May 22, 2025
Other People's Summers
May 6 2025
A Secret Escape
Look out for Sarah's next summer novel, coming in May!
A lifelong friendship
Childhood friends Milly and Nicole had always been more like sisters so Milly never understood why, eighteen months ago, Nicole dropped out of contact completely. Milly buried that hurt and moved on with her life.
A call for help
Now, suddenly, Nicole is begging for Milly’s help. She needs somewhere private to hide, and the only safe place she can think of is Milly's holiday home business in the Lake District. Milly knows she should tell Nicole no, but she can’t ignore the desperation in her old friend’s voice so, despite her misgivings, she agrees to let Nicole stay.
A summer to reconnect
The two women begin to reconnect over the summer, and there’s a potential new romance for Milly too. But then the biggest bombshell of all lands and their delicate friendship is put to the ultimate test …
Can the friends come together in this time of need, or will this summer break their bond forever?
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Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
Milly
Why had she said yes?
Milly sat in her car outside the railway station, although it seemed generous to call it that, given that it was in the middle of nowhere and consisted of nothing more than a single platform and a shelter. There was no ticket office. No buzz of waiting people. Just one train an hour.
It was the last place on earth you’d expect to encounter a movie star, which was presumably why Nicole had chosen it.
Milly understood the need for discretion and privacy, but still, this felt like overkill.
There was one other car parked along the narrow country road, but other than that there were no signs of life and she sat in the darkness, trying not to be spooked as she waited for the last train of the day. She’d opened the car windows, but even at this late hour it was stifling and there was no sign of the weather breaking. Back in March when it had rained every day, Milly had dreamed of sunshine, but June had brought with it sunshine and a smothering heat that made her dream of rain.
The makeup she’d so carefully applied before leaving had already melted away, but she didn’t bother renewing it because what was the point? It was dark and there was no one to see her anyway. It didn’t matter how she looked. But when you were meeting someone who many considered to be one of the most beautiful women in the world, it was hard to resist the urge to make an effort.
Not that anyone noticed her when Nicole was around. They never had.
She sighed and checked the time.
Maybe Nicole had changed her mind. Please let her have changed her mind.
She’d heard nothing since that single phone call the night before. Was she wasting her time sitting here? She thought about her child, safely asleep in her grandmother’s house. Milly hated asking her mother for help, and this time she hadn’t even been able to explain why she needed Zoe to do an impromptu sleepover because Nicole had sworn her to secrecy. Zoe herself had protested that at thirteen she was able to stay on her own, but after all the upheaval in their lives Milly wasn’t ready to consider that. Zoe was the most important thing in her life. What if there was a fire? An intruder? Having lost so much, Milly was clinging tightly to what she had left. Also she had a niggling feeling that something wasn’t quite right with Zoe, but whenever she asked she was given the I’m fine response. Milly had cycled through the obvious things: Was it school? The divorce? Moving to a new home? Whatever it was, Zoe clearly didn’t want to worry her with it, which simply increased Milly’s anxiety levels.
She needed to spend more time alone with her daughter, but when you were a single working mother, time was a scarce resource.
And now she had Nicole to deal with. Friendships were supposed to make you feel better, not worse. At what point did you say enough?
She felt guilty because her mother had assumed Milly was finally going on a date and hadn’t been able to hide her delight. “Good,” she’d said. “It’s been eighteen months since Richard walked out, and the divorce has been final for six months. I’m pleased you’ve finally moved on.”
Moved on?
Milly hadn’t moved on. If she’d admitted that the last thing she wanted was another romantic entanglement when she was still tied up in knots about the last one, she would have caused her mother even more worry, and she didn’t want to do that. She kept those thoughts to herself, but the effort required to pretend she was coping well was exhausting.
All she really wanted now was to be the best mother possible to Zoe, but she was pretty sure she was failing at that too. She’d read so many books and articles on how to make divorce easier on kids the advice swirled around in her head. She was trying hard to put everything into practice. She’d been careful not to say a bad word about Richard in front of Zoe (although she used plenty of bad words when she was alone in the shower), and she tried to keep everything around them as normal as possible. She forced herself to get up in the morning and smile and pretend to be fine when she really wasn’t fine at all and would gladly have spent the whole day in bed. She told herself that she was modeling coping strategies for her child, and that was what mattered, wasn’t it? It didn’t matter that inside her head she was a mess.
