ONE
They say a change is as good as a rest, well arrest me, then, because I’m not ready for the changes you bring …
–from ‘Change It Up’, by These Exiles
‘JESSY, ALL YOU HAVE to do is message some guys,’ begged my sister, hands clasped before her. ‘I just need you to –’
‘Yeaaaah, no!’
But my older twin wasn’t one to take no for an answer –
‘Ouch!’ I rubbed my ear, the music that had been playing there suddenly absent.
Laura tossed my earbud on to her kitchen table. Her glasses had a few smudge marks in the corners, but it didn’t stop the determination in her gaze coming through, flicking away only to look at our best friend. ‘Anna’s going to help, aren’t you, Anna? Ann–’
But Anna was already on the move, her laptop bag, notes and her phone all balanced impossibly in one hand.
‘Sorry, babe, I’d love to – but I’ve got to get going. My caseload at work has doubled since they fired Julian,’ she said with a grimace, gold eyeliner making her dark eyes pop even as she rolled them. ‘I just came by to grab the notes I left herelast night.’ The three of us had spent the evening working on various projects, before giving up and bingeing the latest season ofTemptation Hotel.
‘Anna, I am begging you –’ started my sister.
‘And your begging is noted.’ Anna poured coffee into the flask Laura had just handed her. ‘I’m sorry, really, but I have to go.’
I called after her. ‘You’re going to leave me here with her?’
‘Duty calls!’ our best friend said with a wry smile, grabbing her jacket, throwing it around her shoulders and pulling her box braids free. Her hair tumbled down to her waist, bouncing as she shot back, ‘Besides, if I stay much longer, I’ll get roped in too. Not a risk I’m willing to take.’
I laughed as Anna hugged my sister and threw me a wink as she shut the front door to the flat behind her.
‘Escaping before you bully her into this nonsense too. She’s got the right idea,’ I teased.
‘I’ll get her in the end,’ Laura said with a grin that was honestly a little frightening. Laura had a tendency to go a little crazy with her projects. ‘I always do.’
She wasn’t wrong. Laura, Anna and Jessy. Friends for practically forever – and Laura had been talking us into all sorts of things for just as long. She was the one who convinced us to get our noses pierced at fourteen. She was the one who’d found fake IDs to sneak us into the clubs. And now –
‘Look, are you going to help me or not?’ Laura narrowed her eyes as she placed the coffee she’d made for me on to the kitchen table.
I smiled sweetly. ‘Absolutely not.’
I had to stand firm. Unlike the time we got our noses pierced, and the time we got fake IDs, I was not going togive in. She was just going to have to learn to take no for an answer.
Laura turned away from me, but only to grab a cloth and immediately wipe up the offending coffee ring on the table. ‘What I don’t understand, Jessy,’ my delightful sister forced out through gritted teeth, pushing her glasses up her nose, ‘is why you even bothered to come over here if all you’re going to do is –’
The cheeky – ‘You said it was an emergency!’ I picked up my phone and thrust our chat into her face. ‘The house burning down is an emergency! You’re pregnant is an emergency. Wanting me to join your dating app?Notan emergency. Matter of fact, it’s the exact opposite of an emergency. Can’t believe I left a guy in my bed for –’
Laura’s eyes widened as she threw the cloth down. ‘A guy – a guy? I thought you’d sworn off dating?’
‘Screwing isnotdating, Laura.’ I rolled my eyes. Trust her to focus on the least important part of my impassioned speech. ‘The point is, I wouldn’t have come over if I’d known you were just trying to stick your nose into my love life.’
We may not have been identical twins, and we were distinctly lacking in telepathic skills, but Laura knew me better than anyone. She knew I wasn’t ready to start dating again. Casual hook-ups, sure – a girl has needs, after all. But anything more serious than that?
No chance.
I knew Laura’s business venture, Butterflies, was important to her. I’d spent the last few years watching her put herself through coding classes by waiting tables, cycling takeaways across London’s potholed streets, and working some shitty retail job – how she’d managed all three, I don’t know. She’dfinally quit all her jobs a few months ago and started her own company from this very kitchen table.
Coffee rings and all.
I was ridiculously proud of her, and ridiculously certain that she was going to become a billionaire before we were thirty – Laura was amazing like that. She’d inherited all the go-getter genes and left none for me.
