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‘Just don’t call me again.’

The screen froze for a fraction of a second on Molly’s tear-streaked face. Then the call disconnected.

Ashley stared at the black screen, her own reflection staring back at her.

‘No...’

She hit FaceTime again. It rang and rang, with no response, until it rang off.

Ashley hit FaceTime again. Straight to voicemail. Again. Voicemail.

Molly had blocked her.

The phone slipped from her fingers and landed on the carpet with a dull thud. A second later, her legs gave way beneath her.

She collapsed onto the hotel floor, folding in on herself as an animal sob ripped out of her chest.

I’m trying not to fall apart because I love you.

Molly had laid herself completely bare, and Ashley had just stood there like a statue. She hadn’t said it back. Why hadn’t she just said it back? It was the easiest truth in the world. Of course she loved Molly. God, she loved her so much.

So why had she choked?

Now, staring at the lifeless phone on the carpet, Ashley wanted to scream things into it. I love you. Please don’t end this. I want you so much. I’ll come back right now. Fuck the tour!

But it was too late. She’d had her chance and said nothing. There was no coming back from that.

Curled on the hotel carpet, Ashley realised she was getting everything she’d always wanted. And she’d traded the most important person in the world for it.

She had won everything, and it didn’t mean shit.

Twenty-Four

Now

Molly had only mentioned it in passing.

She had muttered that screens made her eyes skip lines and that she needed proper paper if she was going to get six pages into her head by Thursday. She had not expected Ashley to do anything about it.

But as soon as they got out onto the pavement, Ashley looked down at her watch.

‘We need a shop,’ Ashley said, slipping on some huge shades. She was already walking fast, her leather boots clicking loudly against the concrete near Deansgate. ‘Like an internet café. Or a post office. Somewhere with a machine.’

‘They don’t have internet cafés anymore,’ Molly said, hurrying to keep up. ‘Nobody prints things on paper anymore. It’s all QR codes.’

‘Someone prints things,’ Ashley muttered, squinting down an alleyway.

‘Don’t you have to get to the venue or whatever?’ Molly asked.

‘I’ve got some time,’ Ashley said.

They tried a tiny newsagent first, barely wide enough to squeeze between the racks. The man behind the counter didn’t even look up from his small portable television. When Ashley asked if he had a printer hooked up to his till, he looked at them like they’d lost their minds.

They left and found a hotel with a grand stone entrance that looked big enough to have something, but the girl at the reception desk just gave them a blank look.

‘This is stupid,’ Molly said, stopping on a corner near the town hall. ‘Just drop it, Ashley. Seriously. I’ll just read it off my phone and use my finger to keep my place. It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does matter,’ Ashley said. She looked genuinely stressed, her mouth a rigid line, her face red from the brisk walking. ‘You said you needed paper to do it properly. If you don’t do it properly, you’ll be thinking about the screen instead of the lines. We’ll find a printer. God as my witness.’