Between lying to her mother, putting on a brave face for her child and forcing herself to be polite to Richard even when he was being frustratingly unreasonable and uncaring and nothing like the man she’d married, she’d forgotten what it felt like to actually express her true feelings.
There had been a time when the prospect of Nicole coming to stay would have lifted her mood, because if there was one person in the world she could be honest with, it was Nicole. But not anymore.
What was she doing here when the last thing she needed was more emotional stress? She didn’t know if she was a fool or if this was the very definition of friendship: showing up no matter what.
Promises made when you were fifteen didn’t seem to make as much sense when you were thirty-five. They certainly hadn’t meant anything to Nicole.
Hurt and tired, she reached for her phone and sent a message.
Are you on the train?
A flash of headlights caught her attention and she froze in her seat as another car approached. It drove past without stopping, and she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She wasn’t built for subterfuge.
When Nicole had called her asking for help, she should have said no.
She was particularly frustrated with herself because she’d recently done an online course on assertiveness, thanks to a twenty-minute wait at the hairdresser, where she’d foolishly fallen into the trap of doing one of those magazine questionnaires.
If you answer yes to more than three questions, you may have a problem with being assertive.
Milly had answered yes to all ten questions and had decided right then and there that she needed to do something about it. Her tendency to say yes was the reason she felt pressured all the time. It was the reason she lay awake at night, stressed and hyperventilating with her to-do list racing around her brain. Her inability to be assertive was the reason she never felt able to call out Richard’s unreasonable behavior. (He’d already humiliated and divorced her, so really what more could he do?) She didn’t know if the way he behaved was a hallmark of ex-husbands generally, but she knew she wasn’t handling it well. It had to stop. She had to change.
She was too busy to take a class in person, largely because of her inability to say no, so she’d enrolled for an online course and for two weeks had spent an hour every evening exploring ways to be more assertive. She’d learned about boundaries, about the importance of standing up for her rights and respecting other people’s, she’d filled out worksheets where she’d tried out different ways of saying no. Assertive, but not aggressive. Use the I word, not you. When you do (fill in particular behavioral aberration here)…I feel (describe, without swearing, how it makes you feel)…
She’d passed with top marks and thought that maybe this would be a new beginning. And then her phone had rung.
The name that flashed up was Sister.
Milly had stared at it for so long it had stopped ringing. But it had immediately started again, and this time she’d answered it, even though part of her didn’t want to.
It wasn’t her sister, of course. She didn’t have a sister, but when Nicole’s career had taken off, she’d insisted that Milly store her number under a different name. It had felt exciting at the time. Clandestine. It had made her feel special, because all of a sudden everyone wanted a piece of Nicole, and Milly had her number in her phone.
They’d been in their early twenties, but even at that tender age their lives couldn’t have been more different. Milly was married to Richard and had just discovered she was pregnant. She spent her days helping her mother run the family business, a small but exclusive resort of lakeside cabins nestled close to the water in the beautiful Lake District.
Nicole, on the other hand, had dropped out of college to pursue acting seriously, and by the age of twenty-one had achieved global fame after starring in a movie about a teenager who traveled back in time to save the planet from destruction. It had broken all box office records. Milly had seen the film and agreed with the critics that Nicole had been captivating in the role, but that wasn’t the point where she’d recognized just how talented her friend was. That moment had come a few months later, when Nicole had all but floated onto the stage to accept the most coveted award in acting wearing a custom-made gown that somehow managed to make her look both innocent and alluring. Her speech had been heartfelt and moving, and many of the people in the audience had cried.
Milly had cried too, and that was when she’d realized that her friend wasn’t just going to be big, she was going to be huge. Because the speech was all lies, and Milly knew it was lies. She was, quite possibly, one of only two people who knew it was lies, the other being Nicole’s mother who was unlikely to be watching.
But still Nicole had made her believe every word.
Nicole had called her afterward.
“Did you hear my speech?”
“Yes, I heard your speech.”
“You know the truth. People would pay you to tell my story.”
Milly had rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You have no idea how far people will go to get information on me and tear me down.”
“You’re sounding paranoid.”
But Nicole had said the same thing a few days later when Milly had met her in her suite in a London hotel where she was staying for a premiere of her latest movie.
She’d been escorted to the room by unsmiling security guards with earpieces and overdeveloped muscles, and she’d sat stiffly on one of the white sofas in the ridiculously opulent suite, feeling out of place and desperate to find common ground with her old friend.
