Mel was staring at us both; Jackson, with his frankly astounded expression, and me with my vaguely uncomfortable one.
The intrusive sound of a champagne cork popping seemed incongruous when you were telling people you cared about that you’d almost died.
‘Will one of you please explain what you’re talking about. What Park People? What’s going on?’
Jackson blew out a long breath, and although he answered Mel, he didn’t take his eyes off me. ‘Of course, you were in New York when it happened. I guess it wasn’t big enough news to travel that far.’
‘I think it happens over there more than it does here, anyway,’ I said.
‘What happens?’ Mel asked, so obviously frustrated that I wished I’d found a different way, place, or time to tell her. But Jackson had already picked up his phone and after a moment or two of rapid scrolling, he passed it to Mel. The familiar video of two figures lying on the grass, receiving life-saving emergency treatment beneath the oak, began to play.
Mel’s eyes grew wider and wider until I felt sure the skin could stretch no farther. She zoomed in on the video, enlarging the grainy image. ‘It’s you,’ she said, her lower lip trembling as her fingers expanded the footage as far as it would go. ‘Those are your red stilettos.’ I’m not sure why that brought tears to her eyes – perhaps because she’d been with me when I’d bought them. ‘Oh my God, Ellie,’ Mel breathed. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’
I gave what I hoped looked like a casual shrug, which is hard when there’s a yoke of guilt weighing down on your shoulders.
‘I’m telling you now.’
‘Weeks after it happened.’
‘Well, this was the first opportunity to tell you both together.’
‘That’s a rubbish excuse,’ Jackson said. ‘Total BS.’
He wasn’t wrong, but I was running low on courage by this point and wasn’t sure if I had enough left to say, Actually I wasn’t sure you’d even have cared.
The fact that I’d been so wrong about their reaction was almost a cause to celebrate. They cared. They still cared about me.
I answered all their questions, including the obvious ones that I knew everyone wanted to know. What did it feel like? How much did it hurt? Have you made a full recovery? That last was from Mel. And Has it left you with any superpowers? which could only ever have come from Jackson.
‘Apart from some pretty serious memory loss issues, I was lucky. I came out of it fairly unscathed,’ I said. The relief on both of their faces was heartwarming. I almost wished I could stop right there, but then the story would only be half told. ‘Except for some weird stuff that defies any logical explanation.’
I know I didn’t imagine the flare of interest in Mel’s eyes. We were venturing right into her home territory here.
‘What kind of stuff?’ Jackson asked, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees as though craning closer would make me reveal the answer even quicker.
‘There’s a really powerful connection between me and the other survivor that I can’t explain. At first, I thought it was just because we both understood what we’d been through in a way that other people never could. But it goes deeper than that.’
‘Weird,’ said Jackson.
I licked my lips nervously. ‘I just can’t seem to get this guy out of my head.’
Mel’s neatly plucked eyebrows rose in perfect unison.
‘And our paths keep crossing, and there’s something really potent there, like the electrical current in the lightning is still arcing between us.’ It was a nonsense explanation but neither of my friends laughed.
‘This man,’ Mel began.
‘Rhys,’ I supplied.
Mel’s focus didn’t falter. ‘Is he tall and good-looking? In his late thirties or thereabouts? And does he have really piercing bright green eyes?’
I shook my head in amazement. How had she seen all of that from the shaky bystander video?
‘Because if he does,’ Mel continued, her voice dropping a little lower, ‘he’s making his way over to our table right now.’
‘Ellie?’ The voice I secretly yearned to hear whisper good morning to me every day, from now until forever, was right behind me. ‘I thought it was you.’
I swivelled on my seat, and he was standing beside our booth, looking truly devastating in a formal suit. It couldn’t have been more different from the jeans and t-shirt he’d changed into yesterday, but it affected me just as viscerally.