by Agatha Frost
“I—”
“I need to get back to work,” he said, barely able to look at her. “I-I’ll see you later.”
Ryan stalked off into the rain without so much as a kiss on the cheek.
Claire sank into her seat, watching the rain fall and trying not to dwell on the nagging thought that she might have witnessed the end of their relationship before it even had a chance to start.
Chapter Twelve
Claire spent the rest of the workday on autopilot.
When it was busy, she laughed at customers’ jokes, made small talk, and gave recommendations with ease.
In the lulls, she asked Damon about his latest Dawn Ship 2 strategies, and he obliged with unceasing explanations. She only had to nod and make the right noises. If he stopped, a vague question would send him down another fifteen-minute rabbit hole.
She never understood, but she always listened.
Not today.
Somehow, she got to closing without Damon noticing that anything was off. She declined his offer of a drink and locked the front door behind him. In the window’s reflection, her smile was convincing.
Claire had always wondered how most people couldn’t see through her mother’s ‘everything is fine’ expression.
Now, she understood.
She hadn’t wanted to talk about her feelings.
She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge them.
So, she smiled.
She smiled, and nobody noticed.
Once the lights were off, she went up to her flat. Domino and Sid greeted her, ready for their evening meal. After feeding them, she sank into a bubble bath, hoping it would help her to relax her mind.
It didn’t work.
The silence only drove her crazier.
While a lasagne for one spun around in the microwave, she turned on the TV. She flicked through the high-numbered radio stations until something loud and thumping caught her ear.
She was too restless to sit.
She straightened the magazines and books on the coffee table. She stuffed as much of her overflowing laundry basket into the washing machine as would fit. Picking at her lasagne, she attacked the mountain of plates in the sink.
And then the rest of the kitchen.
And sitting room.
And bathroom.
And guest bedroom.
And master bedroom.
Claire didn’t notice the clock tower outside strike midnight. She didn’t see Domino chewing up one of her bras under the bed. She didn’t notice anything until she was sorting her clothes and found the shoebox at the back of her wardrobe.
Leaning against the cold radiator, she peeled off the tatty lid held together by tape. She flipped it:
To Claire,
It’s easy to forget all the good times we’ve had, so I thought I’d remind you.
Happy Eighteenth Birthday!
Your best friend, Ryan
PS: We’re getting old.
Glossy photographs from their childhood and teenage years taken with various disposable cameras filled the box to the brim. Snapshots of birthday parties, school plays, concerts, her mother’s annual BBQs, and everything in between.
“That boy is like your shadow!” her mother always said. “You need other friends.”
Claire had Sally, too, but not like she had Ryan. They grew up side-by-side in the cul-de-sac, sharing almost every moment of their lives. She only had enough photographs with one person to fill a shoebox.
Flicking through the memories, she came across her and Ryan perched on the stairs in her mother’s house a dozen redecorations ago. Claire had straightened her thin, mousy hair, longer than it had any right being, to within an inch of its life. Ryan had so much gel in his hair that it almost looked brown, and his arm was around her shoulders.
“Closer,” Sally had instructed when taking the picture. “Why don’t you give her a birthday kiss, Ryan?”
The occasion had been Claire’s sixteenth birthday party. The one time, after much persuasion from her father, her mother had allowed her to have a birthday party with no adults. No alcohol, either – not that they’d listened. Back then, all it took was a can of cider.
“I’m going to tell him,” she’d slurred to Sally in the garden while her beloved Saints & Sinners album by All Saints blared inside. “I’m going to tell Ryan I love him tonight.”
“Finally, mate!”
She never did.
She’d be thirty-six before the end of the month.
Twenty years later, and she still hadn’t told him. Maybe she’d already missed her last chance?
The sound of smashing glass floated through the open bedroom door. A photograph in her hand, she walked through the kitchen, expecting to see Domino knocking one of her drying glasses off the straining board. She wasn’t. She was chewing up Claire’s second favourite bra under the coffee table.
More smashing drifted through the front window, opened after spraying too much bleach when scrubbing the bathroom.
Was someone destroying her shop?
Claire sprinted downstairs, but the window was where she’d left it. She carefully unlocked the door and popped her head out. Yet again, the few people still in the dark square had their gazes trained on the post office.
“You ruined my life!” Anna screamed as she busted another of the window panels with a golf club. “I hate you! I hate you!”
Claire’s instincts sent her running towards Anna to calm her, but the club’s swing in her direction shut her instincts up. Safely back in her shop, she called the local station.
As Anna, raging, continued destroying the front of the post office, Claire perched on the stool behind her shop’s counter. In the dark, she looked down at the photograph in her hand and laughed.
It showed another birthday party, this time her fourteenth. Clutching the yellow Tamagotchi her dad had bought her, she blew out her candles from under a giant hat. Claire would have preferred to wear Uncle Pat’s flat cap, but it didn’t disguise her one-inch fringe as well as her mother’s pink-plumed wedding hat did.
