Page 68 of The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

It’s a lot to take in. ‘So come on then, what’s this movie about to get everyone so hot under the collar? Have you written the next Star Wars?’ I slide my mug on to the table. ‘Oh my God, you have! You’re going to buy a house in the Hollywood Hills and be neighbours with Bruce Willis.’

I don’t know why I picked Bruce Willis. I could have gone for someone younger. I should have gone for Ryan bloody Reynolds. I’m definitely not firing on all cylinders.

‘I think you’re getting just a tiny bit carried away there,’ he says. ‘A script being optioned is a million miles away from it ever being made. It’s a foot in the door.’ And then he does that face again, the one that suggests he’s uncomfortable with what he needs to say next.

‘Thing is, Lyds, it’s sort of about Freddie,’ he says, holding my gaze steady with his own, watching me closely for a reaction. ‘In a very roundabout, generalized kind of way, anyway. I mean … it’s more about friendship, and about losing your best friend.’

‘You wrote a movie about Freddie?’ It’s such a strange idea to get my head around, and then a horrible thought strikes me. ‘Does he die in it?’ My voice is pinched, high-pitched.

‘It isn’t precisely about him,’ Jonah says. ‘It’s more about teenage boys and male friendship and how loss feels.’

I’m a monster. I must be, because all I can think is that Jonah’s found a way to articulate his own feelings more freely and accurately than I ever could, and in doing so he’s made his loss bigger than mine. Rather than be pleased for him, I can’t shake the idea that he’s profiteering from this unthinkable thing that happened to us all. That happened to Freddie, and then primarily to me, not to Jonah bloody Jones.

‘You never said anything,’ I frown. ‘You never once mentioned that you were writing again.’

‘I didn’t tell anyone,’ he says. ‘Not even Dee.’

But I’m not Dee, I think, I’m Lydia, your oldest friend, and you were writing about Freddie, so you should have told me.

‘I started to write because I needed to get some of the shit out from inside my head, you know?’ He’s searching my face for reassurance. ‘It was so heavy in me.’

Now that I can relate to.

‘And then as the pages filled up, I started to enjoy the writing process itself, to remember how it felt to create worlds different to mine, to spend time thinking about a story that isn’t my own.’

He has no idea how much of a chord his words strike. Except I don’t need to write my different world; I live it.

‘So, what, are you the hero of this story?’

It’s a low blow, and I dislike myself for implying Jonah was anything but a hero to Freddie in real life.

Jonah’s perched forward on the edge of his seat. ‘It’s not that kind of thing,’ he says. ‘Like I said, it’s not me and Freddie, not specifically. But he inspired it, so I wanted you to hear about it from me.’

‘Thanks for that,’ I say, feeling like a cow.

‘Do you mind?’ he asks.

‘Did you think I would?’ I don’t meet his question with a question to be confrontational. I’m just trying to work out if my selfish feelings are in any way justified.

‘I don’t honestly know,’ he says, and I believe him. ‘I just didn’t want you to think I’ve found a silver lining in all this, I guess.’

‘I don’t think that,’ I say, and I sigh, because I’ve just put my finger on my real feelings for what they are and I’m not proud of myself. ‘I’m jealous of you, if anything.’

He looks at me, incredulous. ‘Jealous?’

It’s my turn to struggle for the right words. ‘I just … it’s heavy in me too, you know? You’re going to be somewhere else, meet new people, be somewhere where the memories aren’t everywhere you look.’

He nods and his eyes tell me that he knows better than most.

‘You’ll probably go to LA for the summer and decide you love it so much you’ll never come home again.’

Jonah gets up and sits next to me. ‘I’ll come home again, Lydia. I promise.’

‘You don’t know that. They might make you an offer you can’t refuse.’

He looks doubtful. ‘It’s early days. I could just as easily have had these meetings from here, Skype or something,’ he says. ‘I’m going there as much to get away from here as to go there, if that makes any sense.’

‘Kind of like running away,’ I say dully.

---