‘Sweets!’ Harry says, shoving a packet of Starbursts in my face as we trundle around Tesco Express looking for the perfect post-shock sugar top-up. ‘My nan lobbed six sugar cubes in her tea when she heard my cousin Eve had been caught nicking a kilo of chicken wings from KFC. Medicinal, she said!’
So I grab three Freddos cos, seriously, who hasn’t been waiting their entire life for a medical reason to gorge on chocolate frogs?
‘Three? Really? You think that’s wise?’ Says a voice at my side.
And I hadn’t been wrong then, when I thought I spotted Jacob as we got out the car. Now here he is in the sweet aisle, looking anything but.
‘I’ve seen that belly. Felt it too. Eh, Izzy?’
And there it is again, the voice of broken happy-ever-afters because, honestly, I was really starting to believe maybe Harry and I were heading for some kind of sunset, but then in comes Jacob and all I’m heading for is shame.
‘Who’s this then? He’s why you came over all frigid in the park yesterday, is he?’
And though he’s not biting, Harry’s not exactly blank about Jacob either, his eyes to the floor and his hands preoccupied with the pack of chocolate-covered Hobnobs he’d tossed into the basket just as Jacob was making himself heard.
‘Lost your tongue, have you?’ Jacob says. ‘Maybe it’s for the best, eh! Your boyfriend might not wanna go near it once he knows where it’s been.’
And my chest is a broken lift shaft with my heart plummeting down, down, down.
‘Her boyfriend might be more upset about the way you’re talking to her,’ Harry says, head up now – his and mine – and those rower shoulders broader as he’s eyeballing Jacob, who’s all shrugs and just sayings. ‘Dick,’ Harry mutters as Jacob, clearly not giving a shit, struts away.
‘Mega dick,’ I concur, but the thing is, though we’re smiling, that near-escape adrenaline rush we were buzzing on has nosedived and the heat of that sunset we were destined for has turned from a reddish kind of fire to a palish kind of meek.
‘It’s fine,’ I snap at the man who comes over to help when the stupid self-scanning machine doesn’t recognise the Freddos. ‘I don’t want them anyway. Shit!’
The old woman behind me in the queue tuts when I’m further delayed cos I realise I’ve lost Mum’s purse.
‘Here,’ Harry says, leaning across and pressing his card to the contactless reader while the realisation that the purse may have fallen out my bag at Daniel’s sinks from my head down through the rest of my body.
‘That a friend of yours?’ And I can hear it, how Harry didn’t want to ask but really couldn’t stop the words as we leave the shop, and while he’s normally so easy-going, now he’s all hurried steps, one hand holding the bag and the other shoved hard into his pocket. Difference being, he’d reached for mine on the way in.
‘Not reall—’ But I come to a standstill. Harry doesn’t even notice because he’s a few feet ahead, already at the car.
Daniel.
Leaning against a lamp post like some romcom hero waiting for his girl. But when I double-take, he’s gone, no trace of him, no back of his head, no flash of the white shirt he was wearing this morning. Nothing. So maybe it’s the panic from seeing Jacob that makes it seem as if Daniel’s still looming, still atmosphering in my head.
I wonder if it will always be like this. If Daniel’s face will forever appear in a crowd, like the opposite of one of those magic drawings you get on the internet – stare hard enough and you see something you totally missed at first glance.
And there’s a nudge of understanding then. Why Mum doesn’t want his baby. Because most likely she’ll see Daniel’s face in strangers like I do and couldn’t cope with seeing it in her own child’s too. Not to mention that cord that would tie them, like mother to baby, but mother to ex, him using it to tug at her, pull at her, and they’d always be bound.
‘Can we just go?’ I say to Harry, as I climb into the car. Not mentioning Daniel. Not mentioning Jacob, just reaching for my Jar of Sunshine, rolling one of the beads between my fingers, feeling its heat.