The Story of You by Katy Regan

three years ago, in the pub on one of the rare Christmases I’d spent in Kilterdale, and been surprised to feel a stab of jealously at the fact he was with Kate, his girlfriend at the time. That he’d even moved in with her. He’d aged since then (but then, grief does that to you). The dark circles he was always prone to around his eyes were more pronounced, and when he smiled, which was often, there were quite deep lines running from his eyes to his hairline, which when I studied him closer, was peppered with a few grey hairs. But older suited him; as though he’d always been older, his face just waiting to catch up. Every time our eyes met, I saw that behind his eyes was the same person I’d known.
    The woman took a breath. I really had to go.
    ‘Joe, I’ll call you, okay?’ I said, squeezing his hand. ‘I don’t want to interrupt,’ but he squeezed mine tighter.
    ‘But you’re not interrupting.’ His eyes were pleading with me. ‘Come on, don’t go yet. Please? This is Betty.’
    Betty looked pretty cheesed off I’d waded in and ruined her flow.
    ‘Betty used to be a lollipop lady, and knew us all from the very first week Mum and Dad moved to Kilterdale. She used to cross us over to primary school, didn’t you, Bet? Hand me bootleg sweeties from her pocket.’
    ‘He was a bloody nuisance,’ she said, and Joe and I laughed. ‘A few penny sweets and he was high as a kite.’
    Joe had been diagnosed as hyperactive when he was little, and was never allowed sweets or stuff like Kia-Ora. By the time I met him, at sixteen, he was still bouncing off the walls most of the time, but I’d always loved that about him – his energy.
    I said, ‘He didn’t improve with age.’
    ‘How do you know?’ said Joe. ‘You haven’t spent any time with me for sixteen years.’ He was looking at me, quite intently. I couldn’t help think that comment was loaded. ‘Anyway, this is Robyn.’ He said, eventually.
    ‘Robyn, eh?’ said Betty. ‘That’s a funny name for such a bonny girl. Is she the lucky lady?’
    ‘No, no …’ Joe said. ‘There is no lucky lady at the moment, Bet.’
    So he was no longer with Kate?
    ‘Robyn’s a friend. A very old, good friend.’ His gaze was intense enough for it to make me look away.
    ‘She’s a l’il corker, too. Look at all that lovely thick hair,’ Betty said.
    ‘Now you’re making me blush, Betty,’ I replied.
    ‘Oh, I still blush,’ said Bet, ‘and I’m eighty-six!’
    Betty eventually gave Joe her condolences and shuffled off. I really did have to be getting back to Dad and Denise’s, even though an evening with them – Dad watching
Gardener’s World
, Denise bringing him endless, elaborate snacks, didn’t exactly fill me with glee. I opened my mouth to say as much when, from out of the corner of my eye, I saw a thickset bald bloke making his way over. He had one child by the hand and was pushing a twin buggy – with twins in it – with the other. Stopping, he slapped an arm around Joe. ‘Hey, Sawyer!’ It was only when he was right up close that I realized it was Voz. ‘You did really well, mate. I wouldn’t have been able to stand up there and do that.’
    ‘Cheers, Voz,’ said Joe, giving Voz a manly back-slapping hug in return. ‘That means a lot.’
    ‘All right, Vozzy?’ I said. I was adopting my old matey, blasé school tones, when really I was shocked. I hadn’t seen Voz for years – since that day Joe nearly drowned at the Black Horse Quarry. Who was this beefcake before me? What had happened to runty Voz?
    ‘All right, Kingy. How are you?’ For some reason, I was touched that he’d used my nickname. ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’
    ‘You have!’ I said. Joe sniggered. ‘I mean … you look like you’ve been busy.’
    He giggled. When Voz used to giggle, he used to look like a cute rat; now he looked like a cute fat rat, all his pointy, ratty features concentrated in the middle of a big round face.
    ‘Yep, this is