You haven't seen her in months when she suddenly shows up at your door - cheeks flushed, hair a mess, still the girl you used to date at school. You don't ask questions (even though you want to) because the only one she asks is if you've still got that old bike. You do, of course, and of course she wants to go out on it, climbing behind you and wrapping her arms around your waist as if nothing has changed. Maybe it hasn't, you think as you glance back at her beaming face, red curls getting whipped everywhere by the speed at which you're going. Maybe nothing has to ever change at all.
You turn your eyes back to the road and allow yourself to imagine what it would be like - who you could be if you stayed with her, and she with you. You imagine a flat in the city, Chinese takeout after work, listening to old records together on the living room floor. Get matching tattoos, drink in the middle of the night; take her to dinner maybe, if she'd let you. No kids, because you know she doesn't want them, just the cat (which she knows you despise, but you'd gladly take it if it meant you could keep her). You'd be happy, you decide confidently, you could make it work - and just like that you decide to make her stay.
Too bad it was never up to you.
The next time you see her she's on your best friend's arm; belly swollen under her yellow dress, leaning against him ever so slightly as they walk along. His face is happier than you've ever seen it, and when he stops to kiss her you have to look away, hardly able to stand the sight. If this was anyone else, anyone on the entire planet, you would have fought for her until your last breath. But not him. You can't do that to him, not even for her. Not after all he's been through - not after seeing that expression on his face, that of a man who has everything he's ever wanted; a parched man saved from the desert at last. So you hold it in (for him - for her) and pretend to be over the moon when they ask you to be the godfather.
It never gets easier, being around them, and the boy confuses you even more. You try your best to love him, but the fact that he's got his father's hair distracts you, making you wonder what he would have looked like if he had yours. Once every while she'll look your way, or make a joke only the two of you understand, and you think maybe she feels the same - but you never find out. Not even after he dies, and she gets carried off to St Mungo's (the boy is grown by then, the spitting image of his father, but with his mother's wit) and you are left with nothing but regrets, and memories of what used to be - always, still, wondering.
When you visit her she's nice enough, very carefully keeping up the facade that she's okay, that she's going to survive this. Sometimes you play along, other days you genuinely believe her. You start to wonder if it might be you after all, that maybe, somehow, you are what she needs to make it through. But until her dying day, she never proves you right. And you remember: this is why you never tried to ask her questions. She wouldn't answer anyway.