didn’t sleep very much that night. Life wasn’t snoring but it kept me awake all the same, haunting me with questions and fears and wholly unhelpful thoughts. By the time I woke up I had come to the conclusion that if all did not go well today, then all of my father’s accusations would indeed be validated. Getting back together with Blake somehow became my sole aim to fixing everything. It was losing him that had caused me to go off track in my life, so if I could get him back I would find my way again. Despite the fact that Blake didn’t have a formal job, my father had always liked him, and as alien as the thought seemed now, he actually attended some of the dinner parties in our converted bread-factory loft. Father liked Blake’s can-do attitude, his drive, his ambition; he knew that Blake would always have an interest in something and would do everything to succeed. He liked that he had goals, that he climbed mountains, ran marathons, that he achieved personal physical feats. And even though he didn’t like that I wasn’t a doctor or a lawyer or a nuclear physicist, he at least used to like my attitude too. But then I’d changed and the things he’d loved about me were gone and then so was his love.

Despite being awake most of the night I was last to get up and showered, and I wandered down the hall, following the voices. At the back of the house, in a bright and airy conservatory which served as the breakfast room, Life sat at a table shared by four others, with a plate before him piled high with food.

‘Morning,’ he said, looking up at me before shovelling baked beans into his mouth.

‘Whoa,’ I said, and stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of him.

He looked to the others self-consciously before he continued eating the rest of his fry-up. There was two of everything on the plate.

I pulled a chair out beside him and sat down, saying good morning to everyone. The three boys and girl were the college-student type, no older than twenty, no younger than seventeen, and the surfing kind, the boys with long hair, the girl with short. The chat was moving at a hundred miles an hour as they teased each other and passed insulting remarks across the table at one another. There was no more than ten years between us and I felt like we were living on different planets.

I leaned in close to Life so that the others couldn’t hear me. ‘What the hell happened to your face?’

He looked at me with annoyed eyes, and finished eating. ‘Not just my face, my whole entire body.’ He pulled the neckline of his new T-shirt down and the red blotches continued. ‘It’s a rash,’ he said.

‘No shit.’

‘Stress. From you tossing and turning all night, convincing yourself everything in your world will be further defined from this moment.’

‘Wow.’ I studied his face. In addition to the rash, he still had the massive boil on his chin from when Don didn’t call. ‘Some of the red bits have purple bits.’

‘Don’t you think I don’t know that?’ he hissed. His entire face went momentarily even redder as if he was about to choke.

‘All this is because of Blake?’

‘Blake, your job, your father, your family …’

‘Don?’

‘Don is the only person who cheers me up and because you’ve dumped him it makes me feel worse.’

‘I haven’t dumped him.’ I meant we had nothing to dump, but Life misunderstood.

‘No, you’ve just put him on hold while you check out another line like you’re some kind of 1950s switchboard operator.’

I frowned. ‘Fine, you go out with Don then if he makes you so happy.’

‘I am,’ he snapped. ‘Tonight. So you’d better talk quickly with Blake because I’m not hanging around another night.’

‘Don’t worry, I can try to cover up your rashes with powder.’

‘This isn’t about the rashes,’ he hissed again, his face going purple.

He was more like the Life I’d met on the first day; tragically we were going backwards. The lady of the house asked me what I’d like to eat. I eyed up Life’s breakfast. ‘Something healthy,’ I said critically. ‘I’ll have the granola, please.’

‘Microwaved?’ he said loudly, making a point.

‘I’m going to start cooking again,’ I said defensively.

He snorted. ‘I’ve filled your fridge with fresh fruit and vegetables every few days; they’ve all gone rotten and I’ve had to throw them out.’

‘Really?’

‘You wouldn’t have noticed, you were only opening the freezer.’

‘Are you guys going to the adventure centre too?’ the girl asked.

Life rudely ignored her, not in the mood to talk to anyone unless it was to torment me.

‘Yes,’ I smiled, excited for Blake. ‘You’re all going there?’

‘Second time this month, but it’s Harry’s first.’

I could tell which one was Harry because the blond beside me went red as they all jeered and jostled him, ruffling his hair and leaving him even more dishevelled looking.

‘Harry’s terrified of heights,’ the girl explained for me, with a bright smile. ‘If he dives, Declan has promised to shave his eyebrows.’

‘And his balls,’ the redhead said and it was Declan’s turn to look slightly embarrassed as they all jeered again.

‘Have you been taking lessons?’ It was a question for Harry.

