Page 54 of The Key to My Heart

‘Are you leaving me music?’ I ask, and the question feels like it weighs twelve hundred pounds, in the air, above us.

‘Am I …’

‘Leaving me music. At St Pancras. At the piano.’

‘Are you still playing there?’ asks Edie, and a smile, just a tiny one, flickers onto her pale lips. ‘Lucy said that you do sometimes, and I think that’s … I don’t know—’

‘What, tragic?’

‘No. God, no, Natalie. I meant the opposite. I think it’s beautiful and brave and– so you.You were always so fearless. I always wanted to be like you, you know that.’

I stare at her, and a lump gathers in my throat, like a hard, hot ball. I miss her. I really miss her, and I wish I didn’t. I am equal parts wanting to leg it down the road and throw my arms around her.

‘Are you,’ I swallow, ‘leaving the music for me or not?’

Edie shakes her head, her brow, wrinkling ‘No, Nat, I’m not. And do you mean, sheet music? Someone is leaving you sheet music—’

‘So, it isn’t you.’

‘No,’ says Edie softly. ‘No, it isn’t me.’

And I know it isn’t. Edie’s a good liar, we already know that. But I know it isn’t her. She’d have told me. She’d have said yes, to keep me here.

‘Right. Okay,’ I say, and I whisk outside then, come face to face with Joe, who looks up from the phone in his hand, handsome and sun-kissed and smiling. But I know from the way the door doesn’t slam behind me, the way Joe’s eyes leave mine and look past me, that she’s followed me out, her sandalled feet on the concrete.

‘Natalie, don’t go,’ she says.

‘I have plans,’ I reply.

‘Then – why don’t we arrange to go for coffee or something? I’m free, a lot, actually, lately …’ Edie swoops, stepping in front of me, the long, cottony material of her dress grazing my bare legs. ‘I miss you, Nat. I really miss you and ever since—’

‘Edie, I … I really don’t want to do this.’

‘Please just meet me, to talk. Or … or you could come down, to the theatre? I’m dying to show you. Honestly, I think of you every single time I—’

‘Edie. No. Please. I said I don’t want to do this. I really don’t.’

She looks like I’ve punched her now. Right in the stomach, a full fist. And I’ve softened again, like I’m bread dunked in a pond, as I stand here, staring at her on the street. My friend. My best friend in the whole world. But when I look at her, I just see …ithappening, in my mind, like a movie scene. Edie. Russ. Together. And I just can’t. Ican’t.

‘I don’t want to be friends,’ I say. ‘Sorry. But I don’t.’

And before she can say another word, I walk away, and then jog, and then run, like in my daydreams, shoes scuffing on the hot, wonky pavement, poor Joe sprinting behind, to catch me up.

‘Natalie?’ he calls. ‘Hey, Natalie?’

As I round the corner, out of sight of the rehearsal rooms, I stop abruptly on the street. Two people at a bus stop a few paces away look up from their phones at me.

‘Natalie?’ Joe appears, and his face falls at the sight of me. ‘Who was that? Was that – God, are you all right?’

And it’s then that I realise, I’m crying.

Joe comes towards me, somehow balancing two drinks and two square, cardboard containers in his hands. ‘This is some Jenga shit,’ he laughs as I take a drink and foodbox from him. The flimsy plastic cup bows in my hand, liquid running a little down its side.

‘Thanks,’ I say, thickly, and Joe lowers himself next to me, on a matching deckchair, the stripes on the material pastel green and pink, like old penny sweets.

‘No worries. I got you cider, is that okay?’

‘More than okay.’

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