She remembered ten-year-old Nicole saying One day I’m going to be famous, and here she was—famous.
And fame had changed everything.
“Seriously, Milly, you can’t have my name in your phone anymore. Someone might see it. We need to agree on a different name.” Nicole had been wired, nervous, talking too quickly, sipping a glass of wine even though it was three in the afternoon. Her hair fell in dark silky waves down her back, and those famous green eyes, eyes that made you lose your power of speech as one smitten critic had put it, were huge in her pale face. In real life she seemed thinner than ever, and Milly, almost eight months pregnant by then, had felt like a baby elephant next to her.
She’d shifted slightly, trying to get more comfortable which was almost impossible with a baby stuck under your ribs. “Who is going to see it? And what are they going to do? Mug me and steal my phone? I live in the middle of nowhere, Nic. I’m surrounded by trees and mountains. When I open my windows I hear nothing.” That wasn’t quite true. She frequently slept with the windows open, and she lay in the darkness and listened to the plaintive call of the birds and the occasional hoot of an owl, thinking how much she liked her quiet, predictable life. Unlike Nicole, she’d never had a desire to be famous, and nothing about her friend’s life had given her reason to revise her opinion. “My home isn’t exactly Paparazzi Central.”
Nicole had looked at her with a mix of envy and pity, as if she was wondering how anyone as unworldly as Milly made it through the day.
“Indulge me.” She’d put down her wineglass and taken the phone from her friend. Her slim fingers had flown over the keys. “There. Fixed.”
Milly had stared at it. “Sister?”
“Why not? It’s what we are. It’s the way I feel about you. The way I’ll always feel about you.” Nicole had hugged her then, and Milly had hugged her back, and for that brief moment their old connection had flickered to life. This was the Nicole she’d grown up with, not the new glamorous Nicole who couldn’t walk down a street without being recognized. Still, she hadn’t been able to shake the uneasy feeling that their relationship was about to change in a big way, and it made her sad because nothing was more important to her than their friendship.
“You’re going to forget about me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Nicole had said exactly what Milly had hoped she’d say. “You’re my best friend. You’ll always be my best friend, and when we’re both old, you’re going to come and spend winters with me in California and we’ll sit on the deck and watch the sunsets and talk about that time I drank half a bottle of vodka and dyed your hair purple. You were so upset you threw my favorite bag in the lake.”
Milly knew those weren’t the moments she’d remember when she looked back on their friendship. She’d be thinking of all the times Nicole had walked into a room first because Milly had been too shy to enter on her own. She’d remember the patience Nicole had shown when teaching Milly how to project confidence even when she was quaking inside. She’d think about the nights Nicole had stayed over at her place after Milly’s dad had walked out. The hours they’d lain awake talking about the future and what they both wanted.
And despite Milly’s fears, their friendship had endured. There were frequent phone calls and messages where Nicole would send photos of herself being transformed by hair and makeup into an assassin, an FBI agent, an art thief, a superhero.
Milly had sent back photos of Zoe. Zoe at six months. Zoe taking her first steps. Zoe’s first day at school. She’d sent photos of the four new luxury cabins they’d built by the lake and then felt embarrassed because Nicole owned properties around the world and Milly’s cabins, modest by comparison, were probably of little interest to her.
But despite their very different lives, they’d been in regular contact until eighteen months ago when Nicole had suddenly ghosted her.
Thinking about that brought her back to the present.
Milly checked the time again. The place felt so dead it was hard to believe a train was due to arrive any minute. But even if it did, there was no guarantee that her friend would be on it. Maybe Nicole was going to ghost her again. Maybe she wasn’t going to show up, and Milly would drive back home alone feeling more of a fool than she already did.
And if Nicole did happen to arrive, what was Milly going to say?
Why have you ignored me for the past eighteen months?
Where were you when I needed you?
It had happened right after Milly, Richard and Zoe had visited her in LA. Milly assumed there was a connection and had spent hours going over the holiday in her mind but couldn’t identify a reason. Initially she hadn’t worried because she knew how busy Nicole was, but a few weeks later when Milly had left a message telling her that Richard was having an affair and divorcing her and there was still no response, she’d started to worry. More than worry. Her friend’s silence had hurt. It had been a bitter blow, coming so soon after Richard’s betrayal.
The one person she’d always thought she could depend on, her safety net in life, had let her down.
