Clara is going all therapist on me. I shrug too quickly, like I’m swatting away a fly. “Normal. It made me feel normal. Because we’re friends. It’s fine.”
There’s a beat of silence. Clara tilts her head, and her eyes flick across my face and her eyebrows raise.
“Freya,” she says gently, “you’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you say it’s fine in a voice that absolutely is not fine.”
I let out a laugh that is mostly breath. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want you to say the truth,” she replies, and there’s no judgement in it. Just an invitation.
My fingers tighten around my mug. My nails tap the ceramic once, twice, like my body has to do something with the tension. “The truth,” I repeat, tasting the word like it’s risky. “The truth is… I didn’t like it.”
Clara’s grip on my hand tightens slightly, as if she’s saying, okay, keep going.
“I didn’t like hearing him,” I say quietly. “Being happy. Being normal. Like everything is… sorted. Like he didn’t almost…” I stop, because the rest of that sentence has teeth.
“Like he didn’t almost kiss you?” Clara supplies.
Heat crawls up my neck. “We’re not saying it like that.”
Clara’s mouth pulls into a half-smile. “We’re absolutely saying it like that.”
I glare at her, but there’s no bite in it. My glare is mostly desperation, like I’m trying to intimidate the truth back into hiding. “It’s fine,” I insist again, softer this time. Less convincing. “We agreed. Friends. That’s what we’re doing.”
Clara leans back slightly, studying me in that way she does when she’s weighing whether to push. Then she takes a slow sip of her latte and says, casually, “And is that working?”
Clara the sodding therapist is back.
I open my mouth and the automatic answer is right there, ready to launch. Yes. Of course. It’s great. We’re mature adults. But my throat tightens, because the truth is sitting behind my teeth. Clara watches me with that look again. The one that says, don’t you dare lie to me. “I’m fine,” I say anyway, because apparently I’m committed to the lie.
Clara’s eyes soften, but she doesn’t let it slide. She just tilts her head and says, “Freya.”
It’s not even a question. It’s my name as a mirror. I look down at my coffee, at the little crescent of foam clinging to the edge, at the way my hands are wrapped around the mug like it’s keeping me upright. Here’s the thing I don’t say out loud. I have to pretend things are fine because admitting they aren’t opens a door I’m terrified to walk through. Because if I admit I’m not fine, then Clara will say the obvious thing. She’ll say, you’re not over him. She’ll say, you still want him. She’ll say, what are youdoing about it? And I don’t want to be doing anything about it. Not yet. Not like that. Because “doing something about it” with Rory isn’t a casual decision. It isn’t a coffee date. It’s not harmless. It’s a mess waiting to happen. It’s school gates and Isla and history and that impossible pull that makes me feel fourteen and forty at the same time. It’s risking Theo. It’s risking my sanity. It’s risking the fragile balance I’ve built with my own hands, brick by brick, while everyone else assumed I’d be okay. So I keep it small. I keep it manageable. I keep it behind jokes and practicality and “it’s fine” because “it’s fine” is a lid, and if I take the lid off I don’t know how much will spill.
Clara is still watching me. I force a bright, fake smile and say, “He’s been… normal. Just friendly. Which is good.”
Clara’s mouth twists like she’s biting back an entire lecture. “Normal Rory.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re normal Freya.”
I nod, too quickly. “Exactly. Normal. Mature. Grown-up. Not at all emotionally deranged.”
Clara snorts. “Mmm.”
I poke my spoon into the little pot of sugar on the table just to have something to do, then realise I’m not even putting it in my coffee. I’m just… poking sugar like a woman with an extremely unstable nervous system.
Clara’s gaze flicks to my fingers. “Do you want another coffee?”
“Do I want another coffee?” I repeat, as if it’s a philosophical question. “I want to be sedated.”
Clara laughs, and some of the tension in my chest loosens. “Come on. Another coffee. And then we’ll walk for a bit. Fresh air. We can pretend we’re those women who do that for fun and not because they’re on the brink of collapse.”
“Perfect,” I say. “I love cosplay.”
