I’m in the park. It’s dark. The park’s never been dark in the dream before and at first I feel nervous. I look up at the streetlights shining from the other side of the railings and the nerves melt away. I’m safe here, I know I am. I look for Dan, but he’s not there. There’s a bang and I jump and look up at the sky: fireworks. Tiny white stars bursting all over the sky. Once they’ve fizzed out, I look down and then I see him, in the distance, walking towards me.

And then I wake up.

---

‘Where are the others?’ I ask Henry, turning in my seat to look over my shoulder out of the window.

‘I’ve WhatsApped them,’ he says, his phone on the table in front of him. ‘No one’s replied yet.’

We’ve been in Mr C’s for ten minutes and we’ve got drinks, but there’s no sign of anyone else and I am starving. Plus I didn’t sleep well after waking up from the Dan Dream. Since I actually found him, the dreams have been changing much more frequently than they ever did before and it’s starting to freak me out.

‘Did Freya even come back last night?’ Henry asks me.

I frown. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t hear her. But I don’t always hear her anyway.’

‘She was going out with the naked one?’

I smile. ‘Georgie. Yeah.’

‘She likes her.’ He fiddles with the napkins on the table.

‘I think so, yeah. She seems very keen. Particularly for Freya.’

Freya’s always been about keeping things casual. She likes to go out on the pull. She even likes being in a relationship, but generally when things start to get serious, she’s out. I don’t see it happening with Georgie. But I could be wrong.

A message pops up on Henry’s phone and he swipes it open.

‘Freya’s not coming,’ he tells me. ‘She stayed the night at Georgie’s. And then there are some emojis.’

‘Which emojis?’

He slides his phone over towards me. Blushing face, tongue out, shocked face, water splash.

‘Perv.’ I pass the phone back. ‘Adam and Celine were home though, right? I heard them—’ I stop before I have to say what I heard.

‘Actually, I was going to ask you about that,’ Henry says. He’s frayed one edge of the napkin and is starting on the next side.

I cringe. I think he’s going to ask me in a landlord way. Like whether he should talk to them about the sex noise or just leave them be. I don’t want to talk sex noises with Henry.

‘The things Adam shouts sometimes…’ He’s gone very pink. ‘Are they, like, normal things to say? You know… when you’re doing… that?’

I cover my mouth with my hand so I don’t laugh. ‘God, Henry. I’ve honestly no idea. You’re asking the wrong person.’

‘I just always think they sound very… sports-based.’

I think back to Adam shouting ‘You beauty!’ last night and have to agree.

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It always sounds a bit weird to me. Just the fact that we can hear them is a bit…’ And now I’ve started the exact conversation I didn’t want to have. Well done me.

‘Does it bother you?’ Henry asks, still pink. ‘I’ve wondered about having a word with them. It’s just…’

‘Mortifying,’ I say. ‘I know.’ I stir my teaspoon around in my mug, even though the tea’s all gone. ‘It doesn’t really bother me. It’s just a bit weird. Particularly on the weekend when they have a morning sesh and I bump into them after. I always feel very… I know what you’ve been doing! Doesn’t feel very grown-up of me.’

Henry laughs. ‘No, I know. I’ve thought the same thing. I’ve been tempted to give them a round of applause before. Or just shout encouragement.’ He turns the napkin again and keeps ripping.

‘Adam would love that.’ I grin.

‘And Celine would have me killed.’

‘There is that.’

We smile at each other for a few seconds and he looks at his phone again. ‘Still nothing.’

‘Bloody hell.’ I crane my neck and spot Mrs C towards the back of the cafe. ‘Should we just order?’

‘I’m starving. So yes.’

I manage to catch Mrs C’s eye and she waves at me before scurrying the length of the cafe and beaming at us both.

‘Just you two today? No cheeky boy?’ Adam. ‘Sexy girl?’ Freya. Mrs C frowns, which I know from experience signifies Celine (‘angry girl’).

‘They might be coming later,’ I say. ‘Just us two for now.’

She looks at Henry and back at me and then clasps her hands in front of her chest. ‘Ohhhhh. You are on date?’

