“I’m not going,”I said to Rick over speakerphone a week later, while packing my room into boxes. A typed list of cleaning jobs, courtesy of my landlady Roma, lay across my duvet.
Item #4: Scrub skirting boards with toothbrush provided.
She’d hated having people live in her flat, but cost-of-living crisis and all that. It affected the retired too.
No job meant no money for rent, and a swift eviction for me.
“You are,” he replied. “Plus, you kind of have no choice, Miss Unhoused.”
I cringed. I hated that word. And I had a choice. Trouble was, the £501 left in my bank account would soon be required for something more important than Roma’s come-and-go-prison.
Like food. Or my dignity.
“Then you have to come with me.”
“I’ve got back-to-back meetings and I’m drowning in deadlines like a baby who can’t swim.”
“Ew. Not a good visual.”
“Sorry, Ry. I’d be there if I could. But you’ve got this. Maybe it’s the new beginning you’ve been waiting for. A step in the right direction?”
“Or the punchline to a sick joke.”
“Also possible,” Rick agreed. “But still. You might as well find out, right? No harm done.”
I didn’t know whether I could agree with that. Plenty of harm had already been done where 6 Bellamy Lane was concerned—the home I still couldn’t say out loud without tasting metal. But it felt like an itch I needed to scratch. Call it sick curiosity, but I wanted to know who the hell orchestrated the whole thing.
“It’s all good. I’ve called in reinforcements.”
“Reinforcements? Who?” His voice sharpened.
“Jealous? If you weren’t so busy being a corporate sellout… but you’re clearly too good for me now.”
“Who?” he repeated, urgency level ten.
“None of your business.”
“You don’t have any other friends but me,” he teased.
The spare jab hit me between the ribs. I had some friends. The maintenance of friendships, however, was not my forte.
“Well, now I’m really not going to tell you.”
“I’m sorry,” he groaned. “Tell me. My anxiety needs reassurance you don’t have another BFF.”
“June,” I muttered.
His exhale was pure relief. “June! Man, I thought you meant someone cool.”
“Hey! I’m telling her you said that, and she’s going to?—”
“Kick my ass?” Rick interrupted. “All five foot nothing of her. Maybe if she stood on your shoulders…”
Asshole.
I stabbed the red button like my three-year-old niece ending a FaceTime tantrum.
My phone buzzed.
