Tom rolled his eyes. Martha was born five weeks premature and he was fairly sure that fed into at least ninety percent of Laura’s anxiety about her, but—and he really was no expert—it seemed a bit over the top. Martha was robust. Strong. Healthy. And he suspected she’d be a lot more of all of those things were she allowed to be.
“Have you spoken to...” Tom trailed off. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t ask. The second he received the message from Laura, he’d said to himself that he must not bring up Sophie. It was bad enough that his dad’s wife had befriended his now ex-girlfriend without him giving her the satisfaction of his heartbreak.
“I have,” she replied and then she turned around and left the room, which was fair enough. Anyway, it didn’t really matter. He still had his little spy hard at work.
“Auntie Sophie was crying when she came over the other day,” Martha said as Tom held her hand and walked her up the road toward school after successfully wrestling her into her raincoat. He could feel his hand squeeze hers tighter at the information and loosened his grip.
“Oh dear. Poor Sophie,” he said. Martha was a useful spy, but she was also hard to work with. She offered information when Tom didn’t ask for it, but he’d learned over the last few months that if he asked direct questions, they were either not answered at all or answered with something entirely off topic. He desperately wanted to scream at Martha,Why was she crying?but instead he waited.
“Did you know my favorite Pokémon is Scorbunny?”
He sighed. He’d lost her so soon. “I thought it was the pink one?”
“It was, but now I hate pink.”
He held his hand to his chest. “This is new information to me. Why didn’t you send me a voice note? I need to know these things. What if I’d turned up dressed all in pink?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t have minded.”
Martha jumped up and grabbed a leaf from the tree above her, handing it to him as though it were a rare treasure, when in fact it was her next words that he valued the most. “Sophie told Mummy she thinks she made a mistake,” Martha said. “So I gave her my eraser. Then she cried more and said it wasn’t that kind of mistake. Then she hugged me.”
Tom stared down at her, jigsaw pieces long ago discarded suddenly coming back together and slowly reforming into a picture he could analyze. He had fifteen years’ worth of memories to scan through. Sophie walking into that café in Byron Bay on her gap year and Tom recognizing the British accent. His body gravitating toward her before he could even consider it. His awkward hello and her dazzling smile. How quickly they became inseparable, traveling the rest of Australia and New Zealand together before returning home. Since then, they’d been by each other’s side through everything. Different universities. Two differentcities. Five different homes. Jobs. Successes. Failures. They were an unbreakable team, the two of them. Until they broke. Until, in one conversation, on The Worst Day, Sophie picked up the entire jigsaw of their life and crumbled it into one thousand pieces.
“Lucky you. Sophie gives the best hugs,” Tom mumbled.
“Daddy says you didn’t just have a breakup,you also had a breakdown,” Martha said, looking up at Tom with wide brown eyes. “Then he started laughing and Mummy told him off, even though she agreed with him. Is it true?”
Tom frowned. “No, of course that’s not true. I absolutely did not have a breakdown, I...” He thought back through the weeks post his breakup with Sophie. What was he? “Look, I just...”
“Youwerea bit funny when you stayed at our house.”
“Fine, but remember I’d had—”
“The Worst Day,” Martha said in a voice that made it clear she’d heard that sentence many, many times.
“Exactly. And one day you’ll have your Worst Day and you’ll understand. I was allowed to feel a bit shit. Sorry. A bit... miserable. That’s very different to abreakdown.” Frustration was rising in Tom’s chest, and he took a deep breath in to push it away. It had been a truly awful day. The worst. Surely he was allowed to need some time to recover from it? Why would his dad find that funny? “Why did your mummy tell Daddy off when he said it?”
But just then Martha spotted a friend from class and shouted, “Otis,” letting go of Tom’s hand and running as fast as she could up the hill toward school.
“Don’t run,” Tom shouted half-heartedly, before breaking into a jog to catch up with her. “Your asthma...”
That was it. That was all he was going to get, but she’d offered up some valuable information: Sophie thought she’d made a mistake. It was enough. It was more than enough.
Chapter Three
Daisy
Daisy held on to the Investigative Journalist job in her mind like a treasured stone for the rest of the week, not mentioning it again to Zack. Every day, just to see how it felt, she would click the link to apply. Her fingers would start fizzing as she held them over the keyboard, imagining what she would write. Why she had the skills. Why she wanted the job. Investigative journalists didn’t just react to stories like she did now, they created them. They made headlines that otherwise wouldn’t exist. It was all about digging up things that were meant to stay hidden and Daisy would find them. She’d find them, because she knew how it felt to hide things.
She really thought the fact it was more money might have meant Zack would push her to consider it, but didn’t that just show how much he prioritized her happiness? Especially because they were only just affording the mortgage on their little flat in Stoke Newington and Zack was having to limit their spending and religiously check their joint account to make sure they kept up the payments. Daisy loved their flat. She’d spent years nurturing it and making it a sanctuary for them both. Finding furniture for cheap or free. Saving up to buy paint or plants. One small change at a time, she’d transformed their home into the safe space she’d always wanted.
“Please can we go get lunch? I’mstarvingand if I have to write one more story about Britney’s Instagram feed I’m going to scream.” Clara appeared behind Daisy, pulling her attention away from her screen. She quickly closed the job application and spun around on her chair, jumping up.
“Yes! I’m officially finished for the day. Let’s go.” Clara was on the late shift for the week, and when that happened, they made sure to have at least one lunch together... Sometimes five.
They walked to the only decent place to sit in locally–a fish-and-chips restaurant around the corner from the office. It was far too glamourous for the food it served, with wineglasses on the table and ambient music playing in the background, all with a serving of mushy peas. Daisy mentally ran through the menu, working out what she could get with her seven-pound lunch budget. Zack had reduced it for both of them now that the wedding was drawing closer. They needed every penny they could get.
Clara linked her arm through Daisy’s, black curly hair bouncing up and down as they walked. They didn’t often get to speak in the office, because everything was so fast-paced. There was no time to gossip about themselves when celebrities needed gossiping about.