‘No!’ I yelp. I can’t even look at Henry. ‘No, we’re not. I told you!’

Her face falls. ‘Oh yes. Handsome boy. So why is he not here?’

‘He’s gone home for the weekend,’ I tell her. ‘To see his family.’

Dan and I haven’t been out again, but we’ve texted a bit. We’re meant to be going out again next week.

She nods. ‘That’s good. That’s a good boy.’ She steps closer to Henry and puts one hand on his shoulder, staring intently at me. ‘But this too. This is very good boy.’ She takes her hand away and makes the ‘explosion’ gesture again. Oh my god.

---

‘Should I ask what that was about?’ Henry says, once Mrs C has scurried back to the kitchen.

I’m really surprised. I expected him to act like it had never happened.

‘Um.’ I run my hands back through my hair, stretch my shoulders back and say, ‘We had a conversation about the man she was with before Mr C—’

‘There was a man before Mr C?!’ Henry blurts out, then glances around the cafe, a panicked expression on his face.

I laugh. ‘I know. And it was all good. They were supposed to get married. But no…’ I do the firework thing.

‘I don’t know what that’s meant to be,’ Henry says. ‘That was going to be my next question.’

‘It’s a firework! Obviously!’ I do it again and add Mrs C’s ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhhs’.

‘Never would’ve got that,’ Henry says.

‘I mean, it’s clearly a firework. I don’t know how anyone could possibly mime firework better than that.’

Henry raises both his hands in fists. Opens one after the other in quick succession while making a sort of popping sound and flicking his fingers.

I laugh so much I cry. ‘OK,’ I tell him. ‘That was better. You are the king of fake fireworks.’

‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I’m very proud.’

I wipe my eyes with a napkin and say, ‘Do it again.’

And he does. Even though he’s embarrassed. He’s so great.

---

‘Do you ever hear, like, a voiceover when you’re walking?’ I ask Henry, just after Mrs C’s brought our breakfasts and patted Henry’s cheek again.

‘You want to get that seen to,’ Henry says without looking up from his sausage.

‘No, I mean like… sometimes if I’m, say, running for the Tube, a voice in my head says something like “Bea worried she wasn’t going to make it…” Something like that.’

Henry puts his knife and fork down and stares at me. ‘Seriously?’

I nod. Is that weird? ‘Is that weird?’

‘It’s a bit weird, yeah.’ The corner of his mouth is twitching.

‘Oh. I’ve always done it. The first time I heard the audio description on a TV show it completely freaked me out ’cos it was like hearing my thoughts out loud. I remember being in my room, as a kid, playing a game and hearing “Bea knew she was going to win…’’’

Henry smiles at me, a curious expression on his face. ‘You know you can hear your thoughts out loud when you, you know, talk, right?’

‘Yeah. But no. That’s different. I have thoughts at the same time as I’m talking and they’re different.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

I sit back in my seat, staring at him. ‘What do you mean you don’t know what I mean?!’

‘I don’t have thoughts at the same time I’m talking.’

‘Shut up!’

Henry grins. ‘I don’t. I have the words that come out of my mouth and that’s it. That’s normal, no?’

I frown. ‘OK, so as I’m talking to you, I’m also thinking. Like we started talking about this and I remembered the time I heard the audio description and also the thing when I was a kid. Plus there’s a slight description of this actual conversation and stuff that’s happening in the cafe. And I’m also wondering if Adam and Celine are OK and hoping Freya’s having a good time. But I’m not saying any of that out loud. I’m saying this. To you. Now. Like this.’

‘Yeah, OK, I get it.’ He grins. ‘Jesus, it must be exhausting to be you.’

‘It is a bit, yeah.’ I grin back at him. ‘So you really don’t have, you know, thoughts?’

‘I have thoughts, of course. But I don’t have voices in my head. People get locked up for that.’

‘But what are thoughts if they’re not voices? Wait, hang on. It’s not “voices”. It’s my voice!’

‘OK, so when you were talking then I was thinking about whether I do actually have the voices, so, yes, I have thoughts. But the thoughts were thoughts, they weren’t in a voice.’

‘So how do you hear them?’

He picks up a piece of toast. ‘I just hear them. They’re not spoken.’

