‘I mean, I suspect our experiences were slightly different,’ I said. ‘Yours sounds like it might have had, like, butlers in it.’
He chuckled. ‘No butlers,’ he said. ‘A frankly obscene level of wealth and privilege, sure, but no butlers.’
He leaned over and snagged a strawberry off the fruit platter. ‘Dad loved his job, but he saw how hard it was on us,’ he said. ‘All of us, but especially Ammi. She was so isolated. So when his UK posting ended, he gave it up.’
‘He quit?’
‘Not quit, exactly,’ he said. ‘But he shifted to onshore postings only. It meant we could move here and stay here. We could put down roots. Ammi could be part of a community again.’
Dylan tossed the strawberry from hand to hand before he ate it. ‘I asked my dad about it once. Whether he regretted giving up his job.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That he didn’t,’ he said. ‘Not for a second. That if it was between Ammi’s happiness and his job, it wasn’t even something he had to think about.’
He took another strawberry and started fiddling with it, turning it over and over in his fingers. ‘He said it still didn’t make it easy. But it made it worth it. He told me that falling in love was simple, but that isn’t what love really is. It wasn’t those early months in Sri Lanka, when they first fell for each other. Love was choosing her. Always. Even when it was hard.’
‘That’s kind of what my friend Ayo said to me when Jordan and I broke up,’ I said. ‘I was crying, and doing the usual – you know, blaming myself. Asking what I did wrong. Standard break-up stuff.’
He nodded.
‘But she shoved a glass of wine into my hand and said, “Babe, I know it hurts, but if this was love, he wouldn’t just love you when you were around and it was convenient. He’d go out of his way for you. He’d do the work for you, because being with you would be a non-negotiable.”’
Dylan looked at me for a long moment. He was still holding the strawberry in his fingers, but his hands had stopped moving.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Someone’ll love you like that one day, Cece,’ he said.
My breath caught in my throat.
Fantasy. He was a fantasy. Don’t want what you can’t have.
‘That’s very kind of you to say,’ I said, ‘but no one’s managed it yet.’
‘They will,’ he said, smiling his beautiful sunny smile at me. ‘I promise.’
I swallowed and dug my fingernails into the palm of my hand. The plastic of the gummy-bear packet on my lap crinkled.
Such a tiny little gift. Such a tiny little thoughtful gift.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and saw the little green eye of the camera looking down on us.
If I see anything – anything – on camera that shows a flicker of chemistry between you, then you’re stopping and we’re throwing this whole thing out, Murray growled in my mind.
‘We’re, um, supposed to be talking about your love life, not mine,’ I choked out. ‘Who’s it going to be? Heather or Jess K?’
It wasn’t either of them.
‘Oh, honey,’ Kanda said, putting her arms around Marija as tears spilled down her cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Marija sobbed. ‘I thought he liked me. I don’t know what I did wrong!’
‘Ask Cece,’ Samantha said. ‘She’s his best friend. Dylan talks to her all fucking day and night.’
Marija turned her tearful eyes on me, her pale skin red and blotchy with crying. ‘You talked to him?’ she asked, her voice quavering. ‘What did he say about me?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
