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him proud this time. Yet thinking of the path ahead had his guts churning so much he thought he might throw up.
    He leaned his head against the back of the couch and closed his eyes.

    Maggie put away the last of the dishes and leant against the counter, surveying the tidy kitchen with a critical eye. There were a lot of things she would have no control over in the next few days, but she had control over this. She was all too happy for the distraction. 
    She started aimlessly wiping down the surface for the hundredth time. Tom’s funeral was tomorrow – Jack could turn up at any time, and unless Ally sent her away, she was going to stick to her like glue. Ally hadn’t even argued with her when she had told her that. After the past four years, she would not just stand by and watch as Jack blew back into town and turned everything upside down again. Once had been enough.
    Dropping the dishcloth finally, she headed towards the bedroom to check on Ally. Peering around the corner of her bedroom door, she saw her sitting on the bed, crutches propped up beside her, a small wooden box on her lap. She held the box as if it were made of glass.
    She walked in and sat on the bed next to her friend. “What’s that?”
    Ally stared at her vacantly, then her gaze fell to the box, as if she had forgotten it was even there. She reached in and pulled out a photograph, staring at it for a moment before handing it over.
    Maggie took it from her, recognising it immediately. It was a photograph of them – Ally, Jack, Callum and herself – taken at a party a couple of years before the accident. They had their arms around each other, grinning at the camera. They looked so innocent – so much younger, blind to what the universe had in store for them in just a few short years. It was like staring into the faces of strangers.
    With a quiet determination, Maggie reached over to put the photograph back in the box on Ally’s lap, closing the lid and lifting it gently from her.
    “It’s gonna be okay,” she whispered.
    The anxious expression on Ally’s face told her that she didn’t believe it either.

    Jack sat outside Ally’s house, trying to muster up the courage to get out of the car. He had to do this today, before he lost his nerve. Life was too short – his father’s death had brutally illustrated that fact. He could get hit by a bus tomorrow and she would never know how sorry he was. Steeling himself, he closed his eyes for a moment and focused on her face.
     
    She was laughing, those beguiling blue-green eyes twinkling, her long dark hair falling over her shoulder as she tossed her head back.
    She was standing in front of a partially painted canvas, deep in concentration, humming to herself while she worked.
    She was clinging to him on the back of his motorcycle, giggling as the wind whipped her hair around her face.
    She was lying on the side of the road in the dark as the paramedics worked on her, pale and broken, deathly still.
     
    His eyes shot open. Even with all their history – all the years they spent together, calculating out to literally thousands of happy moments – whenever he thought of her, that was the image that always came to mind eventually. He gritted his teeth. It was guilt that repeatedly brought him back to that wet roadside. Guilt and shame.
    He got out of the car and started walking up the familiar path to her front door. He climbed the steps slowly, distracted by the new addition off to one side. A wooden ramp led from the path to the porch, dog-legged in the middle, and he stood rooted to the spot, staring at it. He had expected this, so why did it come as such a shock to see it? The answer came back immediately; because it was real. It was tangible, solid – not a fantasy, not in his head, but reality.
    He drew himself up to his full height – six feet and one inch of pure fear and remorse. His heart began to beat so fast he felt like it was trying to pound its way out of his ribcage, one hammer