Page 68 of The Fallback

Rosie felt a panicked flush creep up her cheeks. ‘What should I do?’ she asked Nadia in anguish.

Nadia rolled her eyes. ‘What you should have done immediately, as soon as you read her first email,’ Nadia replied in a no-nonsense manner. ‘Reply, apologise for the delay, make up a decent excuse and ask her for an appointment to discuss it.’

‘Yes, yes you’re quite right,’ Rosie said noticing how much her hands were shaking as she typed out Nadia’s suggested response.

‘What were you saying about Mitch?’ Nadia nonchalantly asked, pretending to go back to inspecting her nails, as Rosie finished her email.

‘What?’ Rosie replied looking up from her screen. ‘Oh, er nothing, it’s fine.’

‘Well, it obviously isn’t,’ said Nadia looking at Rosie over her nails. ‘What’s he done now?’

‘He hasn’t done anything,’ Rosie replied defensively. Even when she and Mitch weren’t on speaking terms she couldn’t help but leap to his protection.

‘Interesting,’ said Nadia. ‘OK, what haveyoudone now?’

Rosie groaned, ‘I thought we were trying to fix this mess I’ve made with the BioChem project?’

‘Oh, sure,’ agreed Nadia. ‘But you’ve emailed Rachel. She’s not in yet, by the way, I checked on my way over here. So, we’ve got time to kill before you’re summoned. Tell me what it is you’ve done.’ Nadia sounded suspiciously like she was enjoying herself now.

Keen to do anything to take her mind off her impending meeting with Rachel, Rosie confessed, ‘I did something really bad.’

Nadia stopped attempting to conceal her interest. ‘What?’ she said, excitement now written clearly across her face. ‘Rosie you never do anything bad! I mean, except this monumental fuck-up with BioChem.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve obviously gone for the double this time,’ Rosie said flatly.

‘Oh, wow!’ exclaimed Nadia. ‘You haven’t got yourself pregnant already have you?! That’s why you’re all over the place!’ She clapped her hands with excitement.

‘No, I have not,’ snapped Rosie indignantly. ‘And it’s now looking very unlikely that that will happen anyway.’

‘Tell me what happened?’ Nadia practically begged.

Rosie leaned her chin in her hands and looked across her desk at Nadia before beginning the whole sorry tale. Nadia listened patiently before reaching across to cover Rosie’s hands with her own.

‘Rosie,’ she said firmly, ‘I agree, it’s not great, but really it’s not the end of the world. You and Mitch have been friends for years; how long has he been seeing this Jenny girl?’

‘A few weeks,’ mumbled Rosie.

‘Exactly, a few weeks. I really don’t think the two compare. And anyway, he would probably have got bored of her in a month or so, had you not said anything.’

‘But I did say something, Nadia,’ insisted Rosie, ‘and whether he would have got bored with her or not is irrelevant, because now he’ll never find out and I will always be the so-called friend who ruined his relationship.’ She felt the ever-present tears prickle behind her eyes.

Nadia looked at her pityingly. ‘Have you ever thought of telling him the truth?’ she asked.

‘No!’ exclaimed Rosie. ‘It’s already bad enough without me making it worse by admitting why I sabotaged his relationship.’

‘Is it?’ questioned Nadia. ‘Because from where I’m sitting, I’m not sure you’ve got a lot to lose at the moment and potentially a whole lot to gain.’ She paused. ‘Think about it,’ she said, holding her hands up at Rosie. ‘He’s not talking to you, anyway. If you tell him and he hates you for it, nothing has changed. But if you tell him and he feels the same way, then you’ve gained a whole lot.’

Rosie shook her head crossly. ‘He doesn’t feel the same way, Nadia, I’ve told you this before.’

‘But do you know? I meanreallyknow?’ insisted Nadia. ‘Because you’ve never asked him, have you? Or told him how you feel? Maybe he was trying to get you to admit it during that conversation when he asked why you had done it.’

‘But then, why wouldn’t he say something?’ asked Rosie.

‘For exactly the same reason you’re not saying something!’ said Nadia, throwing her hands up in frustration. ‘Maybe he has spent all this time being in love with you. Maybe,’ she continued, ‘that’s the reason he never manages to keep a girlfriend longer than a few weeks because they never measure up to you. Maybe that’s the real reason he asked you to be his fallback.’

Rosie looked at her friend. She couldn’t deny that these suggestions were incredibly attractive to her, but logically they couldn’t be true, could they? She didn’t even dare to hope that they might be. And then the sound of her inbox pinging brought them both back down to earth.

‘Check it,’ Nadia said pointing at Rosie’s computer. ‘Then go to the bathroom, pull yourself together, and go and grovel to Rachel like you should have done to begin with.’

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