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I frowned, utterly affronted for him.

‘She didn’t.’

‘Yep,’ he said. ‘She did.’

‘That’s outrageous,’ I said, feeling a surge of anger, as if I’d been there with him. As if it had been me. ‘Why on earth did she react like that if you were her star pupil?’

He shook his head, sighing heavily. ‘I’ve no idea. Why would she want to shatter someone’s dreams like that, but mine specifically, when she’d always encouraged me before? It was such a crashing disappointment.’

‘What did you say to her?’

He shrugged. ‘I didn’t say anything. Not a thing. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not big on conflict.’

‘I had picked up on that, yeah,’ I said, emboldened by the fact I’d spilled some dark stuff about myself. There had to be a reason for it, and I suspected that it was something to do with his parents, who he’d mentioned were always fighting.

‘It was my way of coping. Of not annoying anyone, mainly my parents, because that would always make things ten times worse. If one of them told me off, for example, the other one would wade in with all guns blazing, sticking up for me as though they were parent of the year. But I never wanted that. What I wanted was for them to be united insomething. To be a couple, a team, but it never felt that way.’

I could see in his eyes that he meant every word.

‘Did they know you wanted to be writer?’ I asked.

Now it was his turn to laugh. ‘They knew. And they thought it was a ridiculous idea, too. My dad told me you had to have real talent to be an author and that writing a few half-decent stories at school hardly qualified. Apparently I was living in a “dream world”. And so I think that when Mrs Mackenzie basically said the same thing, it reinforced the belief I’d had about myself all along: that I wasn’t good enough. That I was never going to be a successful writer, or actually, a successful anything.’

Melissa had been very astute to make us do this task. I thought that understanding where somebody came from, the secrets they were keeping from themselves and others, was possibly the key to feeling connected to someone. I realised that what we’d had before had been superficial. A friendship with the hint of something more. But we’d never known the more difficult parts of each other, because we’d never been open about them. For me, other people knowing I was struggling felt all kinds of wrong, so I hid it well, and I could hardly complain, then, could I, when nobody noticed it was all getting a bit much?

‘You should go waltzing back into the school now. Have anI told you so moment, even if stupid Mrs Mackenzie isn’t still teaching there.’

Theo smiled weakly. ‘I’ve actually fantasised about that.’

‘You do know they were all wrong,’ I said, watching as he drank his wine twice as fast as me, as though he was trying to drown out the memory. Did he really think he wasn’t good enough? Because if so, the picture I’d painted of him in my head – full of himself, narcissistic, cocksure – was afigment of my imagination. Something I’d created to make myself feel better about the fact he hadn’t wanted me, not properly.

‘It’s a work in progress,’ he said. ‘If people tell you you’re useless enough times, it kind of sticks.’

‘Who did that? Who said that to you?’

‘My dad, mainly. If he couldn’t get at my mum, he’d lash out at me instead, calling me all the names under the sun.’

It wasn’t fair, I thought, that there were all these terrible parents in the world, who had a chance to care for their kids and watch them grow and be part of their lives and they messed it all up. And then my mum, who was brilliant and loving and funny and kind, didn’t get to see us become teenagers, even. Zach had only been three when she died, and Kate five, so how come Theo’s crap dad got to still be here and my mum didn’t?

‘You have all of these books and all of this success. You should be proud of yourself,’ I said, worried that none of what I was saying was actually going in.

‘But not successful enough for my publishers to give me another deal. They don’t believe in me either, do they, so I’m back to square one,’ Theo said dryly.

‘But your readers love you,’ I said, realising immediately that this must mean that I’d seen the odd review and that I’d read them. This was information I hadn’t wanted him to have, and actually hadn’t even wanted to admit to myself, but it was out there now. ‘And you get all of this great press that I’m totally jealous of.’

He was always featuring in magazine articles, and ‘Best of’ pieces and appearing on podcasts. I’d done a few of those things but had never got much traction. It had always been that way: whenLittle Boy Losthad come out, he had felt like the star, the one everyone wanted to talk to. The final strawin our already disintegrating relationship had been when he did an interview for a prestigious magazine and had barely mentioned me at all. There had been a double-page spread of glossy shots of him looking all moody and gorgeous with the tiniest thumbnail photo of the two of us together on the last page, as though I was some sort of afterthought. I’d felt so frozen out, and watching someone else shine while I put my own needs and desires on the backburner had felt painfully familiar.

‘I guess we just keep going,’ he said, raising his glass to me. ‘Do our best work and carry on.’

I followed suit, clinking my glass against his in a show of solidarity.

‘To friendship,’ he said.

I mulled his words over in my head. Were we friends again? We were certainly the closest we’d been to it for years. Things weren’t exactly free and easy between us, but the hatred I’d felt for him was slowly dissipating over time, replaced with . . . I wasn’t sure what. I knew what it absolutely couldn’t be replaced with, and my reaction to him touching me was distinctly worrying.

‘To a . . . working friendship,’ I said eventually, tapping his glass again.

If us getting along was what was best for our writing partnership, then unexpected as it was, I was going to try to go with it for the good of the book, my career and everything else that came with it.