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The town where we live is a small, sleepy place on the banks of Loch Ness.

The bus to Inverness only comes by once an hour and it’s often late or early, and sometimes doesn’t turn up at all.

As Caitlin, Hannah and I hurry down the high street, I keep my fingers crossed that we’ve missed it, but unfortunately it’s waiting patiently outside the fish-and-chip shop when we get to the stop.

I buy a return ticket with the money that Mutti gave me and reluctantly follow my friends upstairs.

There’s a parent with a toddler pretending to drive by the front window and a couple of older people dozing a few rows behind.

Caitlin and Hannah sprawl out across the back seat, so I take the one in front and twist round to look at them.

“You really don’t have to come to the train station with me. You can do your own thing and I’ll meet up with you later.”

“We told you, it’s totally fine.” Caitlin starts pulling her long dark hair into one of those messy buns that she does so well. “It’s not every day your best friend comes to visit.”

“American internet best friend,” Hannah clarifies. “We’re your real-life besties obviously.”

Caitlin, Hannah and I have been friends since our first day of high school, when we all cracked up laughing at Caitlin’s terrible attempt to draw a horse in Art.

If our school was set up like a teen movie, they’d be the Popular Girls – they’re both super pretty, and they both have older sisters who have shown them how to do their eyebrows and paint their nails.

I’m not like that. My hair is dull and mousy, and my mums won’t let me get it dyed until I’m sixteen.

There are always spots on my cheeks and forehead, and no matter what I wear it never quite seems to fit right.

Even after two years, I still can’t really believe they want to be friends with me.

“Are you going to kiss him when you see him?” Hannah asks, cupping her face in her hands.

There’s a kick of nerves in the bottom of my stomach. “I told you, it’s not like that.”

“Sure, sure.” Caitlin grins. “I bet you’re dying to kiss him again.”

“You should do a slow-motion run across the station towards each other.” Hannah makes a dramatic pumping motion with her arms. “It’d be so romantic.”

Caitlin giggles. “Maybe he’ll pick you up and carry you out, like in that film – the one with the guy in the white navy uniform, you know?”

They both start singing some cheesy ballad (Caitlin and Hannah go to musical-theatre classes together and are always bursting into song) but then a fourth-year boy who Hannah thinks is cute gets on the bus and distracts them.

I mumble something about feeling sick, then turn round and stare out of the window as the bus lurches away from the pavement and down the high street.

Between the chippie and my parents’ bookshop are several empty plots with To Let signs and boarded-up windows.

Until last year, our little town attracted lots of tourists, but since the boats that sail down Loch Ness stopped coming here, the number of people visiting has dropped massively.

Add that to the pandemic and we’ve lost two cafés, the newsagent, a toyshop and a jeweller.

I know my mums are worried that Every Book & Cranny might be next.

But I don’t want to think about that. The journey into Inverness takes twenty minutes and I spend most of them trying to come up with an excuse to stop Caitlin and Hannah from following me to the train station. When we get off the bus, I suggest that they wait in a café while I go and meet Neon.

“It might be a bit overwhelming for him, having all three of us there,” I explain. “He’s quite shy, so…”

Caitlin checks for traffic before striding across the road to the train station. “He doesn’t sound shy. Not from what you’ve told us about him.”

“We’ll stand way back by the doors,” Hannah says. “You won’t even notice we’re there.”

“But I’m not sure he’s even coming!” My eyes are starting to sting, and my voice is getting higher and higher.

I come to a halt outside the station entrance.

“Look, the truth is I – I haven’t heard from him since he got on the train this morning.

That’s not like him. Maybe something happened. Some emergency.”

“Like what?” Caitlin shrugs. “He’s probably got no signal. It’s always patchy on the train.”

Hannah is starting to look uncomfortable. “How about we…” she says, but Caitlin clicks her tongue, a sign that she’s losing patience.

“Oh, come on. We’re here now, aren’t we? Let’s go .”

She links her arm through mine and marches me into the station.

A small crowd of people wait by the ticket barriers, checking their phones or gazing at the platforms. When I turn round to look at the departures board, praying for a delay – anything to give me a few more minutes to get Caitlin and Hannah out of here – a voice over the loudspeaker announces the arrival of the 13:34 service from Edinburgh Waverley.

My stomach drops as a long train edges round the bend in the rails and approaches platform 2.

“Here we go!” Caitlin says, drumming her fingers on my arm. “The moment of truth.”

In a chorus of squeaks and wheezes, the train slowly rolls to the end of the track and comes to a stop.

The doors slide open and people pour on to the platform: weary-looking parents dragging little kids and suitcases, students with backpacks and headphones in their ears, a large flock of older ladies chattering and rummaging in their handbags for their tickets.

Caitlin stands on her tiptoes to try to spot Neon.

After a few minutes, the torrent of travellers trickles down to a stream, but there’s no sign of a curly-haired boy with freckles and a birthmark above his eyebrow.

“I guess…” My mouth has gone dry and my hands are clammy. I take out my phone to check for notifications, though I already know there won’t be any. “I guess he’s not coming?”

“Maybe he got on the wrong train,” Caitlin says. “Why don’t you call him and ask?”

Hannah bites her lip. “Let’s just go to the shops or something. He’ll send you a message if he does turn up.”

“What do you mean if ? Of course Neon’s going to turn up.” Caitlin looks at me. I can feel my cheeks getting redder and redder. “He is going to turn up, isn’t he, Laurie?”

She smiles the way a tiger might smile before it pounces on its prey.

The sickly feeling spreads, travelling up my gut and into my throat.

Here’s the thing: Caitlin and Hannah don’t believe Neon exists.

I see the way they smirk at each other before they ask a question about him, the laughter in their voices every time they say his name.

I don’t know why they came here today, but I know they never, not for a single second, expected him to actually get off the train.

Maybe they wanted to find out what I would say when he didn’t, how I’d explain or excuse it. Maybe they wanted to embarrass me.

I open my mouth – whether to answer Caitlin or vomit all over the floor, I don’t know. Before I can do either, a voice shouts out across the train station.

“Laurie!”

We all spin round. There’s a boy running down the platform towards us, arms waving above his head, a purple rucksack bouncing against his back.

He has curly brown hair, deep brown eyes in a freckly oval face and a birthmark shaped like France above his eyebrow.

The sight of him is such a shock, I have to grip the ticket barrier for balance.

“N-Neon?” I whisper.

“Sorry! Couldn’t find my ticket.” He sounds exactly as I’d imagined with a New York accent just like in the movies. “I can’t believe I’m actually here! This is wild.”

He slips his ticket into the machine, and the barrier opens to let him through.

For a long moment, we all stare at him. He’s wearing a Star Wars T-shirt that I always see advertised online and the pair of sustainably made trainers that I keep asking my parents for.

Behind the freckles, his face is slightly pink from running.

“I didn’t think—” Caitlin looks as stunned as I feel. “We didn’t think – we thought you were—”

“Are you OK, Laurie?” Hannah puts her arm round me, then smiles at Neon. “I think she’s actually speechless.”

I can’t even nod in response. This is unbelievable.

And I don’t mean that it’s surprising or astonishing or any of the other ways that people use that word – I mean this is actually impossible to believe .

I don’t know whether I’m hallucinating, or trapped in a dream, or have been duped into appearing on one of those prank TV shows, but Neon Hart cannot be standing in front of me. He just can’t. It can’t be true.

Because Caitlin and Hannah were right: Neon doesn’t exist.

I made him up.