Milly still couldn’t believe Nicole had ignored something so life-shattering. When had they ever not supported each other? Some long-term friendships continued out of habit, but theirs was real. Theirs was rare and special. Until it wasn’t.
Nicole’s silence hurt more than it should have because not only had Milly been dumped by her husband but it seemed she’d been dumped by her best friend too, and in some ways that felt worse. It had been the lowest moment of her life. So bad that she tried not to think about it because she’d dragged herself back from the edge and didn’t want to risk staring into the blackness again.
She’d survived, mostly thanks to the support of her mother and grandmother, but it had changed things. There was no more believing that Nicole would be there for her in a crisis. No more pretending that the word Sister in her phone was anything more than a way of disguising Nicole’s identity.
Even now, so many months later, that reality hurt.
“Maybe it’s me.” She spoke aloud, as she sometimes did when she was alone in the car. It was the one time she felt able to speak her mind. “Maybe I’m just the kind of person people leave.”
First her father, then Richard and then Nicole.
She’d assumed that was the end of it, and then the night before Nicole had finally called.
The call should have woken Milly up, but she had been lying awake stewing about Richard, having conversations in her head that she knew she’d never have in real life despite the assertiveness course because she was determined to keep things civil for her daughter.
She’d answered partly because it was Nicole and Milly had never not answered a call from Nicole, and partly because a small hurt part of her hoped that maybe Nicole was finally getting in touch to apologize or at least explain.
But there had been no apology or explanation, just a plea.
I need your help.
Nothing for eighteen months, not a squeak, and now she was expecting Milly to help.
During the conversation, admittedly short, not once had she asked how Milly was doing. She hadn’t mentioned Richard’s affair or the divorce or acknowledged how hard it must be for Milly to be going through exactly what her mother had gone through. She proffered neither explanation nor apology for not being there for Milly. It was all about her.
I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. Please, Milly. I’m desperate.
Desperate? What did desperate look like when your life was pretty much perfect? Just how desperate could you be when you were rich, beautiful and the toast of the movie-going public?
Nicole didn’t know the meaning of the word, but Milly did, although she worked hard not to show it. She’d been determined not to put that extra pressure on Zoe.
She was just about holding it together, which was another reason she should have said no to Nicole. She should have put into practice everything she’d learned from her assertiveness course. She should have said No, sorry, I’m struggling enough with my own life as you’d know if you read your emails or, better still (as she’d been taught that it wasn’t necessary to give lengthy explanations), Sorry, I can’t help.
But she hadn’t said any of those things. She’d said yes.
Yes, she’d pick her up. Yes, she’d drive at night to lessen the chances of being seen. Yes, Nicole could stay with Milly. Yes, she’d find a way to hide her.
Which was why she was now, against her better judgment, sitting in the middle of nowhere waiting for a train that was late and a friend she wasn’t sure she wanted to see.
The assertiveness course clearly hadn’t worked. If she was more assertive, she’d demand a refund.
A sound cut through her thoughts, and she saw the train approaching. Finally.
She felt a slight stirring of dread. The fabric of their friendship had been stretched by their diversifying paths and was now torn in so many places it was barely holding together. Their relationship hadn’t just changed, it was unrecognizable.
Usually the only emotion she felt before seeing Nicole was excitement, but tonight her stomach churned with an uncomfortable mix of hurt and resentment.
Where had Nicole been when Milly had needed her?
She was upset and a little bit angry but, most of all, deeply disappointed that their friendship had fallen short of what she’d believed it to be. Never before had she felt the need to protect herself in the friendship, but she did now. And it made her feel lonely.
Not lonely for company, because she had plenty of that, but lonely for that one person she could say anything to in the knowledge she’d be understood and not judged. Someone who knew what she was feeling without Milly having to spell it out.
The train slowed down and stopped, and Milly peered into the dimly lit station, but there were only two people visible. One was a man in his fifties, who immediately strode toward the parked car that Milly had noticed earlier, and the other was a woman of significantly advanced years wearing a coat that had seen better days and a hat that concealed most of her white hair. She was dragging a small suitcase and stooping badly, so bent over she was struggling to walk even with the help of a walking stick.
There was no sign of Nicole, which was confusing because it had been Nicole who had insisted Milly be poised for a quick getaway.
A quick getaway. Was that even possible in a small family hatchback? Milly hadn’t been in the mood for drama. We’re not in a movie now, Nicole.
