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‘Okay. Bulk, then,’ I carry on. ‘I just thought – my email issue, back in September, might be because of that? Vince said he believes it’s easy to switch it on.’
‘That’s incorrect,’ says Leona quickly, like an AI robot. Chloe’s eyes slide to look at her. ‘The scheduled email option is easy to switch on, yeah. It’s a simple hold-and-click, select the time and date .?.?. But Flye has the bulk option switched off, across the board. Pointless feature, for a company like this.’
‘Oh.Right. And has it always been that way?’
‘Mhm.’
Leona nods, just once. Her eyes have barely blinked the entire time. She’s like a pretty moon, Leona. Pearl-white skin, huge green eyes, small, always-pursed, pink lips.
‘Is that all?’ she asks. ‘It’s 8:58.’
‘Er. Yeah. That’s – that’s all,’ I reply. ‘Thanks.’ And Leona twists on her heel, and disappears inside. The door slams behind her.
There’s silence now, and Chloe clears her throat. ‘She can be uptight,’ she says.
‘Oh. She’s – it’s fine.’
Chloe looks at me, then her eyes flitting everywhere from beneath those thick, fan-like lashes. Awkward. To the floor, to the heavy, November cloud above us, to me .?.?.
‘So, how – how have you been?’ asks Chloe, and there’s that something unspoken between us again. That thing that .?.?. bonds us whether we like it or not. Some sense of ‘We fell in love with the same man. We saw the same thing in the same person. We have both slept beside the same person. And he let us both down.’
‘I’m OK,’ I say. ‘I think. Besides, somehow pissing off Leona.’ I laugh, try to break the ice.
‘I’m sorry she couldn’t help,’ says Chloe, shifting from one foot to the other, like someone trying to get comfortable. ‘It was shit, really, what happened. The emails .?.?.’
God, she’s nice. I could easily be her friend, latch onto her, meet her for a sandwich at lunch time, a walk into town. Chloe is warm. I hadn’t really realised that about her before, but she is. Even that moment, weeks ago, outside the café, it was her friends who were frosty. To Chloe, there’s warmth. A hint of vulnerability she wears like a bracelet beneath her jumper cuff. Subtle, but always there.
‘Well. Harder for some of those who received them, I reckon,’ I say. ‘And .?.?. you’re OK?’
Chloe nods, her arms hugging her small frame. She’s built like a ballerina. Petite, strong, elegant. ‘Getting there,’ she says carefully. ‘And I know it’s for the best. You know? The man doesn’t care about me and I’ve learned that now. At least I hope I have.’
‘Owen?’ I ask pointlessly.
‘He cares abouthim,’ she says.‘Howheappears to the world, whathecan get.’ A tiny, jewelled heart on a gold chain rises and falls at the hollow of her throat. ‘He couldn’t care less about me, or the wedding. It’s next week, the date. It’s like – there never was going to be a wedding now. Erase and move on.’
‘But .?.?. I thought you were going to talk?’
She shakes her head, rosy cheeks balling up with a grimace. ‘Oh, we did. But – no.’
‘No?’
She swallows. ‘No, I felt like I was auditioning or something. It wasn’t a chat, or a talking-through, it was just .?.?.’ Her words taper off, and once again, she just says, ‘No. But. Well, at least I know now. That this is for the best. That I can empty my parents’ house of wedding things. It’s like a wedding fair in there right now.’
‘But .?.?.’ I can feel my mouth, opening and closing. Gawping, like a cartoon. ‘He said his flat was full of wedding stuff—’
‘Millie, he’s a liar,’ says Chloe, in one mouthful. ‘He’s manipulative. Just writes the storyexactlyhow he wants it to be. How it best benefits him.’
I stare at her. And I don’t know what else to say. Why would Owen lie? To gain sympathy? To .?.?. what was it Chloe just said. To write the story how he wants it to be.
‘Millie, if were you, I’d just go and live your life and not listen to a single word he says. Even the nice stuff.Especiallythe nice stuff. I’m trying to stick to that myself. I know it’s easier said than done, but .?.?.’ She hesitates now, her eyes lingering on mine, almost imploringly. ‘You and I, Millie, we – we aren’t different, we .?.?.’ Her eyes are intense and unblinking, watery now, and I wait for her next word. But it doesn’t come. It almost does, but she swallows it down, like a gulp of soup. Instead, there’s just a large, weird, loaded beat of nothing.
Then she looks past me, her face transforming – a big smile, spreading across her face. People are arriving into work now, rolling in at dead-on nine.
‘Morning!’ Chloe sings.
‘Morning to you, too,’ smiles Samira, who side-eyes me, for just a fraction of a second. ‘You all right, Chlo?’
And with that, Chloe turns away and walks inside the office, next to her friend, leaving me outside in the cold.
