Free Over You by Lucy Diamond

had too much history for that to change. It was reassuring, when other things in life were forever shifting, that you could have your best friends as constants, through thick and thin, good times and bad . . .
    In went the eyelash curlers and the tweezers and the eyeshadow pots and the nail varnish. Not that she’d used any of that last night: Nell had made Josie up with a load of freebies Lisa had donated to them. There was the foundation and the perfume – phew, mercifully unbroken. Was that everything? Where had her little mirror landed?
    Bending her neck stiffly, Josie peered under the bed. Christ, even the space under Lisa’s spare-room bed was tidy and ordered. Josie lived in horror of anyone seeing the cardboard boxes crammed with stuff, and fluffballs like tumbleweed under the bed she shared with Pete.
    Not so in Lisa’s case, though. Of course. There were several rose-patterned storage boxes stacked up neatly right at the back, and a smart black suitcase. Was that her mirror next to it? She stretched an arm under the bed, groping around for where she’d seen the tell-tale flash of silver. Her fingers closed around something – oh, it was the edge of another storage box – and then she managed to knock that over. God, what was wrong with her? She was a right oaf this morning!
    She peered under the bed again and sighed. Now there were heaps of Lisa’s stuff all over the floor. Bloody hell. She was never going to get her bacon sarnie at this rate. She swept her arm around it, dragging everything out into the light. There was the mirror – oh, and another eye pencil she’d missed. And there . . .
    She blinked uncertainly. There, in a small round frame, was a photo. Of Pete.
    She stared in surprise, her brain racing to make sense of the discovery. Why on earth was there a picture of her husband under Lisa’s bed? How had it ended up there? It wasn’t even a photo she recognized. In fact, she was quite sure she’d never seen it before.
    There he was, Pete, gazing up at her from her hand, as if he could tell the answer to the riddle, smiling into the camera, his eyes crinkling at the corners. The photo had been taken a few years ago, she guessed, because he was wearing a top that he’d loved to death one summer – when was it? She couldn’t think suddenly. His hair looked different in the photo, too. Slightly shorter than it was now.
    Josie frowned, confused. She didn’t recognize the photo. She was sure she hadn’t taken it. It had been cut small to fit in the tiny frame, so she couldn’t see the background, couldn’t give it a context. He looked happy, wherever he was. He looked really happy. Josie could tell by the brightness of his face that the sun was shining, and he had a wide smile, head slightly tilted, shoulders relaxed, as if he were on holiday.
    But who was he smiling at? And why was it making her feel so unsettled to look at it?
    Josie took another slurp of water and got to her feet. Still holding the photograph, she went downstairs to the kitchen, head spinning with questions. She felt as if she was in a strange dream, where everything was muddled.
    She opened the kitchen door, and Nell and Lisa both turned towards her, smiles on their faces.
    The bacon was sizzling. The kettle was whistling. Lisa was at the hob, holding a spatula as she turned, and seemed to be saying something, but Josie couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t take it in.
    Josie stood there in her pyjamas and bare feet, hair sticking up on end. She held up the photo in front of her. ‘I found this under the bed,’ she said, the words sticking to the sides of her dry mouth. ‘Why was this under your bed, Lisa?’

Chapter Five
     
    Lisa blinked. For a split second, her face changed, a ghost of an expression crossing it fleetingly, and then it was gone. Closed book. She shook her head. ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ she said briskly, her features wrinkling in a frown. ‘How weird. Coffee?’
    It is weird,’ Josie said warily,