Mark.
My heart starts racing, and I pull in two slow breaths, willing it to settle.
I answer on the second ring.
“Hi.”
Smooth, Philip.
Positively James Bond.
There is a rustle on his end, then Mark’s voice.
“You alright?”
Straight to concern.
No hello.
No joke.
Just that.
I lean back in the desk chair and stare atthe ceiling.
“Yes.”
A pause.
Then, because he knows me too well now, “That sounded deeply unconvincing.”
I exhale.
“I was talking to Sophie.”
“Ah.”
That one syllable contains an extraordinary amount of sympathy.
“You say that like she’s a natural disaster.”
“She is a natural disaster.”
“Fair.”
I close my eyes.
For a second neither of us says anything.
I can hear faint movement on his end. A cupboard door maybe. Heath rustling. The familiar domestic sounds of a life I am somehow far too tuned into from four thousand miles away.
Mark says, quieter now, “What happened?”
I should have thought of an answer before calling.
Instead I hear myself say, “She was stalking your hamster account.”
He laughs.
