Page 119 of More Than Just Friends

Even if I had three lifetimes, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to get over Ali, but like Colin and Shania said when I told them what happened, I couldn’t waste my life. Somehow, I had to find a way to move on.

Easier said than done though.

I toed off my shoes, shrugged off my jacket and slumped on the sofa. Looked like it was another night in front of the TV. Alone.

After grabbing my phone and ordering a pizza, my eyes darted to the postcard resting on the coffee table.

It was the one that Ali had sent me, when we went to Fira.

I flipped it over and reread the message for the millionth time.

To my No-No, aka Noah Bear,

Stay amazing, stay true, stay YOU because you’re all kinds of wonderful.

So blessed to have you in my life.

Hugs, kisses and all my best wishes,

Love Axxx

My heart squeezed. I loved that she’d included two of the many childhood nicknames she had for me. And those were lovely words. Just a shame that in the end, my amazingness still wasn’t enough for her.

I jumped up and pulled out the album where I kept all of the postcards we’d sent each other over the years.

There were random ones from places we’d visited in the UK like Cambridge, Bath and Oxford. And although it was our home city, we’d even got each other postcards from London.

As I read the one she’d sent from our school trip to France all those years ago, I smiled.

People thought it was weird that we sent postcards to each other. Especially when we were in the same place together. But like I’d tried to explain to our arsehole matches during that excursion to Fira, it made sense to us. It was our thing. And I was glad that it was. Because it looked like all that was left of our friendship now was memories.

I was just about to slide the postcard into a new plastic pocket within the album when the doorbell rang.

Normally pizza took a while to be delivered on a Saturday night, but I wasn’t complaining. I was starving.

But when I opened the door it wasn’t the pizza delivery driver standing there.

It was Ali.

I blinked quickly, then blinked again.

This past week I hadn’t slept much so I knew I was tired. But I hadn’t realised I was so sleep-deprived that I’d started having hallucinations.

‘Hi,’ she said.

My eyes popped. This wasn’t a hallucination. Ali was actually here.

Well, fuck. I didn’t see that coming.

‘Hey,’ I replied.

I swallowed hard. Ali looked tired, but still beautiful. I had an overwhelming urge to lift her up in my arms, spin her around and kiss her, but I held back.

First, I needed to hear what she had to say.

When I’d walked away last Saturday, I’d said she needed to make a decision one way or the other. So given the time that had elapsed, there was a strong probability that she’d come to tell me she cared for me, but couldn’t do the whole relationship thing and wanted to check if I’d changed my mind about being friends.

The answer would still be a hard no.