‘No, his mom’s been shaving his balls all his life so he knows exactly what to do,’ the cheeky redhead said and they all laughed again, Harry included this time.

‘We’re doing a tandem skydive,’ the girl answered me.

‘What’s that?’ Life asked, starting on a chocolate croissant. I glared at him but he stuffed it in his mouth.

‘Tandem skydiving is when two people fall through the sky attached to one parachute system,’ I explained. ‘You just need to do twenty minutes of training before the skydive.’

Life made a face. ‘Who in their right mind would want to do that?’

Harry looked like he agreed with Life but wouldn’t say.

‘We used to do it all the time.’ I smiled at the memories of Blake and me hurtling towards the earth together, and wanting to get back up in the air as soon as we’d landed.

‘How romantic,’ Life said sarcastically. ‘It’s a pity the parachute didn’t fail to open.’ He reached into the basket for a chocolate muffin. Again my glare did nothing to stop him. ‘So what? I’m depressed.’

‘Well, you need to snap out of it because you’re going to need every ounce of energy you have to help me.’

‘You can get a lift with us if you want,’ the girl said. ‘We’ve got Declan’s mum’s camper van. There’s plenty of room.’

‘Great, thanks,’ I perked up.

It was a five-minute drive from the B&B to the adventure centre. My stomach lurched every few seconds. I was quite uneasy and not just because I was precariously perched on a pile of surfboards, which were bouncing around and fit to fall despite Declan’s very careful driving, though the others were shouting at him to speed it up. Harry was sitting beside me, pale as could be.

‘It’ll be fine. If anything, this will help you overcome your fear of heights.’

He looked at me doubtfully, then, when the others were busy slagging each other about Declan driving like an old man he said quietly, ‘What if I get sick in the air?’

‘You won’t,’ I said confidently. ‘There’s no sensation of sickness. Skydiving is a constant so it doesn’t turn your stomach like going over a bump or a hill.’

He nodded, then a moment later he asked, ‘What if the parachute doesn’t open?’

‘It will and anyway there are two parachutes, and both parachutes will have been meticulously maintained by highly qualified staff. I know the guy who runs the place and he’s perfect, I mean he’s a perfectionist.’

He looked a little more relieved but not completely. ‘How well do you know him?’

I thought about it, then said firmly, ‘I haven’t seen him for almost three years but I’m in love with him.’

Harry looked at me like I was a weirdo and mumbled, ‘Yeah well, people can change a lot in three years.’ Then he left me to think about that while he joined the other two who were pretending to snore as Declan carefully rounded the corners.

‘Well, that told you,’ Life said, sitting on a half-inflated banana boat across from me. Despite his crankiness he looked good in a new pair of jeans, trainers and a polo shirt. I’d managed to take down some of the redness in his face with powder but he was still a bit blotchy. He looked like he wanted to say something.

‘Out with it.’

‘Oh, nothing.’

‘Tell me.’

‘It’s just that poor little Harry there is terrified of going up in a plane and you’ve just given your word that Blake is “perfect”.’ He rolled his eyes.

‘So? Blake is the most safety-conscious guy I know.’

‘He’s also a liar. Pity you didn’t tell him that.’

I ignored him the rest of the way.

The centre was actually a very modest building.

‘It’s a Portaloo,’ Life said, stepping out from the camper van and joining me.

‘It’s not a Portaloo,’ I said, annoyed, surveying Blake’s new business. It was more of a Portakabin. In fact, it was two. One was clearly the registration and checking-in room and the other was changing and toilet facilities.

‘Is this what your dream looked like?’

It wasn’t but I ignored him. At least Blake had actually done something he wanted to do unlike most of the people in the world. Unlike me. The nerves were still there but I was excited; I kept that paused image of Blake and Jenna clinking glasses in Morocco and I held onto it as a driving force. That was why I was here; to break them up, to make him see me and realise he loved me again. I’d changed a lot in our two years, eleven months and twenty-one days of being apart and I wanted him to see that.

I followed the excited Fantastic Four – or at least the Thrill-Seeking Three and a Petrified Harry – into the cabin. There was a sweets and crisp dispenser, a tea and coffee dispenser and chairs lining the walls.

‘That’s good, maybe I can see the doctor about my rash while I’m here,’ Life criticised once again.