Over one shoulder, Sally’s pursed lips blew out half the candles. Like he’d been in all the other pictures, Ryan was glued to Claire’s side, the only sad face in a sea of happiness.
Claire stroked the troubled smile in the picture, remembering what had caused the pained expression. The day before, his excitement had been uncontainable thanks to his dad calling for the first time in two years.
“I invited him to your party.” Ryan had beamed over the garden fence that night. “Is that okay?”
Claire had been as excited as Ryan. It was all they talked about all morning. By the time she was ready to blow out the candles, most of the party had been over, and the boy in the picture had lost hope that his father was going to show up.
Ryan had been right in the park.
She didn’t understand what that felt like.
No wonder he didn’t want to show Amelia the card.
As the police snapped Anna into handcuffs, Claire returned to her unusually pristine flat. Flicking through more of the pictures, she allowed the one thought she’d been avoiding all night to run riot in her brain.
It wasn’t so much the disagreement she was trying to avoid, it was the reason behind it.
The card.
The baggage.
Maya.
Unlike the box bursting with memories, Claire didn’t have Ryan to herself anymore. Maya had reached out, and it was just a matter of time before she showed her face.
After seventeen years apart, Claire wasn’t sure she could lose Ryan a second time.
Chapter Thirteen
“Are you sure you’re not insecure, mate?” Sally asked, pressing her hand down on Claire’s head. “Hold still! One good stretch, and I’ll be able to touch it.”
“Stretch then, because I will drop you,” Claire ordered, swaying as she clung to Sally’s thighs around her neck. “And of course I’m insecure. I’ve never done any of this adult relationshi
p stuff.”
Sitting on Claire’s shoulders, Sally let go of Claire’s head and took an unbalancing swipe at the ceiling. Claire attempted to lock her buckling knees in place, but even if she wasn’t the one trying to balance on someone else’s shoulders, she was far from a gymnast.
“It is damp,” Sally said, holding onto Claire’s head with both hands as they wobbled around the empty room. “I knew it.”
Claire let out a relieved breath as Sally slid down her back. In the middle of the master bedroom, they stared up at the faint mark on the ceiling.
“That little liar,” Sally whispered, looking through the open doorway. “Paint discoloration my backside. I know damp when I see it.”
“Then why did you insist on sitting on my shoulders to check?”
“I know damp when I touch it, then.” Sally elbowed her in the ribs. “Have you spoken to Ryan today?”
Claire shook her head. “I haven’t seen him since he walked off in the park yesterday,” she said, looking out of the window at the lingering clouds in the distance. “I can’t tell if we’re intentionally avoiding each other or if it’s just one of those days where we’re both busy.”
“Ask him?”
“If he’s avoiding me?”
“Why not?” Sally shrugged, running her hands down a crack in the plaster next to the window frame. “Paul was always so passive-aggressive, I got into the habit of confronting him. Worked out great.” She winked over her shoulder. “Actually, I might not be the best person to take relationship advice from. But Ryan’s not like that. He’s probably embarrassed and doesn’t know what to say. Test the waters with a text.”
“Or he’s realised it’s not working?” Claire patted down her pockets. “What should I say?”
“Keep it light. Send him that Boris Johnson in the Berlin bar joke.”
“He’s the one who sent it to me.” She dug her hands in her pockets. “I think I’ve left my phone in your car.”
“Do you really think it’s not working?” Sally arched a brow as they left the master bedroom. “You’ve only been seeing him for a month.”
“Maybe,” she said with a shrug. “The fact he hasn’t even kissed me can’t be a good sign.”
“Forget him for a second. Do you think it’s working? Do you enjoy being with him?”
“More than anyone.”
“Cheers.” Sally ribbed her again. “But I’ll take it. That’s all that matters. He tries to spend all his free time with you. He’s just taking time to warm up to the situation. His kids aren’t the only ones adjusting.”
They walked down the creaky, uncarpeted staircase and found the estate agent on his phone in the kitchen. He switched on his customer service smile when he noticed them.
“So?” he asked hopefully. “Right in your price range, four bedrooms, lovely garden. Do you like?”
“Ticks all the boxes.” Sally nodded, taking in the kitchen. “Not for me, though.”
“Oh,” the estate agent’s hopeful smile soured, though he tried his best to keep the remnants on his face. “No problem. Let me know if you want to view any others.”
Claire followed Sally out of the house and through the front garden. She looked back at the large, detached house, wondering if her lack of experience had made her miss something.
“I thought it was perfect,” she said, glancing at Sally out of the corner of her eye. “You were nit-picking before we walked through the front door. And don’t tell me it’s because it’s your job. That only means you know how easy it is to fix those tiny problems.”
“Didn’t feel right.”
“Have any of them?”
“The next one might.”
“Now who’s avoiding the questions?” It was Claire’s turn to elbow Sally in the side. “Is this about the house you’re in now?”
“I told you, I want to leave.”
“Wanting to and being ready to aren’t the same thing.”
