Page 49 of If We Were Young

I should have spoken, and he should have asked.

Those two things could never be rewound.

His fingers curled around the handle of the door and he gave a push, his body rocking against mine slightly. He turned, his face so close I could almost taste his skin.

I tore my eyes away. Under the sleeve of his jumper were those faded threads of cotton. I reached a finger and ran the tip along the edges, half cotton, half warm skin. He didn’t take them off, despite his anger.

“I’m sorry.” His whisper rushed along my face.

“Me too.”

Coffee

It was with shoes of lead I walked into the office the next day. Natalie smirked as I slunk in through the door trying to make myself so small no one would see me.

I was only five foot two. But even I couldn’t get that small.

“Morning, Boss.”

“Mm.” I shot her some pistol fingers and then fell into my office. My head pounded with the tramp of a hundred elephants and my mouth tasted like a wild bear had used me as a litter tray.

I wished I could say it was all a dream. That I hadn’t discovered that Matthew had ignored me for fifteen years, all because he thought he saw me snogging someone else. Of course, if I thought about it, the fact he’d been that angry would be a pause for thought, but I wasn’t there yet. Or anywhere even close.

No.

I’d woken to find my scrawl on my bedroom mirror in eyeliner.

I hate Matthew Carling

In jet black.

I needed that eyeliner too. I looked shit. My eyes puffy, my skin pale.

I blinked hard at the sun in the form of yellow roses sitting on my desk. Thank God I had my sunglasses on, otherwise I’d have been blinded. “Where did these come from?” I called into reception, minimising the sound to the barest whisper in case I ruptured my remaining brain cells.

“Delivery this morning. There’s a note,” Natalie called back.

Her need to get up and watch me open the small envelope was almost palpable. I eyed the small rectangle of white stuck on a stick between two of the sunshine roses. It didn’t say my name on the front, but it did say ‘count me’. So I did.

Fifteen yellow roses.

My heart pounded with an unsteady boom and cursing myself, with no real attempt to stop the movement, I reached for the small envelope and slipped my finger against the glued edge.

I counted the roses again just to make sure. Definitely fifteen.

“You know yellow is for friendship,” Natalie called. I could almost hear her dying on the inside while she politely waited in her chair.

She didn’t need to tell me. I’d received yellow roses before. I still felt the pang of disappointment they weren’t red.

Wiggling my finger under the seal, I pulled it open, splitting the envelope clean in two until I just held a small card containing one word in familiar writing.

Coffee?

My legs buckled like a newborn giraffe’s and I plopped down into my seat. The chime of my phone coincided with a vibration against my tummy. Still staring at the flowers, I dug into my bag and fished out my phone.

Matthew Carling: Hi.

We’d circled back to ‘Hi’. Last night in his car it felt very much like goodbye. At least it did to me, but I did have a significant Pinot filter switched on.