Page 26 of How To Not Need You

She said yay!

Followed by what appears to be Tilly’s attempt at a thumbs-up emoji, except she’s selected the wrong one so it’s actually a fist bump.

Then: Liv you are my best friend

I stop reading. Best friend.

She’s known me for nine days. Nine days. I’ve spent longer deciding whether to buy a jacket.

I type back: No. I can’t make tomorrow.

Not unkind. Just firm. Clear. The kind of boundary-setting that adults are supposed to be good at. I set the phone face-down on the mattress and go back to my email.

Buzz.

I ignore it.

Buzz. Buzz.

Dammit. I pick it up.

Tilly has sent me a drawing. A crude, heartbreakingly earnest sad face. Circle for a head. Two downturned lines for a mouth. Tears. Actual tears, drawn with a squiggly line trailing from each eye.

I close my eyes.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter to the empty room.

I type back: No. I’m working.

Send. It’s not long before my phone starts to buzz yet again.

She sends another drawing. This one is a giraffe. Long neck, spots, what might be hooves or might be fingers. Next to it, in shaky block letters that take up half the screen: PLEESE.

I put the phone face-down again. Stare at the ceiling. The plaster has a hairline crack near the light fixture that I’ve been meaning to fix for eight months.

Nine days. One wedding. One café encounter. And now I’m being emotionally blackmailed by a five-year-old with access to emojis and the kind of persistence that would make military interrogators take notes.

I look at my laptop. At the email I was writing. At the colour swatches spread across my quilt.

Then I get up.

I cross to my desk, pull my laptop open, and click through to my digital portfolio. I scroll past client work, past the covers I’ve done for Harper, past the branding packages that paid last month’s rent. I find the folder labeled “Personal” and click it open.

Inside are the things I make when no one’s paying me. The things that exist because I needed to make them, not because someone asked. Bright, bold prints in saturated colours. Abstract landscapes. Whimsical animals rendered in a style that’s deliberately joyful. The kind of stuff that would look good framed in a kid’s bedroom and has absolutely no commercial purpose whatsoever. Which is probably why I like making it.

I select three. A fox in a field of blue flowers. A night sky studded with oversized stars. A whale breaching through waves that look more like confetti than water.

I send them to the printer in the corner of my room. It hums to life, spitting out glossy pages one by one.

While it prints, I scold myself for my lack of back-bone.

“Unbelievable,” I say to the empty room. “Absolutely unbelievable. I have deadlines. I have work. I had plans tonight that involved zero primary-school fundraisers.”

The printer finishes. I gather the prints, slide them into a cardboard portfolio sleeve, and set it by the door.

Then I pick up my phone and text Tilly back.

One word: Fine.