Page 42 of The Spark

‘A friend?’ he says gently, because that’s what I told him an hour ago, but I suspect he knows it was a lie.

I exhale. Ash has been completely open with me. The least I can do is answer him truthfully. ‘No. He was... my boyfriend. A long time ago. Sorry I lied before, I just...’

‘I caught you off guard,’ he guesses. ‘It’s okay, Neve. And I’m really sorry. I can’t imagine.’ He reaches for my hand and squeezes it.

‘Thank you,’ I say.

We walk in silence for a minute or so. A pair of Labradors barrels past us, their owner a mere fleck in the distance.

‘Do you think... Do you think you’re completely over him?’

I feel him glance at me as he says this. I fix my eyes on the long crease in the view where sea meets sky.

My mind has been on Jamie constantly over the past couple of weeks, which feels so strange. On the one hand, it’s lovely and extraordinary, to think he might – somehow – be back. But I haven’t thought about him this intensely in so long. I’ve built a different life now, and it’s a bizarre sensation to unexpectedly be making room for him in my head again.

‘I understand if you’re not,’ Ash says, after a few moments. ‘Grief... It’s the most complicated thing about being human. I’m not going to be all... weird and jealous if you still love your ex. It makes total sense.’

I look over at him. I think he might be one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. Especially given what happened with Tabitha. Being cheated on, made to feel second-best.

I know I owe him my honesty. But I also want to see how he reacts if I start to confide in him about what I suspect may be going on.

‘You actually... remind me of Jamie, in lots of ways.’

He looks surprised. ‘I do?’

‘Well,’ I say, carefully, ‘he was an architect too. Or studying to be one.’

A slow nod, then he waits for more, because he knows – he must know – that there is more.

I try to think how I can elaborate in a way that doesn’t sound completely ridiculous and trivial. ‘And... you have... exactly the same handwriting.’

But, of course, this does sound ridiculous and trivial. And perhaps it goes to show that I really have been losing the plot.

Maybe I just needed to say it out loud. To expose it to the light, so I can see it for what it really is.

But Ash, being kind, doesn’t laugh. ‘I have appalling handwriting.’

‘So did he.’

He smiles. We pause next to some sand dunes, then sit down together. Our knees touch as we stare out at the streak of beach, the grey-blue stripe of sea.

‘And . . . Nighthawks.’

‘Sorry?’

I turn to face him. His cheeks are flushed pink from the sea breeze. ‘It was Jamie’s favourite painting, and... you have it in your apartment.’

After he died, his father took Jamie’s print from the house. It broke my heart to be without it, so I bought my own, which still hangs above my bed.

‘I was thinking, you know,’ I say, as if I’m changing the subject, though really I’m not at all. ‘About your accident, the way you changed personality—’

‘Priorities.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I tend to think of it more like... my priorities changed. I just wanted to take myself, and my life, more seriously. I really don’t think it goes much deeper than just... growing up.’ He keeps his eyes on me. ‘Neve, can I ask you something?’

‘Of course.’

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