‘What are your imperfections?’ Norah asked.

Max paused. ‘I don’t always remember to take the rubbish out on time.’

Norah stared at him agog. ‘You said I was emotionally cold. And you think that’s equal to missing the odd rubbish collection?’

‘If you had stuff to say, you should have said it,’ Max said, irate.

‘When? You barely drew breath!’

‘I’ve been holding on to a lot of stuff. I needed to vent. I thought that’s what we were there for.’

‘I thought we were there to talk to each other. Not just vomit grievances,’ Norah fired back.

Max looked wobbly. For a second, Norah thought she’d gotten through to him. But then he shook his head. ‘That’s exactly what I did.’

No, nothing. He couldn’t see past his nose. He never could. Why had Norah overlooked that? She had to be honest with herself. She’d always known this about him. Hadn’t she just thought it was who he was and decided to be OK with it?

Well, the question had now become, could she keep doing that? And for how long?

They got home, and Jane was waiting. Jane was fifteen, a third cousin on Norah’s mother’s side, who she’d known since she was in nappies. Not that she’d ever seemed young. She had been an old soul since she could speak. Her mother, Lauren, claimed her first words were, ‘I’m tired of this,’ while playing with Duplo.

‘Freddie isn’t asleep, but he’s pretending to be. I keep catching him reading with a little torch,’ Jane told them.

‘Don’t worry about that. It’s a system we’ve worked out,’ Norah said. ‘I pretend I don’t know, and he gets to feel like a rebel while he works on his reading.’

Norah went into her purse and pulled out some money, handing it over. ‘Can you do parents' evening next Tuesday?’

‘Yes, but I have to be back by eight thirty at the latest. My mum wants me to meet her new boyfriend, and she’s being quite neurotic about it. If I’m late, she’s going to read it as an unwillingness to make space for this man.’

Norah wasn’t sure how to address the bulk of that, so she stuck to the practicalities. ‘No problem. We probably won’t even need that long.’

Jane packed up her homework and headed out.

‘Wow, so Lauren’s dating again?’ Max noted.

‘Mmm.’

‘I thought she’d quit that. After—’

‘Getting robbed by three boyfriends in a row is a tough streak. But she said she was ready to get back out there after she found a website that runs DBS checks for £19.99. It’s given her a new confidence,’ Norah told him.

They were moving past the argument, pretending it hadn’t happened. Norah didn’t have the energy to keep butting her head against a brick wall.

‘Kind of a low bar,’ Max said.

‘Mmm,’ Norah said vaguely, but it horrified her, too.

And the worst thing about it was that would be her if she got divorced. After the grieving period had passed for the family she’d tried to build, she was sure she’d be alone for a long time. And then one day, she’d get that feeling again. She’d want to meet someone. Laura’s track record was a horror show, but it was probably standard, right? Because how could you ever truly know who someone was until it was too late?

Max was the devil she knew. Was that enough to sustain her? Was she crazy to dream that something better was possible? Or were other people only ever capable of providing disappointment?

Twenty Years Ago

‘Er, maybe at five,’ Norah said to Poppy.

She was trying to figure out when they could next hang out. It was getting trickier lately. Things were heating up at school as the year progressed towards exams. Norah was making progress with her graphic novel, but she had two other subjects to contend with—business studies and computer science. She hated them, but her mother had insisted that she needed some practical subjects for balance if she was gonna be artsy-fartsy.

‘Five? I’ve got band practise then.’ Poppy said, disappointed.

‘How late does it run?’ Norah asked.

‘Depends on how long Liam acts like a princess about his drum solo. No one wants it, but he just keeps harping on. On and on and on...’

‘Maybe it’s not a goer. Tomorrow then?’ Norah posited.

It was crazy how, a few months ago, they’d only been on nodding terms, and now, Norah couldn’t imagine life without Poppy. It was so easy to be around her, so pleasurable. Being around Poppy made life feel like it hadn’t ended. It could still go on and would. Her dad was gone, and that was still agonising, but it wasn’t the crushing grief it had been.

Norah supposed she was healing. In some ways, that frightened her. Her grief was the last thing she had from her dad. Her only inheritance. Once that was gone, he was gone. Sometimes, it felt like a betrayal to carry on, to be OK. To live felt like saying it didn’t matter that he wasn’t anymore. She didn’t know what to do with that feeling.

Part of Norah wondered if she should say something to Poppy. Of all people, she would understand. But they hadn’t talked about her dad all that much, even now. A part of the beauty of Poppy was she showed Norah what the future could be, which was possible to thrive even after the heavy loss. Poppy knew how to be happy, and Norah liked that about her so much. It was another reason not to bring up her dad. She didn’t want to make their friendship about sadness.

‘How about I text you when it’s done, and if you’re up, I’ll come over?’ Poppy suggested hopefully.

Norah was delighted she wasn’t taking the get-out. ‘Yeah, do that.’

Poppy smiled. ‘Great.’ She went into her house.

Norah got all the way to her front gate before she realised she’d left her pencils in Poppy’s bedroom. She was planning on finishing a panel tonight, and she couldn’t do without them. She turned and went back the way she came.

She knocked on the door, and Poppy’s mum answered. ‘Oh, hello. Forget something?’ she asked warmly. She was nice, Poppy’s mum. She wished her own mother would take a leaf out of her book.

Norah nodded ruefully. ‘My pencils.’

‘Run up and get them. Poppy’s in her room.’

‘Thanks.’

Norah went up the stairs, and the familiar sound of plucked guitar strings drifted down to meet her. The same composition she’d been working on for weeks, Norah knew it back to front. But it was accompanied by a new sound. Vocals. Poppy was singing.

Poppy never sang in front of Norah. Norah didn’t realise that she even could. She sang a bit of backup in the band, but it was only the odd ‘Yeah’ or ‘Ooh ooh.’ But as Norah stood listening at the door, she learned that Poppy really could belt. Her voice was sweet and melodic and filled with rich emotion.

Norah stood shocked for a second, rooted to the spot by the surprise of her friend’s vocal talent. She wasn’t trying to earwig, but she was simply astounded.

And then she heard the lyrics.

‘She finds solace in the stroke of a pen,

In the colours that bleed, she finds a friend.