Page 118 of When We Were Young

She lifts her eyes, they sweep over my raw cheek and pause on my patched-up ear, but she says nothing.

‘Chloe, please let––’

‘Liv, just go.’

On the drive home, Mum asks, ‘How did she seem?’

‘She didn’t want to talk to me. She told me to leave.’

‘What happened between you two?’

‘I didn’t ask her to come to Beatland. She didn’t know I’d been texting Nathan,’ I admit. ‘I’ve been a terrible friend.’

Mum sighs. ‘Well, we all make mistakes. All you can do is apologise and try to make it up to her.’

‘It’s not as simple as that, Mum.’

‘No, it’s not, but good friends are worth fighting for and if she’s a good friend, she’ll forgive you eventually.’

Mum pulls up outside Dad’s house. I’m still having trouble thinking of it as home.

‘You know what would be cool?’ she says, brightly. ‘If you made a photo book for her. You could fill it with pictures of thetwo of you growing up together. A record of your friendship. There are loads of companies that do it online. You upload the photos and sort them into the template.’

I consider pulling a face, my default reaction to anything she says lately. But I’m sick of being horrible to her. I’m sick of failing to be the sort of person I want to be.

‘That’s actually not a bad idea,’ I tell her, and she looks at me like I gave her the best compliment, which makes me feel even worse than if I’d been mean.

Chapter 54

September 1998

Tyres crunched on the gravel in the courtyard. Will went to the window and saw Emily pulling up in her mum’s old Mini.

He jogged out to the car and as she stepped out, he gathered her up, nuzzled her neck and squeezed her so tight she squealed to be let free.

‘Come on, I’ll show you around.’

‘Don’t let me stop you working.’

‘Nah, it’s fine. We’re taking a break.’

He led her through the gate, across the field of cows, towards the pond.

The record company had booked a residential recording studio on a farm in South Wales, away from the distractions of everyday life, to focus on writing the Difficult Second Album. The original booking had been for two weeks, but they had been there three weeks already with nothing to show for it. They’d spent a lot of time climbing trees, shooting arrows, and building rafts. So much for no distractions.

‘How’s it going?’ she asked, as they lay down under a willow tree.

He sighed. ‘Everything I’ve written so far is crap.’

‘I’m sure it’s not.’

‘Believe me, it’s crap.’

‘You’ve got to start somewhere.’

‘The last album was easy. I’d been writing songs my whole life and now I’m supposed to magic this out of nowhere.’

‘I had to do the same with my exhibition. Start, and once you have something, you can make it better.’