‘Weird.’

I eat most of my sausage and half of my egg in silence, and then I say, ‘Can you picture stuff in your head?’

Henry bursts out laughing. ‘I need another coffee.’

Once he’s got his coffee, he announces, totally casually, ‘OK. I’ve got one. I sometimes pretend I’m in a music video.’

I laugh. ‘Seriously? That’s much worse!’

‘HOW is it worse than you with your constant narration and director’s commentary?’

‘Well… do you dance?’

‘Yeah,’ he says, pulling a face at me. ‘I usually walk to work like this…’

He struts in his seat, rolling his shoulders, and then goes bright red.

‘I have literally never seen you do that,’ I say. ‘But I’m going to demand it every day now.’

‘No, but like if I’m on the bus and looking out of the window I imagine there’s music playing and I’m being filmed for like the lonely bit of the video. Or it happened the other day – I was making toast in the kitchen at home and I was singing along with something Freya was playing on her phone and it just… felt like a music video. Like the toast would pop up on the beat… you know?’

I stare at him. ‘I really, really don’t.’

He shakes his head. ‘I think you’re lying, but OK.’

I keep grinning at him. I wish I’d seen him dancing with his toast.

‘What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve never told anyone?’ Henry asks me.

I bite at the bit of loose skin next to my thumbnail. ‘I tell myself stories before I go to sleep.’

He shakes his head. ‘Everyone does that!’

‘No, I don’t mean like stuff that’s happened during the day.’ Which is what I assume other people do. ‘I mean, I make up scenarios. Like I’m working in the shop, alone, and Harry Styles comes in. And he asks me to help him look for a book and…’

‘No,’ Henry says, his eyes crinkling with laughter. ‘I do exactly this. But not with Harry Styles, obviously.’

‘Obviously,’ I agree, although my cheeks heat with the suggestion.

‘But, say…’ He screws his face up while he thinks. ‘Gillian Anderson. She’s in London doing a play. And she’s looking for a book to buy for the director. So it has to be perfect, right? And she comes in the shop. I’m alone – you’ve gone off in a strop ’cos someone’s used the last of the milk.’

I roll my eyes.

‘So she comes in and she asks me to help her find this perfect book. So obviously, we look at the books together. And as we’re looking, we move closer and her arm brushes against mine…’

His cheeks have gone pink.

‘With sexy results!’ I say, delighted. ‘Oh my god. All this time I thought I was the only perv.’

‘God, no,’ he says. ‘Total perv here.’ He grins. ‘And there’s no way you thought you were the only perv. You’ve got the internet.’

‘Right,’ I say. ‘I mean, the only perv in this very specific way. And it turns out that not only is the daydreaming thing not that unusual, you’ve been having the very same exact fantasy!’

We both go pink at that.

‘I think it’s something a lot of people do,’ Henry says. ‘When I was a kid, I used to dream I could go into video games and be the character. Like I’d be Mario rescuing Princess Daisy or whatever. And then Buffy was very… inspiring.’

‘I bet,’ I say, without admitting that Xander, Spike, even Giles have appeared in more than one of my own daydreams.

‘So I think we’ve both agreed – not that embarrassing,’ Henry says. ‘So you need to come up with something else.’

I shake my head. ‘There just isn’t anything. I haven’t really done anything. All the embarrassing stuff is in my head.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ he says. ‘You must’ve done something wild. Even only once.’

‘Nope. Nothing.’

‘Never flashed anyone?’

‘God!’ I say. ‘Of course not!’

‘You could do it now,’ he says.

‘I’m not flashing you. Absolutely not.’

‘I didn’t mean me!’ He’s gone bright red, so I know he’s telling the truth.

‘Who then?’

He gestures at the cafe. There’s a guy sitting at the far end, reading a newspaper. A woman with her back to us. A couple who are deep in conversation, with only eyes for each other. ‘I’ll close my eyes.’

I laugh. ‘I’m not doing that. No way.’

And of course I’m not. I’ve never done anything like that. I never would do anything like that. So why do I feel so disappointed in myself?

‘I’m totally mooning through the window once we leave,’ Henry says.