Ending up in a car with the one person I'd come out here to avoid was not welcome. And yet, of course, it being warm and not the-side-of-the-road-in-the-increasingly-cold-wind was actually very welcome indeed. The fact that it suddenly started tipping it down with rain while I stood there was just another factor. 

To clear any doubt up, I did try to avoid it. I gave him a tight smile, and said, "Yes, thank you, Joe-Moe. You can run along and be a white knight another day."

He squinted at me.

"Is that Helena?"

Which is when I realised that he hadn't recognised me. He'd just stopped because I was someone out and alone on a highway. And I might have gotten away with it if I'd just said, "Yes, thanks" like any other person. 

He turned off the engine and opened the door.

"Seriously," I said. "Did you not hear me say I'm ok?"

He gave a pointed look at the bike tyre, and raised an eyebrow.

"You have a puncture kit?"

I was so angry with him just then. I was angry with him for stopping, angry with him for caring, and angriest of all that he'd seen me vulnerable. It was impossible not to snap at him, even if it just made things worse for me.

"Of course I don't have a puncture kit! Do you think I'd be walking back to Boston if I did?"

"Right," he said, and approached me. I took a step backwards until I realised he was reaching out for the bike. 

"What are you doing?"

"Putting it in the back of the car," he said. "You go and sit in the passenger seat and get warm."

"I'm not sitting anywhere," I grumbled, half giving in and half resisting. 

It turned out that putting it in the back was actually pretty difficult. He had to put two of the back seats down, wedge the front wheel in the gap and then twist the handlebars. 

"Look, it's clearly too much trouble," I said, four or five times. I was having to hold my teeth clenched to stop the sound of them clacking together, but he didn't say a word. He just kept on pushing the bike gently in until eventually it gave. The trunk shut with a satisfying clunk, and he nodded.

"Come on."

He climbed back into the car, and I finally had to admit that I was beaten. I went to the passenger door and got in, huddling in the seat while he got the engine going and turned the blower on. It was a pretty old, pretty minimal kind of car but at least it had heating. 

"I have some dry kit in my bag," he said, as he pulled out onto the road. "It's only five minutes to a pretty good diner."

"I'm fine," I said, hunching my knees up against my chest. "Just take me home."

He gave a quiet laugh. 

"You know, it doesn't make you weak needing someone's help once in a while."

I didn't have a smart reply, so I sat and shivered for five minutes until he stopped at the diner, which looked so brightly-lit and warm that it was like an oasis in the night. But going in meant eating with him. It meant talking further with him, and letting him past more of my defences. It would be a mistake. If he wanted to talk about weakness, that would have been weakness.

"Well I'm going in," he said, as I sat in mulish silence. 

I'd like to pretend that it was only the cold that made me follow him inside. It was definitely a strong motivating factor. But the way he quietly picked up his kitbag from the back seat in case I needed it meant something to me, and he pulled at me as much as the lights and the warmth.

I got out in silence, and took the bag when he handed it to me. 

"I can get us a table while you change, if you like," he said, and I was so eager to peel off the wet clothes I was wearing that I didn't even argue. I took the bag and almost ran towards the restrooms, nearly taking another customer out with the bulky bag as I rushed by.

Of course his clothes were too big. I pulled two pairs of jogging bottoms out of the bag and in spite of the shuddering cold, rejected them pretty quickly after it turned out they made me look like a marshmallow. (I told you I was vain.)

Even his skin-tight football trousers (which were clean, thank goodness) were loose, but at least they stayed up and made me look like I had some kind of a physique. I pulled a blissfully dry shirt over the top, which came halfway down my thighs, and finished it off with a hoodie that was roughly two foot wider than I was but was all there was. I thought about stuffing my clothes back inside his bag, but didn't trust myself not to forget them, so I just rolled them all up into a wet, clammy ball and carried them out under my arm.

Joe had secured a table right next to one of the fan heaters that kept the place slightly steamy. He glanced up at me and then looked down at the menu, grinning slightly.

"What?" I asked, dumping the kit-bag down on the floor.

"Nothing at all," he said, and then, with a crooked smile at me, "You're just a lot fluffier-looking than I'm used to."

