’
‘Let’s get this show on the road!’ comes a voice from behind us. Marcus barges past and opens the door to the back seats. ‘You might want to start up the engine. Rodney’s coming at quite a pace.’
I turn just as Deb appears, sliding her phone into her hoody pocket. She climbs in after Marcus as I move to the driving seat. I panic: does that mean Dylan is going to sit up front with me?
‘What’s Rodney doing?’ Deb says.
I look over my shoulder, back towards the green. Rodney is running towards us in a great flail of long arms and legs, hair flying. Behind him is the Alsatian, dragging its owner by the lead.
‘Oh, brilliant,’ I mutter, clambering into the car and fumbling to turn the key in the ignition.
Marcus whoops as Rodney scrambles into the back, breathing hard.
‘Sorry!’ he calls. ‘Sorry! Sorry!’
Deb makes a squished sort of oof sound. ‘Watch those hands, please,’ she says. ‘That one strayed very close to my vagina.’
‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry,’ says a mortified, breathless Rodney.
Dylan climbs into the front seat. He’s trying to catch my gaze again.
‘No harm done,’ Deb says. ‘I pushed a baby out of that thing, it’s sturdy.’
‘Oh, no,’ Rodney says. ‘Oh, I didn’t – I’m so sorry.’
‘I forgot how much I like you, Deb,’ Marcus declares.
‘Really?’ Deb says, sounding interested. ‘Because I don’t like you at all.’
I pull out of the service station. I can’t resist – for a second my gaze flickers towards Dylan in the passenger seat.
‘Only three hundred and fifty-eight miles to go,’ he says, quietly enough that only I can hear him.
Marcus is explaining to Deb that he is ‘often misunderstood’, and is ‘actually in the process of reforming, much like a rake from a poorly written nineteenth-century novel’.
‘Three hundred and fifty-eight miles,’ I say. ‘I’m sure it’ll fly by.’
Dylan
We speed along the A34. Already the heat is as thick as honey, viscous and sweet. It’s turning into a glorious summer morning: the sky is a deep lapis lazuli blue, and the fields are sun-kissed and yellow-bright on either side of the road. It’s the sort of day that tastes of crushed ice an
d suntan lotion, ripe strawberries, the sweet head rush of too many gin and tonics.
‘Chocolate’s going to melt at this rate,’ says Addie, turning the air conditioning as cold as it’ll go.
I perk up.
‘Chocolate?’
‘Not for you,’ she says, without looking away from the road.
I sag back in my seat. I thought we’d made a little progress – earlier she turned to me and offered half a smile, like the smallest bite of something delicious, and my heart soared. A real smile from Addie is a true prize: hard to win and utterly heart-stopping when it comes. Disturbingly, this seems to be no less true now than it was two years ago. But she’s gone cold again; it’s been thirty minutes since we left the services and she’s not spoken to me directly until now. I have no right to object, and it shouldn’t make me angry, but it does – it feels like pettiness, and I like to think we’re better than that.
I shift in my seat and she glances across at me, then reaches to turn the radio up. It’s rattling out some pop song, something bouncy and repetitive, a compromise between Addie’s tastes and Marcus’s; at this volume I can’t quite catch the inane chatter in the back seat. Last I heard, Rodney was explaining the rules of real-life quidditch to Deb, with the occasional amused interlude from Marcus.
‘Go on,’ Addie says. ‘Whatever you want to say, just say it.’
‘Am I that transparent?’ I say, as lightly as I can manage.
‘Yes.’ Her voice is frank. ‘You are.’
‘I just . . .’ I swallow. ‘You’re still punishing me.’
The moment I’ve said it, I instantly wish I hadn’t.
‘I’m punishing you?’
The air con is a slow, warm breath frittering away on my face; I’d rather crack the windows, but earlier Marcus complained about what it did to his hair, and I don’t have the patience to go through that conversation again. I shift so the lukewarm stream of air hits my cheek side-on – this way I can watch Addie driving. The tips of her ears have gone red, just visible through the ends of her hair. She’s wearing sunglasses now, and her other glasses are propped up on her head, pushing her sweeping fringe back from her face; I can just see the brushstrokes of her old hair colour at the roots.