Page 24 of The Spark

He smiles. ‘I do normally have to be a couple of whiskies down before I get into stuff like this, but with you... I guess not.’ He tips his coffee cup to me in a kind of toast as I feel his ankle find mine.

Chapter 11.

I first see Lara again on Sunday morning as I’m heading home from a spin class. She is walking towards me along London Street with a man, her hand wound into his. She’s wearing a long blue-and-white dress that billows around her ankles. Her blonde curls are cropped shorter now, and she’s thinner than she used to be. But it is her smile I recognise first. Like sunshine slicing through cloud.

We’ve not spoken since that night. For years I pictured seeing her again, coming face to face. I practised what I would say. I wondered if anger would overwhelm me, if I might reach out and slap her, or throw a drink at her, if I had one to hand.

She glances up now, sees me. Stops walking. Our eyes meet.

I watch as her boyfriend (or maybe it’s her husband) follows her gaze. As he looks at me, I know he knows. She’s told him everything.

She swallows, takes another couple of steps forward. I do the same.

I can recall very little about our conversation, the last time we spoke. Though I do remember knowing that I never wanted to see her again.

The sky today is surly and grey, the air heavy with humidity. It keeps threatening to rain, a few errant spots landing here and there. It suddenly seems fitting, somehow, as for me, rain is the weather of loss and heartbreak.

Despite everything, her face reflects none of my trepidation. Her eyes glow warm and bright. ‘Neve. Hi. How are you?’

It’s an almost unfathomable question, but Lara always did have a habit of launching into huge, unassailable topics, no matter the context. (As we were getting ready to go out: How many different kinds of love do you reckon there are? Over dinner: Do you think addiction is nature or nurture? While we were watching TV: Would you say cancer’s mostly genetic or environmental?)

It was one of the things I loved most about her. How deeply she made me think.

‘You’re back,’ is all I manage, one of the million things I could say.

‘Temporarily. Family stuff.’ She glances up at the man by her side. ‘This is Felix. Felix, meet Neve.’

He puts out his free hand and grips mine, looks me right in the eyes. His demeanour is gentle and warm, and he is very tall, just as my mother said. Six foot three at least, possibly taller. ‘Pleasure to meet you.’

Is it? I think, the cordiality catching me off guard. You must know our history. And then, You’re American.

‘Felix is my—’

Don’t say husband. Please don’t say husband. I’m not sure I can face hearing about Lara getting married without me. Even though I uninvited her to my own life many years ago.

‘—boyfriend.’

I nod, then can’t come up with anything else to say. Even though there is so much. Too much.

‘You know what,’ Felix says. His voice is very soothing, a deep river of charm. ‘I have some things I need to catch up on, so why don’t you go ahead and grab a coffee? I can see you back at the house.’

What house? I think, wildly, and then, Who are you to suggest we go for coffee?

Lara looks at me. ‘Do you have some time?’

Even just a couple of weeks ago, I’m sure I would have shaken my head and walked away. But everything has changed since then. I have met Ash, who reminds me so much of Jamie, I’ve been pulled unexpectedly back into my life of nearly a decade ago, of which Lara was a huge, unalterable part.

‘Okay,’ I say.

Felix puts an arm around Lara’s shoulders and squeezes her, then pecks her tenderly on the head. ‘You going to be okay?’

She nods meekly, and straight away I marvel at how much she has changed, that when I last knew her, she would have baulked at such over-protectiveness. She might even have shoved an elbow into his ribs.

But she doesn’t do that. And I don’t even comment with my eyes, as I would have done once, because it is no longer my place to.

Lara suggests a cafe we both used to love, and though it feels all wrong to go there – to time-travel back to the days when she was my closest friend – I agree.

Back then, I wouldn’t have known how to survive nine days without her, let alone nine years. But after the accident, my anger became like a creature living inside me. Over the years that followed, I missed her so badly the pain of it felt physical sometimes. But I simply couldn’t picture her face without picturing what she’d done too.

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