Page 8 of While I’m Still Here

It was egg mayonnaise, so she wasn’t wrong.

We’ve survived secondary school, university, terrible relationships, worse haircuts, and several questionable holidays where I’m one hundred per cent sure we nearly died. There was her brief attempt at becoming someone who went jogging in the mornings, which didn’t last more than fifteen minutes after buying all the workout clothes for it, and the six-week period when I decided that growing a beard made me look distinguished.

It didn’t, and according to Bea, it made me look like I’d been rejected from a Mumford & Sons tribute band.

The point is, I know her.

I know the difference between her normal nothing and her nothing that means she’s annoyed. I know the one that means she’s hungry but refuses to admit it because we already passed the services ten miles ago and she insisted she didn’t want anything.

I know the quiet nothing that means something is actually wrong—this is that one.

I push my chair away from my desk. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing’s happened.”

“Bea.”

“What?” she snaps, but there’s a choke sound in her voice.

“You sound weird.”

“I always sound weird.”

“Okay. You sound weirder than normal, then.”

“Charming,” she snarks, and I can imagine her rolling her eyes at me. There’s a pause, and I hear something rustle on her end, then a sniff. It’s tiny, and barely there, but it’s there.

My stomach tightens. “Have you been crying?”

“No.”

“You have.”

“I haven’t.”

“Must you always argue with me, woman? You literally have the snotty voice.”

“The what?”

“The snotty voice.”

“Fuck off, Colin.”

Definitely crying. I stand, not entirely sure why, but there’s nothing I can physically do from my office that I couldn’t do sitting down, but suddenly sitting feels impossible. “What’s happened?”

“Why are you calling?”

“Because it’s Thursday.”

Silence.

I rub a hand over my face. Thursday means I finish early, and more often than not, I go to Bea’s. Sometimes we order food, or she cooks something she’s found online that is allegedly easy but somehow requires every pot and pan she owns, and sometimes we go to the pub. Sometimes we do absolutely nothing. Those are my favourite Thursdays.

I’d been calling to ask whether she wanted Chinese. Specifically, if she wanted Chinese from the good place twenty minutes away or the mediocre one five minutes away, because every time we have the same argument about whether crispy chilli beef is worth forty minutes of driving. “Do I need a reason to call you?”

“No.”

“Then stop avoiding the question and tell me what’s wrong.”