“Yeah.”
“And you weren’t going to tell me? You were just gonna go?”
“Are you taking the piss? Maybe I’d have got one of my mates to text you on my behalf a couple of days later. That’s how it works, isn’t it?”
“If you say so.”
“Don’t do that.”
Micah sighed. “Do what?”
“Imply that I’ve invented the narrative.”
That earned me another sigh, and I wanted to shake him, hard, until all his shutters fell down and how he really felt shone through. “Can I ask you something?”
Wariness crept into Micah’s dark gaze. “Go on...”
“Why did you do it?”
“Dowhat?”
“Go out with Freddie and get so fucked up.”
“Who said I did?”
“What?”
Micah tilted his head sideways. “Tell me when, in your version of events,anyonetold you I wasn’t home when you got up because I’d been on the sniff with Freddie. In fact, tell me whenyoudecided I didn’t come home that night at all, because that still doesn’t make sense to me.”
I stared. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m not trying to say anything. I’m asking you a question.”
“It’s two questions.”
“Whatever. Answer them.”
I turned his words over in my head, disquiet building in my gut as I realised he had a gargantuan point. I’d thrown accusations at him based on my assessment of his appearance and my dislike for a friend from his old life who always seemed to be tugging him backwards. In... my opinion. Which didn’t mean shit without facts.
Facts that weren’t there. “Was I wrong?”
“About what?”
“Any of it. All of it.”
Micah blew out yet another heavy breath. “Yeah. You were.”
“For all of it?”
His answering silence was deafening. “Jesus fucking Christ, why didn’t youtellme? And what the hell did happen? You’ve never gone MIA like that. At least, not with me. Before I got Freddie’s message, I was fucking terrified.”
“Freddie figured. That’s why he sent it.”
“Why were you still with him?”
“I wasn’t still with him. I was with himagain. We go to the same gym, remember? I see him on random days all the time.”
Gym. Freddie.Missing puzzle pieces began to click into place, accompanied by a heavy dose of mortification. It hadn’t for a single second occurred to me that Micah had come home and gone out again while I’d slept. “What happened with him? Where was your phone?”