And Nicole’s response to her. You have no idea what my life is like.
Milly couldn’t argue with that.
She had no idea what it was like to be one of the most in-demand actors of her generation, commanding millions for each movie. And as if acting talent and looks (voted Most Beautiful Woman two years running) wasn’t enough, Nicole’s last blockbuster had required her to sing, and she’d stunned the world with her voice.
Milly sighed.
The last thing you should do when your life was a total mess was to spend time with someone whose life was perfect.
She glanced at the train again. Still no Nicole, and no sign of anyone else leaving the train. Maybe she was hiding in a dark corner, waiting for these other people to leave before emerging. Or maybe she’d changed her mind.
The old woman teetered slightly, almost losing her balance, and Milly shot out of the car, concern for the woman’s safety overriding her promise to keep a low profile.
“Can I help you?” She put a hand on the woman’s arm. “It’s very late. Is someone meeting you?”
The woman lifted her head and looked directly at Milly and Milly stared into those unmistakable eyes and thought I really am a fool.
“You have to be kidding me. N—”
“Shh. Not until we’re in the car.”
Milly would have been impressed if she hadn’t been so frustrated. Part of that frustration was directed at herself for being so easily duped. “We’re in the middle of nowhere, and there is no one around.”
“They’re always around.” Nicole slid her arm into Milly’s and adopted her stoop again. “Help me into the car.”
“Help you?”
How long was this charade supposed to continue?
But she wanted to get out of here as much as Nicole, so she dutifully put her arm around her friend and felt a flicker of shock as she registered how thin she was.
She guided her to the passenger side of the car, hoping no one was watching because she was pretty confident her acting abilities would fool no one.
Nicole handed her the walking stick and Milly tucked it into the back of the car along with the suitcase.
She took another quick glance around the station. “There is no one here.” She slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door. “You’re going to bake inside that coat. Why the heavy disguise? Have you robbed a bank in real life or something? If I’m harboring a criminal, I’d like to know.”
Nicole’s eyes were closed. “I just need a short window of time when no one knows where I am. Can we talk about it later? I’m really not—” her voice shook a little “—I’m not feeling too good. And I’m freezing. I need the coat.”
Freezing?
There was so much Milly had planned to say, but there was something about Nicole’s fragility that sucked all the heat out of her emotions. But then she remembered her assertiveness course.
Her feelings mattered too. This wasn’t only about Nicole.
“There is no one around, Nicole. This place is empty. We are the last people here. And before I drive anywhere, I want to know what this is all about. Why the sudden phone call and why the urgency?”
“You seriously don’t know?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking.”
“Oh, Milly.” Nicole gave a choked laugh and opened her eyes. “You haven’t changed one bit, and I’m so happy about that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Since Richard had walked out taking most of her confidence with him, she felt as if every part of her had changed. She could barely remember the person she used to be, but Nicole didn’t know that because she hadn’t asked.
She felt a pang of loss as she remembered how their friendship used to be. There had been no barriers between them, but now there was a barrier so big she couldn’t see past it.
Nicole turned her head to look at her. “When we were young you always refused to read scandalous stories about celebrities. You thought it was distasteful that someone was making a career out of exploiting a person’s misfortune, and you didn’t want to be part of it. You were always kind, even to people you didn’t know.”
Was that how she’d ended up where she was, with everyone taking advantage of her?
“These days it’s less about my principles and more about the fact I don’t have a moment in the day to draw breath, let alone read gossip. I have a life, Nicole!” A life she was holding together by her fingernails. And suddenly the heat flared to life again. Maybe Nicole was hurting, but she was hurting too. “I don’t have time to read much at all. I wish I did, but between raising my child alone and worrying what all this is doing to her, dealing with my selfish ex-husband, running a business at a time when everyone is watching what they’re spending and wondering if life is going to be this tough forever, there’s not a lot of spare time left for lounging around reading about people whose lives quite frankly seem pretty good from where I’m standing.” She stopped, mortified. Why had she said all that? She’d blurted out far more than she’d intended. She’d told herself that she was going to be polite and give nothing of herself. She was going to show Nicole that this friendship didn’t matter to her any more than it did to Nicole. That she’d moved on, just as Nicole had.
