Page 121 of Carry Me Home

‘Good different or bad different?’

‘Just different.’ I take a sip of wine. ‘The sky’s bigger.’

‘The sky’s bigger,’ Layla repeats. ‘That’s very poetic. Are you a poet, Tom?’

‘He’s a vet,’ Cara says. ‘Poets don’t do rectal exams on cattle.’

‘That you know of.’

The food arrives. A Moroccan dish with lamb. And potatoes that are trying too hard with truffle oil that smells like feet. I eat without tasting much, answering questions when they’re directed at me, laugh when everyone else laughs.

It’s fine. It’s all fine.

But there’s a wrongness underneath that I can’t shake. The way Ellie keeps glancing between me and Cara, like she’s waiting for a signal. The way Dean claps me on the shoulder and calls me ‘mate’ in a way that assumes more familiarity than we have, or that they will be driving from Inverness to do this exact same evening with us, over and over again, for the entire future of my existence. The way Layla says ‘you two’ like it’s already settled, already decided.

They think we’re a couple.

Cara hasn’t corrected them. I haven’t either.

Maybe this is just what moving on looks like. You go through the motions until they become real. You pretend until the pretending stops feeling like pretending.

‘You’re quiet tonight,’ Cara says softly, under the noise of Layla and Ellie debating something about a book club.

‘Just tired. Long day.’

‘Tired tired, or something else?’

‘Just tired.’

She watches me for a moment. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Let me know if you need to leave early.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘I know you’re fine. I’m just saying.’

Her hand brushes mine under the table. Brief. Light. An offer, not a demand.

I don’t pull away. I don’t lean in either.

We stay in the middle ground. The place where nothing is decided and everything is possible and nobody has to name the thing that isn’t working.

The drive back is quiet.

Cara’s had a couple of glasses of wine – she’s not drunk, just soft around the edges, a warmth in her cheeks. She’s humming under her breath, something slow I can’t place.

The headlights cut through the dark. No streetlights out here – just the road and the hills and the enormous black sky pressing down.

‘Thanks for tonight,’ she says. ‘I know it’s a lot, meeting everyone. But they liked you.’

‘They’re nice.’

‘They are nice. Layla’s insane, but in a good way. And Dean, well, he likes the sound of his own voice.’

She snorts at that, and the tight knot inside me unravels an inch.

I pull up outside the flat.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asks. ‘Still tired?’