We are at MindReader’s friend’s wedding. I am in my beautiful Venice dress.
“And how’s the new flat?” MindReader’sFriend’sMum says to me. I feel MindReader’s hand on my back and he smirks at me.
“Beautiful,” I say.
“Mm, because it’s yours,” she says, articulating more than my mother ever has in one sentence.
I shift in my chair to let another person past and onto the dance floor. The beat pumps painfully in my ear while the candles glow all around us.
“I hear he was absolutely amazing with your – illness,” she says, and I smile as, having got up at 9:30 and walked around til 2 in the morning, it is resolutely, past tense.
“He was,” I say. “He drove miles every night just to come and lie down with me!”
“It’ll be you next, then!” she says, gesturing to the bride and groom dancing.
My stomach tightens as I realise MindReader has heard. I try not to look like I’m waiting for his answer. Brown-eyed girl comes on.
“Nah,” he shrugs and my heart – I confess – sinks.
I stand up, the lights of the dance floor skimming across MindReader’s blond hair.
“Oh it will happen,” he says, catching the look on my face.
Before I know what I’m saying it’s out. “You must have some idea of a time scale,” I say.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Married within four years?”
I think for a moment. I’ll be 28. Old enough to have a pretty good guess at what I’ll want when I’m 45. Young enough to not have wrinkles on the photos. We’ll have been together 6 years. Long enough to know, and not just romantically, like those jolts I feel now when he strokes my ear when it is aching, but to know intellectually, too.
“You’re on,” I say.