But that wasn’t what she’d done. She’d had Nicole in her car for all of two minutes and already she’d been more honest with her than with anyone else in her life. She’d intended to be reserved and indifferent, and instead she’d shown that she was hurt. So much for protecting herself. So much for holding part of herself back. She might as well have ripped off a bandage and said Look at these raw wounds. Because that was how she felt. Like a giant wound. Any protective coating she might have had once had been eroded by Richard and now by Nicole. Love provided insulation from the cuts and bruises of life, and so did trust. Milly had lost both. She was a tortoise without its shell. A hedgehog with no spines.
She sat there, miserably embarrassed, and then Nicole reached out and touched her arm.
“I’ve missed you.”
Milly felt something soften inside her, but she forced herself to ignore it. “Sure. You missed me so much you didn’t get in touch for eighteen months.”
She was so surprised to hear those words coming out of her mouth that she almost turned around to check there was no one else in the car.
Maybe the assertiveness course hadn’t been such a waste of money after all.
Nicole removed her hand from Milly’s arm. “Don’t be angry. I know there are things we need to talk about, but the whole world is angry with me right now. I couldn’t stand it if you were too.”
“Why would the whole world be angry with you?”
“Perhaps angry is the wrong word. I should have said the whole world hates me.” Nicole’s voice shook a little. “I am currently the most hated woman on the planet.”
She’d forgotten how all-or-nothing Nicole was. People either adored her or hated her. She was either devastated or ecstatic. There was nothing in between. No middle ground. To be friends with Nicole meant strapping in for a ride on a roller-coaster with its steep ups and downs. She couldn’t handle it. “Please, for once, can we leave the drama at the door?”
“For you it’s drama, but for me it’s my life.”
Milly clamped her jaws shut to stop herself from saying something she might regret. “Nicole—”
“I want you to know that what they’re saying isn’t true. Well, some of it is—but not the way they’ve told it. It’s all twisted.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I’m not sure which is worse—having people make up lies about you, or knowing that people believe those lies without question.”
Milly was starting to wish she’d taken the time to do an internet search. She’d had a really bad night and hadn’t had a moment to herself all day. Both her body and brain were tired, and she didn’t have the energy for this. “What lies? What do people believe?”
There was a pause. “According to the press, I’ve broken up the happiest marriage in Hollywood. I’m a home-wrecker. The Other Woman.”
Milly went cold. She thought of Richard. There’s someone else… “You—what?”
“Go to any news site and you can read all about it. Two truths and a lie. Or is it two lies and a truth? I can’t remember. And it doesn’t really matter because no one is interested in the truth anyway. The people who write all that stuff about me just want clicks, and the people who read it want proof that my amazing-looking life isn’t so amazing. Celebrity downfall is a great cure for envy, didn’t you know? Yes she’s rich, but is she really happy? Well, no, she isn’t.” Nicole slurred her words slightly, and Milly felt a growing wave of nausea.
I’m a home-wrecker.
Why did it have to be that? Nicole had a colorful dating history, with a reputation for falling for her costars, but to the best of Milly’s knowledge she’d never been involved with anyone who was married. For Milly the topic was something of a trigger given recent circumstances. She had to force herself to remember that this wasn’t about her.
“You are overthinking this, Nicole. Most people are too busy handling their own problems and making it through each day to worry about what is happening to you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. When people have problems they look around them for someone who has it worse so that they feel better about their own lives. They think Well, at least I’m not her. My problems are a source of entertainment. Remember when we used to play three wishes?”
And just like that she was right back in her childhood, curled up on her bed watching Nicole paint her nails.
If you could have three wishes, what would you wish for?
Milly frowned. “We haven’t played that game for at least two decades.”
“If I had one wish it would be to put the clock back and start again.” Nicole’s gaze was fixed on Milly’s face. “How about you?”
One wish.
“I don’t know. I don’t waste time wishing for things anymore.”
“Why not?” Nicole spoke softly. “Wishing tells you what you really want.”
“Or else it just shows you what you don’t have, and dwelling on that isn’t helpful.” Milly fastened her seat belt and started the engine. “We need to go. I have to be up early. My life doesn’t go on hold just because you’re here. How long are you planning to stay?”
“I don’t know.” Nicole’s voice shook again. “Maybe forever.”
Forever?
That was a joke, surely? Milly glanced quickly at her friend, but Nicole’s eyes were closed again, and there was no hint of a smile on her face.
Forever.
Milly tightened her grip on the wheel. If she had to wish for one thing it would be patience.
