I open my front door.
“This is a wind-up, isn’t it?” Standing in the hallway, she flips back her hood. Loosens her coat. Her skin is summer-holiday brown.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I’ve actually... made other plans.”
Until ten minutes ago that wasn’t strictly true. So I feel doubly dishonest for saying it.
“Other plans, like, a girl?”
My eyes tell her yes.
“But you let me come all the way over here anyway.”
“I forgot,” I finally admit. “I’m sorry.”
She doesn’t say anything. For a moment, I think she might start crying. I’ve never seen Melissa cry, have sometimes wondered if she even knows how.
She recovers temporarily. “Well, can I come in for a pee at least? I’m bursting.”
“Of course. Sorry. Of course you can.”
And it’s while I’m unthinkingly stepping aside to let her into my flat that I look up. Callie’s at the top of the stairs, still as a startled fawn, Murphy by her feet.
But before I can open my mouth to say her name, she’sdisappeared.
PARTTWO
25.
Callie
Tell me it gets easier. Missing you. I thought it would, but it only seems to be getting harder.
I want to hear your voice in real life, not just in my head. I want to laugh with you and kiss you. Tell you about all the things I’ve been doing. Have you hold me in your arms, feel your face close to mine.
But I know writing this is as close as I’m going to get to a conversation. So for now I’ll pretend you’re here by my side, that I’m talking to you. Maybe it’ll help—stop me wanting to see you, just one more time.
I wish you were here, so much. I’m missing you, Joel, more than I can bear.
26.
Joel
Melissa’s in the bathroom with the door ajar, partway through a speech. Meanwhile I’m lapping the living room, desperate to sprint up the stairs and tell Callie this isn’t what it looks like. (I even find myself wondering if I might actually have time, before Melissa wraps up what’s turning out to be the longest pee in history.)
“... I mean, you don’t forget anything. You never have. You even know mymum’sbirthday, for God’s sake.”
Finally the flush, then running water.
“So who is she?” She reappears, stops still in the doorway, folds her arms. My heart gives way a little when I take in the elegance of her dress, the curls she’s heated into her hair.
“It’s the girl from upstairs, isn’t it? The one from the shop. I could tell you liked her when you got all bristly with me.”
I think about Dominic, the guy she’d been sort-of-seeing earlier this month. I don’t want to call her out on it, exactly. But the arrangement between Melissa and me has always been just that. An arrangement. “Why... why are you making me feel bad?”
“I’m not. Maybe you just... feel bad.”
“I am sorry, Melissa.”