"Shut up," I said. And then, realising it was a little ungrateful, added, "Thanks for the clothes."

I moved my chair as close as it would go to the heater, hoping that the hours of cooling down whilst sleeping would be undone by a few minutes of intense cooking myself. I was still shivering, but my chest no longer felt like ice. I guessed my core must be warming up a little.

A teenage waiter came over to take our order, and I made an effort to smile at him when I asked for, "A pizza and the biggest, hottest latte you've ever seen."

"Great. Do you want to order a starter?"

I glanced down at the menu, and then back up at him. "What will get the food here the quickest?"

"Ahhh... I guess having a soup starter or something before a main."

"Then I'll have that," I told him. 

Joe sat watching me after that. It was kind-of awkward, the way he looked me over, then away, and then looked at me again. But it was better than talking to him and risking getting to actually like him. 

Eventually, after his coke and my coffee had been deposited in front of us, he said, "I would like to know why you're like you are."

I finished swallowing several mouthfuls of coffee and sighed. "Well, Joe-Moe, it all started in this big liquid mass. We sometimes call it a promordial soup. Somewhere in there, the first sparks of life began, and then-"

"Or you could just be hilarious all evening and I'll laugh until I hurt," he said, smiling slightly.

"My point was," I said, "that everyone is like they are for a large number of reasons."

"True," he said. "But I get the feeling with you that there's one particularly big thing that's making you..."

"A bitch?" I asked.

"No," he said, considering.

"Horrible? Irritating? Kind-of nasty?"

"Defensive and vulnerable," he said.

"Ah, well analysed, Sigmund."

He just ignored the sarcasm, and went on. "We established last night that you're frightened of being hurt."

"Did we?" I asked. "Do you mean when I refused to dance with you for fear of actual bodily injury?"

"I was thinking of when you refused to say anything that wasn't flippant for fear of actual human interaction," he said back, matching my tone exactly.

It was funny, and it was also so true that it was a little bit painful.

"So who hurt you?" he asked.

I spent a while drinking my coffee again, a sip at a time, feeling it warm me through from my stomach outwards. I wasn't really cold any more, but for some reason I couldn't stop shivering. It was a little bit terrifying to realise that I was poised on the edge of telling him something that I couldn't tell anyone. I had to retreat, somehow. 

"I don't - it's not something I like to talk about," I said in the end. 

"But maybe it's good to talk about," he persisted, quietly.

I rubbed a hand over my wet hair, and looked up at him, properly. There was a keen, lively interest in his expression but also a patience and something like sympathy. 

I shook my head, smiling a little humourlessly. "I don't think you'd think so if I did."

"Try me," he said. 

"You really want to know?" I asked him, my heart speeding up with the pressure of the words that really, really wanted to be said. 

"I do. I'm kind-of nosy," he added. 

"Fine." I sat back, and looked at him flatly. "Everyone hurt me. Every single person I have ever cared about has waited until I got really close to them and then abandoned me for someone else. Every last friend, and every boyfriend. And everyone will, without it even being their fault."

"Why isn't it their fault?" he asked. Which wasn't the question I'd been expecting.

"It's not - it's pretty impossible to explain," I said, and guessed from his expression that he thought I was being some kind of a melodramatic teenager. "And I don't mean because I'm worthless, or not good enough for any of them, or anything like that. I don't have any issues and there's nothing you can fix."

He grinned. "All right, I won't try and fix anything. But you can still explain it."

I wasn't so sure. But I was so very tired of keeping quiet. I was tired of the secret I could never let on, because it would be considered madness - or worse, some kind of damage - by everyone I cared about.

"I make everyone I care about fall in love," I said, at last. "It's not deliberate, and it's not something I can control. I don't matchmake any of them. It's not - I can feel it happening. I turn them into some kind of a magnet, and bring their perfect match to them. Or maybe they aren't their perfect match, and I just make them love each other anyway. But it doesn't matter which when nothing can get in the way of it. That's it. They're in love... for life."

And I hunched back over the heater, waiting for him to laugh at me so we could get it over with and go home.