Read Chapter 5: — FIVE PACKS OF MASKS

The argument lasted forty minutes.

Maya accused Ethan of wanting to be a hero. Ethan accused Maya of pretending that getting on the motorway would make them safe. She cried. He raised his voice, hated himself for it, apologised, then said the same thing more quietly.

"I can drive," he told her. "That's not much, but right now driving matters."

"So does being alive."

"Yes. Which is why I would take precautions."

"We were supposed to see our parents in two days."

"I know."

"We might not get another Christmas with them."

That silenced him.

Maya covered her face.

"I understand why you want to do it," she said. "That's what makes this worse."

Ethan stared at the five boxes of masks Tom had given them. He remembered offering them to Claire at the hospital and her refusing.

"Keep them," she had said. "You may need them more than you think."

He called his parents first.

His father listened. His mother cried before he finished.

"I want to tell you to come home," she said. "Every part of me wants that. But if you stay, promise me this isn't about proving something. Promise me you will be useful, not reckless."

"I promise."

Maya called her mother. That conversation was harder. There was anger, then pleading, then a long silence.

Afterwards, Maya sat in the passenger seat staring at the rain on the windscreen.

"You should go," Ethan said. "I'll find someone travelling north."

"No."

"Maya—"

"No. I am not spending a lockdown three hundred miles away imagining every siren is you."

"You don't have to volunteer."

"I know."

"You can stay inside."

"I know."

"You can also change your mind later."

She looked at him.

"So can you."

They drove home.

That evening they unpacked Christmas presents from the car and stacked them against the hallway wall.

Neither said it aloud, but the house suddenly felt smaller.