Anna gratefully accepted the large glass of red wine Gabi handed her a minute or so later, and the duvet and pillows that were thrown at her when they’d polished the bottle off so she could nest down on the sofa.Gabi even produced a pair of freshly laundered, brushed cotton pyjamas for Anna to wear.
‘Thank you,’ Anna said as she took them and held them to her chest.
‘They are too small for me now. You can have them if you want.’
‘Not for the pyjamas, you dafty – although they’re lovely – I meant for everything.’
‘I just want you to be happy.’
Anna nodded. She knew that. But it was safer not to reply in words, because she also knew that what Gabi wished for her just wasn’t possible. There was a difference between having a quick giggle about falling over your best friend’s two left feet and being truly content and peaceful. Anna wasn’t convinced she could ever feel that way again. How was it possible when a huge piece of herself was missing, and always would be?
ANNA RETURNED HOME the following morning and headed straight for the shower, leaving her clothes in a heap on the bathroom floor. It was her first day back at work after the Christmas holidays, and she didn’t want to be late, even if it wasn’t the most thrilling job in the world.
Before Spencer had died, they’d worked together, but it hadn’t always been that way. He’d left university with a degree in Computer Science and, after a few false starts, had ended up working for a medium-sized video game developer. However,as the popularity of smartphones had risen, Spencer had become obsessed with creating a game app that would go viral. He’d tried all sorts of different things, from racing cars to flying sheep or bubbles that needed popping. He’d earned enough from a couple of them to go part-time, but he’d never quite come up with the big success he’d been looking for.
The problem was that Spencer was a mass of overflowing energy, and he struggled with focusing on one task for a consistent length of time. This became more apparent when he worked whole days at home with no structure. Anna had just accepted that was who Spencer was, but it had frustrated him no end.
He’d begun a search to find a time-management method that worked for his butterfly brain, but nothing had seemed to stick until he’d stumbled upon the concept of ‘block scheduling’, which gave him the structure he needed without pinning him down too hard. However, the only relevant app he could find was not only a bit basic but hot pink. Spencer had ranted at length about that – who on earth made their app all pink with no option to change the colour scheme? Anna had finally got fed up and told him to stop moaning and start creating an app of his own. He had the skills to do so, after all.
And Spencer had done just that. He’d teamed up with a couple of other guys he’d known at uni, and together they’d built ‘BlockTime’, a stylish, intuitive time-management app that (a) wasn’t hot pink and (b) integrated seamlessly with existing calendars, to-do lists and other apps. And, thanks to Spencer’s attempts to create the next viral game, it was more than a little addictive to use. It had taken time, but eventually it had grown in popularity.
Anna had quit her job as an HR assistant manager and had gone to work for the three guys.At first, she’d just done the admin and kept the books, but as time had gone on, she’d become involved in the design side. She had an eye for that kind of thing, it turned out, and while the ‘boys’ had plenty of innovative ideas, sometimes they weren’t always very practical. They’d needed someone to keep them grounded, to make sure the app was the kind of thing people would find easy to use, as well as being cool and full of technical wizardry. She’d loved working alongside Spencer, seeing him do what he was good at. When the money had finally started arriving, they hadn’t been rich, but they’d been comfortable.
She’d taken time off after he died, of course. But two months had turned into three, and then three into six. Eventually, she’d had to admit that she just couldn’t face going back into the office. Vijay and Rhys, the other directors, had understood. She’d inherited Spencer’s share in the business and received a monthly cut from that, but other than that she left them to it. At least one thing she didn’t have to worry about as a widow was money.
But she’d needed something to fill her days, so she’d applied for an admin job at a successful family-run plumbing business, and she’d now been there more than two years. What with it being winter, pipes freezing and boilers giving out, there was likely to be a lot of paperwork to catch up on after the Christmas break. Today was not the day to be late.
When she emerged from the shower, pink and scrubbed, she wrapped a towel around herself and hurried out onto the landing, but then she hesitated. The next logical place to go was the bedroom. She needed fresh clothes. But she hadn’t been in there since she’d fled the house the day before.
Stop being daft, she lectured herself.There’s nothing to be frightened of.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she walked into her bedroom. Spencer had very helpfully pointed out that one of her weaknesses was bottling everything up until she reached boiling point and then, when it exploded out of her, she did and said bizarre things. Was it too much of a stretch to think that she’dhearbizarre things as well?
She walked towards the wardrobe, slowly, quietly, almost as if she was creeping up on it, and then she hooked her fingers around the edge of the half-open door and pulled. Her phone glinted at her from the floor, looking so ordinary, so innocent. She bent down and picked it up.
There. That hadn’t been so hard, had it?
And because it hadn’t been hard, because it all felt a bit surreal, like something that had happened in a dream, she pressed her thumb to the wake-up button and brought the display to life.
She pulled up her phone history. There, near the top of the list, was a call made at exactly midnight on New Year’s Eve. She became aware of a woolly, tangled feeling in her stomach, a strange tightness in her chest. The evidence was there. She’d really dialled. She’d really said, ‘I love you’.
The real question was: what had she heard in the silence that had followed? Nothing? Something? Her imagination going wild?
It had to be that.
She couldn’t entertain anything else. She couldn’t let herself hope and then let those hopes be dashed again. As low and lifeless as she felt at the moment, it was nothing compared to the first few months after Spencer’s death.She didn’t want to go hurtling back to that dark place.
Which meant what she did next was important. She was on a threshold. A knife edge. And there was only one possible direction she could let herself fall.
She lifted her thumb and swiped, deleting the log of just that one call. There. Gone. It had never happened.
Chapter Seven
THE FEBRUARY NIGHT air was cool on Anna’s skin as she walked towards home. She’d known that coming out tonight was going to be a mistake, but she’d come anyway, only to be proven right. Instead of feeling buoyant and energized as Gabi had promised, she felt exhausted and flat.
She and Gabi had been going to salsa classes for six weeks now, although, much to Gabi’s annoyance, Anna had insisted on going to the Tuesday night class instead of the Wednesday night one she knew Jeremy attended. However, once a month, the salsa school held a ‘party’, an opportunity for students from both classes to mingle and practise their moves in a more informal atmosphere.
Anna had cried off the January salsa party, but Gabi had been determined that neither of them were missing the February one, especially as it had been scheduled to coincide with Valentine’s Day. It didn’t take a genius to understand there were certain milestone days every year Anna struggled with. She had done her best to reassure Gabi she’d have a much better evening staying home, out of the way of ‘loved up’ couples, and starting the dark drama series that was next on her ‘to watch’ list,but Gabi hadn’t taken no for an answer, so off to the Civic Centre they’d trotted.