The walls were covered in framed photographs of Blake, some of which had been blown up and super-sized. They were taken from his TV show and made him look like Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible, freeze-framed in a muscle-bulging action sequence, all biceps and abs and rock-solid bum cheeks: Blake jumping out of aeroplanes, Blake white-water rafting, Blake climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, Blake’s muscles popping from his skin as he climbed the Rocky Mountains, Blake having a shower under a waterfall. My eyes lingered on that one for a while as I checked out his amazing body, as did all the eyes of the young women in the cabin. It was only then, when I looked around at the rest of the clientele, that I realised it was mostly women, mostly young women, mostly beautiful, tanned, toned, pretty women. It put me on the wrong foot momentarily; all these young things were here to see Blake the TV star, he probably got this attention all the time, in every bar, in every town and city, in every country. They probably all threw themselves at him; he could have his pick, he could have them all at once and just to torment myself, I had an image of them all together, him in the middle of all their young naked bodies writhing all over him. I might have been ten years older than them all but I used to have his naked body writhing all over me too, whenever I wanted, and that made me feel better.

I was scanning the walls of Blake’s achievements when I saw her. Her. Jenna. The bitch. From Australia. She was sitting down at a little makeshift desk sorting through application forms and IDs and taking money and generally running the place.

I felt like the RoboCop, zoning in on her and running through her vital statistics; her strengths and weaknesses as a human being, even worse, as a woman. Hair: natural blonde and plaited in a bohemian casual way along her hairline. Body: toned, tanned, long limbs – but not as long as mine, she was more petite. Eyes: brown, big and honest, puppy dog-like, every man would want to take her home – but she had a small scar in the middle of her eyebrows. Clothes: a white vest that made her tan stand out and her teeth glow, a pair of jeans and trainers. I was wearing the same except I’d chosen a baby blue vest because I’d been wearing that colour when we’d met and he’d commented on how much it made my eyes pop – the colour, not the actual eye, that only happened when I ate shellfish.

‘Take a picture, why don’t you,’ Life said to me, standing beside me and noisily opening a packet of salt-and-vinegar crisps he’d got from the dispenser.

‘That’s her,’ I said.

‘The girl from Morocco?’

‘Yes,’ I whispered.

‘Really?’ He was surprised. ‘Maybe there’s something to your psychotic paranoid tendencies after all.’

‘It’s called instinct,’ I said, sure now that every time I was paranoid about something, including the guy in my building being part of US witness protection, was completely and utterly true.

‘Still, they might not be together,’ he said, popping a crisp into his mouth.

‘Look at her,’ I said bitterly, disgusted, ‘She’s exactly Blake’s type.’

‘And what type is that?’

I watched her interacting with the group, with a wide smile, dimpled cheeks, laughing and joking, showing concern and helping those who were worried.

‘The nice type,’ I said bitterly. ‘The bitch.’

Life almost choked on his crisp. ‘This is going to be fun.’

She glanced up then, as if her internal radar had warned her about an enemy nearby, and looked straight at me. Her smile didn’t fade but her eyes hardened, lost their shine momentarily, and I knew that she knew what I was here to do. I knew that she had feelings for Blake, I’d known since the beginning, ever since we’d met in a London bar when Blake had signed the TV deal and she’d asked him if he’d like ice in his drink. A girlfriend always knows, can pick up on the vibes, and now here I was, and she was possibly the girlfriend and she knew.

‘Lucy?’ She came towards me, her eyes flicking to Life beside me and seeming to relax a little. She needn’t relax.

‘Jenna, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah.’ She seemed surprised. ‘I can’t believe you remember me, we only met the one time.’

‘In London.’

‘Yeah. Wow.’

‘You remembered me.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s because I heard about you all the time,’ she smiled.

Heard. Past tense.

‘Well, welcome,’ she said, looking at Life shyly. She was sweet. I was going to destroy her.

‘This is my friend Cosmo.’

‘Cosmo, cool name. Nice to meet you.’ She held out her hand and he wiped his salt-and-vinegar-greasy fingers on his jeans before shaking it.

‘Is Blake around today?’ I asked, looking around.

‘Yeah. Doesn’t he know you’re coming?’

Translation: Is this arranged? Are you getting back together? Should I be worried?

I smiled sweetly. ‘I wanted to surprise him.’

‘Wow. Great. So, I’m sure he’ll be really stoked to see you but he’s very tied up at the moment. He’s getting ready to train the first group of divers. Are you guys part of this group?’

‘Yes. Yes, we are.’

Life looked at me as if there wasn’t a hope in the world of him diving with me but I appreciated that he didn’t say anything.

‘How long have you been working here for?’

