Page 89 of The Key to My Heart

‘Nat?’ says Lucy and at the sight of them, yet again, I cry.

Roxanne hands me a cup of tea and says, ‘Seriously, who doesn’t keep vodka in the back of their shop? Have you not seenEastEnders? It’s like a law. It’s like –shop law.’

I sniff a laugh, and sip. Cups of tea. Always better when someone else has made it, and especially when that tea is medicinal.

Roxanne sits next to me on the bench in the kitchen and scoots closer to me. ‘I’m so sorry, Natalie, about our row.’

‘No, Rox—’

‘No, honestly. I am. I was out of order – and the thing is. It’s just because I miss you. I’m selfish, Natalie. I’m a selfish cow.’

‘You’re not selfish Rox—’

‘I just miss you. That’s what it is. I miss you so much.’ Roxanne sniffs into a balled tissue. Her nails are painted black, the thumbnail, with a tiny skull. ‘I really do. And I know what it feels like to want to withdraw, to pull away, and I shouldn’t have said what I said to you, Nat …’

I shake my head, hair sticking to the wet pools on my face. ‘No, I know I’ve been difficult—’

‘We shouldn’t try to fix you up,’ Lucy jumps in now. We’ve locked the shop.‘Family emergency’Lucy had scrawled on a piece of paper without missing a beat, before sticking it to the window.‘Jodie won’t mind for ten minutes. Will she?‘Tom said something to me at the party. About us. Fixing you up.’

‘Oh, God, Lucy, I wish he wouldn’t have.’

‘He said about Avocado Clash. About how you brace for it, every time you’re out with us.’ Roxanne puts her arm around me. ‘Why didn’t you just say?’

‘Because I don’t want you to worry,’ I say. ‘I don’t want you to look at me like I’m broken or think I need help if I don’t want to date, or do the things you think I should.’

‘But if you need help,’ says Lucy. ‘Then you should tell us. It’s what we’re here for. It’s actually a very important part of friendship. Studies have shown that true lasting friendships that are built on the foundation of feeling comfortable enough to ask each another for help last longer than those friendships you feel you have to transact in. You know? I’ll do this for her, but only so she might do that for me. It’s true. I read it in a book.’

Roxanne smiles proudly. ‘Studies have bloody shown,’ she repeats, and we all laugh. It feels so lovely to have them here, all in one room. I’ve missed them. And maybe they’re right. Maybe I should’ve leaned on them. Beenhonestwith them. What is it Shauna said? We expect people to somehow know what we want, without actually voicing it out loud.

‘You all have stuff going on,’ I say. ‘Really good stuff. And I didn’t want to rain on that with my negative, grumpy, stuck, cynical bullshit—’

‘So fucking what?’ says Roxanne. ‘I know I’m not very gooey and sentimental, but I’d give a kidney for you. Both if you asked nicely.’ Roxanne puts her arms around me, rubs the top of my arm gently.

‘And what was Tom doing here?’ asks Lucy, patting lip balm onto her lips. ‘He’s really lovely by the way. And, okay, I’m not fixing you up but also I think it’s okay to say I think he really, really likes you.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so—’

‘Hedoes,’ Roxanne says, touching her head to mine. ‘It was so fucking obvious at Lucy’s birthday. The sexual tension was—’

‘He is currently not speaking to me.’ I look at Lucy. ‘And last I checked, he had a date with Gigi,’ I say thickly. ‘That girl from your salon.’

‘Oh my God.’ Lucy stares into the middle distance like a detective who’s missed a giant clue, her eyes round saucers. ‘She said she had a date with some guy. She seems obsessed with him—’

‘Tom,’ I say.

‘But …’ Lucy stares at me. ‘I thought he liked you.’

‘Hedoes,’ adds Roxanne. ‘I told you, I could sense the tension over my chicken ruby and it waspalpable.’

‘But then,’ Lucy says, ‘I guess he knows you’re not keen, so …’

They look at me then, and they come out – words tumbling in front of us, like a Jenga pile. A mini confession.

‘I do,’ I say. ‘I am … keen.’

They stare at me, the air still.

‘What?’ says Lucy, her mouth stretching into a wide smile.

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