Page 67 of More Than Just Friends

‘Cool!’ I replied. ‘Do you know which one it is?’

‘Absolutely no idea.’ He chuckled. ‘How are you feeling?’ His voice softened.

My eyes bulged like a deer caught in the headlights. At first I thought he was referring to what I was now going to call Almost-Kiss-Gate, but then I realised that would be a strange opening.

He was more likely to say something like: ‘about last night…’

You could never be too careful though, so I thought it best to clarify.

‘About?’ I asked.

‘The journey. I saw you flinch when we were going down that mountainous road that led to the port. It was pretty steep.’

Of course he’d noticed. Noah always did. That was the point he’d started randomly rambling on about some Greek spinach and feta cheese pastry he’d had for breakfast and how tasty it was.

I knew immediately that he was trying to distract me and I loved him for that.

‘It was okay.’ I blew out a breath. ‘Hopefully one day I’ll get over all this shit.’

‘It’s not shit,’ he corrected. ‘What you went through was shit, but how you feel about it and your fears are totally normal.’

I nodded, thinking that he was right, but it didn’t stop me from feeling frustrated about it.

‘Some days it still feels like it just happened. Even though it was years ago.’ I sighed.

‘Do you still get nightmares?’ he asked, his voice full of concern and empathy.

‘Yeah. Thankfully they’re less frequent though. All I keep thinking is that it could’ve been me. If I hadn’t forgotten to pack my stuff. If I hadn’t gone back to get it…’

My stomach tightened and I felt a wave of sadness wash over me as I relived that day. The ultimate sliding-doors moment.

I’d gone on a trip to North Wales with Travis, my boyfriend at the time and his mates. We were staying in a rented house in the mountains and they’d heard about a party in a nearby town that they wanted to go to.

We had two cars and originally I’d got in with my boyfriend, but just as it was about to drive off, I’d remembered that I’d left my tampons inside the house, so said I needed to go back and get them.

The driver, Barry, had got impatient and said they needed to leave, so told me I’d need to go in the other car. I was upset at first because obviously I wanted to travel with my boyfriend. I said I’d only be two minutes, but by the time I’d returned outside, I saw them speeding off.

We followed behind them in the second car and although Barry’s car was going over the speed limit, which made me nervous, I told myself that everything would be fine. There weren’t any other cars around, so we weren’t in any danger.

At least that was what I believed until we got to a stretch of road that was particularly narrow, which meant the cars were close to the cliff’s edge.

A cliff that had a very steep fall.

Luckily the guy who was driving the car that I was in slowed down, adjusting his speed accordingly.

But Barry, in the other car, didn’t do the same. He continued speeding and…

And then it happened.

I saw the car fly off the cliff.

Right in front of my eyes.

I was sitting at the window seat and saw everything.

The way it plummeted off the edge.

The deafening explosion as the car hit the ground.