She closed her eyes for a moment. All the emotion was making her a lot more tired than normal. Very sluggish.
Okay. She needed to shake this off. She really couldn’t work at the moment. Maybe she’d walk round to see Dina, see if she was up for a little coffee break. Or tea maybe. She’d been drinking a lot of herbal recently. She wouldn’t mind a ginger and lemon one this minute.
She’d been struggling a little bit spending time with Dina since she got back, due to the guilt she felt over sleeping with James. Rationally, there was nothing to feel guilty about. Dina and James had never been together. Dina had told Cassie before she left for London that she knew that she and James weren’t right for each other anyway. Dina had had more hot sex with Amy’s professor. And Cassie and James weren’t really in touch any more. But it still felt bad.Reallybad. And since she and Jamesweren’tin touch – oh, God, just thinking about it she was welling up again – there was no reason to tell Dina about any of it, because the last thing she’d want to do would be hurt Dina. Of course, if she called James and told him she loved him and something happened,thenshe’d have to tell Dina. Something to think about later.
She stood up. She was definitely going round to see Dina. Dina was a great, great friend and neighbour.
‘Hey, stranger. Haven’t seen so much of you the last couple weeks. Flat out with work?’ Dina hugged her.
‘Yep, very busy.’ If you could call it busy sitting at your desk staring into space and crying quite often and sleeping the rest of the time.
‘I’ll put the kettle on. And I have pastries.’
Five minutes later, Dina said, ‘Here you are,’ and put Cassie’s coffee down in front of her.
‘Thank you.’ Cassie hadn’t even got the mug halfway to her lips before she realised that Dina had made it far too strong. Dina was not an absent-minded person, but she must have absent-mindedly put about three times too much coffee in. Just from the stomach-turningly disgusting smell wafting out of the mug, Cassie could tell that it was undrinkable. In fact, she was gagging slightly just from the smell.
She put the mug back down on the table and pushed it away as subtly as she could and leaned backwards in her chair to get away from it.
Dina put a plate of pastries in the middle of the table and sat down opposite Cassie.
Cassie took a plain croissant. The others looked too sugary.
Now that did taste good. Lovely and carby. The coffee still smelled grim, though. She pushed it a bit further away.
‘So how’s Amy?’ she asked. She was a terrible friend. She should have been around more now that Dina was on her own. Oh no. Her eyes were misting over thinking about Dina being lonely.
‘She’s good.’ Dina leaned forward and looked closely at Cassie. Eurgh. Herbreath. Itstankof coffee. ‘Honey, are you okay?’
‘Yes. Great. Just got something in my eye.’ Cassie turned her face away from Dina’s and breathed only through her mouth. Should shewarnDina that she shouldn’t go out in public with such severe coffee-breath? Would that be really rude? Or would it be being a good friend?
Dina’s coffee had to be mouldy or something. Cassie pushed her mug further away and inched her chair back from the table.
‘Something wrong with the coffee?’ Dina had a strange look in her eye.
Honesty or a white lie? Honesty. She’d be doing Dina a favour.
‘Yes.’ Cassie raised her eyebrows, scrunched her face and nodded.
Dina reached for Cassie’s mug and took a big sniff. ‘Honey, there’s nothing wrong with that.’
Cassie was feeling really shaky from hunger and from the disgusting smell. She took another croissant.
‘Honestly, Dina, the coffee smells hideous. Vomit-level hideous.’ She did actually feel quite sick.
Dina was studying Cassie with an even stranger look in her eye now.
‘What?’ Cassie said, munching her croissant.
‘Okay,’ Dina said. ‘Right.’
‘Seriously? What?’
‘Honey.’ Dina paused and Cassie gave her the evil eye. Like, just getonwith whatever she was going to say. ‘Okay. I don’t want to say this because I don’t want to intrude.’
What? When did Dina ever not want to intrude?
‘But I kind of feel I should say it because if it’s true and you don’t know then you really do need to know so you can look after yourself properly. And if it’s true and you don’t want to talk about it then I’m so sorry for intruding. And if it isn’t true, I’m also very sorry. But you’re very tired. You’re very emotional. You think my coffee’s off. Basically, do you think you could be pregnant?’
