She opened the door to the lounge, and stepped into his life.

He had never written the words.

Written in the style of a spider dying slowly across the page, nonetheless he knew that he’s never written the words. The words that she had shown him when they went back to the hotel room. The words in a ten year old diary, a book that he’d forgotten about, and that he’d thought lost or thrown years ago.

It didn’t make sense. Sure, all of the names were true but there was something that he couldn’t place that just didn’t seem right.

Em turned and mouthed something at him. No reply would be right. If he asked the matter it would be another tirade. If he didn’t – well, he’d get one anyway.

“Sorry?”

She put the tin of sweets on the dashboard of the hire car, from where it promptly slipped, spilling the sticky tablets and icing sugar across the floor of the passenger well.

“Slow down!” She reached for the hand brake.

“I wasn’t going…”

“You were! Stop driving like an idiot. Just because you..”

She stopped as the car went into a skid.

The side of a truck.

Silence.

To the road. Focus between the white lines, follow the movement forward without thought. So what about where he wanted ot drive. Stay between the lines and you’d be safe, and wasn’t safety better than happiness at any cost?

He glanced at Em, who was snivelling into a tin of travel sweets. Despite the truth in what she said, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything.

Two months and three days ago, he’d bought them the tickets. Three weeks ago they’d departed. And then there had been the diary.

This time he had really gone too far. Even as the car carried on speeding down the m-way, Em in tears, her face staring out of the passenger window as she wished heself elsewhere, he couldn’t get his mind off the cause. Fuck it. It would be easier to aim at the next bridge, but he didn’t have the guts for that. Never had the guts for anything. Maybe if he concentrated hard enough, the car in the next lane would drive him off the road.

And what a cause.

The sound of a car horn startled him back to the reality of the road lanes ahead, just in time to avoid the Jaguar with a desperate appointment for a funeral. Even now, his mind couldn’t move focus elsewhere.

What do you mean you didn’t notice?

Wel I didn’t.

But it was a tree!

And? I didn’t see it. Must have been hidden behind the leaves. Are you in the RAC?

“…’She wouldn’t get us, would she?’

‘Of course not.’ A different voice. A girl. Neither of them had seen her arrive.”

—

“Who are you?”

The girl looked at them, but was mute. She smiled.

“I said who are you?”

“Nigel!”

The girl mouthed something.

“What?”

“Its all pretend. The story. Ignore him.”

She looked at Nigel, whilst Keith stared at the ground between his brother and the girl.

“Well I don’t like you.” Nigel was determined to save face.