‘The past month, ever since it opened. Blake was very kind to give me the job. We wrapped on the TV show and after that I just didn’t want to go home, you know? I love it here.’

‘It’s a long way from home.’

‘Yeah, it is,’ she said, rather sadly. ‘But we’ll see.’

‘We’ll see?’

‘Yeah. We’ll see what happens. Right, well, I’d better get this group ready and I’ve to bring a coffee to Blake, he always likes it first thing.’

I could tell her a thing or two about what else he liked first thing. I smiled tightly and watched her as she clapped her hands to get everybody’s attention, then issued polite orders, made a funny joke, and then, after she had herded everybody into the correct positions and they all knew what they were doing, she ran out of the cabin with a steaming hot coffee in a styrofoam cup.

‘You’re on your own, sweetheart,’ Life said, stuffing another crisp into his mouth.

‘You’re afraid of diving?’

‘Of course I am,’ he said. ‘Especially if she’s preparing your parachute.’ Then he chuckled and wandered off to turn his nose up at more of Blake’s photos.

I assured Life that he didn’t have to do the dive but in order to see Blake I had to go along with the day’s schedule. He had driven me here so that I could make a go of things, so he knew his role was to go with the flow. I didn’t want to hang around for hours waiting for Blake like a stalker, because clearly I wasn’t that.

I wasn’t.

Life and I followed the group outside onto a grassy area. It was only ten a.m. and already it was warm. Before us was two miles of runway and to the right was the airplane hangar. As basic as the set-up was I was proud of Blake for following his dream, for achieving it. It felt bittersweet that it was without me, that it wasn’t me about to take the training class, that it wasn’t me sitting in the cabin sorting through applications and greeting customers. He had taken my dreams – our dreams – and moved on without me. Here I was, a mere spectator standing among a gaggle of girls waiting to see him as if he was a pin-up star, which of course he was now. If you subscribed to Love to Travel magazine. Which I did. There were nine of us in total. The four from the B&B, three fans of Blake’s, and Life and me.

‘Where is he?’ one blonde asked her friend and they both looked at each other and giggled.

‘Are you going to ask him for his autograph?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m going to ask if I can have his children.’ They both cackled again.

Life looked at me, his eyes dancing like he was laughing at me. Since we’d arrived at the ‘Portaloo’ he seemed to have got his spark back, but I wasn’t sure it was for all the right reasons. The door to the hangar made a large booming sound as it was unlatched and began to open. It slid back slowly, revealing the plane inside, then when the door was midway open it revealed Blake standing in front of the plane, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, the top unzipped and falling down around his waist, revealing a tight white vest that showed his protruding muscles beneath. He was too far away to see his face but the body, his shape, was recognisable from space. He looked pumped and ready for action, he looked amazing, then he slowly started to walk towards us, like a scene from Armageddon. His parachute was attached to his waist and he pulled it along behind him, the weight of it so great that it was like he was walking against a gale-force wind. Sometimes the parachute material would catch the wind and it would pick up behind him, ballooning slightly and then falling to the ground again.

‘Oh. My. God,’ Life said, finally pausing from eating his crisps.

I felt proud of Blake, and proud that Life could see him like this. People were drawn to him, he had an aura, this was a perfect example.

‘What a gobshite,’ Life said and threw his head back and laughed.

I looked at him in surprise. Then the three lads and girl from the camper van started laughing and I was angry.

Harry looked at me in disbelief. ‘Is this the fella?’

I ignored him. The other women in the group were cheering, whooping and clapping, delighted by the opening introduction. I joined in with the polite applause, the cheering I did on the inside in a soprano High C. Blake smiled and looked at the ground shyly in an aw shucks, gee whizz, you guys kind of way. Then he detached his parachute and walked the rest of the way to the group with his groin wrapped up in a harness as if he was gift-wrapping his sizeable manhood. He finally reached the group.

‘Thanks, guys,’ he said, beaming, raising his hands to calm the applause. It had the desired effect and there was silence.

Life chose that moment to finish eating his crisps and crumple the packet into a ball. Blake’s head turned as Life noisily stuffed the crisp bag into his jeans pocket. Blake looked at him and then at me. And then his face broke into the largest smile. My stomach did a triple Axel jump, the crowd roared and I stepped up to the first position on the podium, accepted my flowers, dipped my head for the gold medal and listened to the national anthem while second and third scowled and plotted ways to break my legs.

‘Lucy Silchester,’ he smiled, then looked back at the curious group. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, meet the love of my life.’