“That Em is rubbing off on you.” Sally opened her handbag and pulled out her car keys. “But maybe. Once Paul was out of the picture, I thought I was ready to get out of there.”
“But?”
“But none of the places I’ve viewed feels like home.” She unlocked the car and looked at Claire over the roof. “And I know, you make a house a home yada yada, but there’s certain things you can’t take with you.”
“Like that gorgeous kitchen island?”
“Like the fact I raised my babies there,” she said, climbing behind the wheel.
“Why not stay?” Claire suggested, settling in the passenger seat and strapping into her seatbelt. “Paul said you can keep the house for the girls.”
“I know.” Clutching the wheel, Sally smiled sadly. “That place doesn’t feel like home either. Every time I walk in, I just remember how rubbish my marriage was in the last few years.”
“So, you don’t want to leave because of the memories?”
“Yeah.”
“And you don’t want to stay because of the memories?”
“I suppose.” Sally twisted the key in the ignition but didn’t immediately set off. “Sounds silly when you put it like that.”
“There is one thing you could do,” Claire said. “Pull a Janet and redecorate the house to within an inch of its life. You don’t have to move to change how the house feels.”
“I’d be out of a job if more people thought like that.” She stared ahead as her fingers tapped on the steering wheel. “Not a bad idea, though. I hadn’t thought about it like that.”
“What are friends for?”
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” Sally set off down the road once the estate agent left the property. “We were talking about your problems, not mine. Have you tried to kiss Ryan?”
“Not … exactly.”
“Mate, you either have or haven’t.”
“There was that time in his art studio with the paint fight, but that was sort of … mutual?”
“Then I’m not counting it.” Sally stretched her neck, trying to see the source of the traffic jam behind which they soon ground to a halt. “I know you, Claire. You’re the woman who doesn’t notice when a guy is flirting with her.”
“Guys never flirt with me.”
“Exactly.” Sally chuckled. “Last time we were in Manchester, that gorgeous guy with the tan was trying it on with you.”
They inched forward as cars pulled out of the jam and zoomed back the way they’d all come.
“What guy?”
“Exactly. You didn’t notice.” She sighed. “Look, I see this differently.”
“Whatever it is, say it.”
Sally inhaled, edging forward as more cars exited the jam.
“When it comes to romantic relationships, you really don’t have a clue.” Sally smiled apologetically. “And I’m not saying I do either, but having a boyfriend was never that important to you. You’re laid back, and that’s great, but sometimes you just need to grab these things by the…”
Sally clenched the air with one hand and squeezed.
“So, I just … kiss him?” Claire asked. “Unless you’re suggesting something else. We’re definitely not there yet.”
“Kiss him,” Sally said firmly. “Trust me, mate; Ryan is crazy about you. Is there any chance you’ve psyched yourselves out with all this waiting, and neither of you is doing it because the other hasn’t done it first?”
Claire sank into her chair, hating how spot-on Sally’s assessment was. She didn’t hate Sally for saying it. She was glad of the honesty; she hated that she hadn’t seen it herself.
“I hadn’t thought about it like that.”
“Like you said, what are friends for?” Sally slapped Claire’s knee. “If we can’t hold a mirror up to each other, who can?”
“There’s still a chance he’s about to end things.”
“And there’s a greater chance he isn’t,” Sally said with a disbelieving laugh. “Take it from me, from the way you described it, that argument was
mild. It wasn’t even an argument. You disagreed with a decision he made. What are you supposed to do? Agree just to placate him?”
“I don’t think Ryan would ever expect me to do that.”
“Good. Your first tiff always feels more serious than it really is.” She rolled down the window and leaned her head out. “Bloody temporary traffic lights are stuck on red. Always roadworks. Forget this. I know another way home.”
Sally turned out of the jam and retreated past the house they’d viewed. After some quick turns and roundabouts, they came out on a straight road surrounded by fields.
“For what it’s worth,” continued Sally, “I think you’re right about showing Amelia the card. How can we expect our kids to be honest with us if we’re not honest with them?”
“I think Ryan is worried that history is repeating itself.” She looked around for her phone. “I found a picture of my fourteenth birthday party last night.”
“Is that the one where your mother cut off your fringe and you had to wear that ridiculous hat?”
“I looked fetching.”
“You looked like you were about to go off to Ladies Day at the races.” Sally laughed. “Still can’t find your phone?”
Claire shook her head as she groped around in the footwell.
“I have a feeling I left it at the shop.”
“Then I bet Ryan has sent a dozen text messages. If you’d texted him last night, you probably would have squashed this before it had time to fester.”
“Maybe,” she said, checking the backseat despite not having been there. “I ended up gutting my flat like the Queen was about to come round. That’s when I found the pictures.”
“Now who’s pulling a Janet?” Sally slowed down as a car sped towards them from the opposite direction. “Had any thoughts about your birthday yet?”
“I’m happy to let it pass me—”
The car sped past them without slowing, followed by two more, all identical.
Shiny black paint.