Page 64 of We Used To Be Magic

She doesn’t want to go back to her apartment. Doesn’t want to be alone, I’m guessing, and I’m relieved that I don’t have to leave her. She nods when I suggest my place and says nothing during the cab ride, head bent over her phone as she taps out a message to Marika.

‘Can I use your bathroom?’ she asks when we get inside. Now that she’s calmed down, there’s a flatness to her voice that unnerves me.

‘Yeah,’ I say, and while she’s in there I make coffee, pour a glass of water, fetch a sweatshirt from my room – I don’t want her to feel like she has to keep asking me for things, so I try to anticipate what she might need. I’m sitting at the dinky little kitchen table with aNew Yorkercrossword and a coffee of my own when she finally returns.

‘Hey,’ I say, lowering my pen.

‘Hi,’ she replies, hovering for a second before she comes and sits opposite me. I push a mug of coffee and the water towards her, handing her the sweatshirt. She takes it from me, holding it to her chest. She’s washed her face, and I can see purple smudges of sleeplessness under her eyes.

‘How are you feeling?’ I venture.

‘Tired,’ she says. ‘It’s been a long day – a long week. I’m homesick. I let it get on top of me.’

That flatness, still – every word rings false. I want to get down on my knees and grab her hands and fuckingbegher to tell me the truth.

‘I think I might go and get some food,’ I say instead. ‘The place on the corner is always open – is there anything you want? Or don’t want?’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Okay.’ I nod. ‘But I’ll get enough for two, probably. I like leftovers, so …’

‘You don’t have to look after me,’ she says, voice small. ‘I mean – I’m really grateful and everything but you don’t have to go out of your way.’

‘I’m not,’ I tell her. ‘I eat too, you know. It’s a habit of mine.’

She doesn’t smile. Just stares at me with those big, dark eyes.

‘It’s fine,’ I reiterate. ‘Don’t feel like I’m doing you any favours. This is all normal stuff for me.’

‘It’s not for me,’ she says quietly. ‘I’m not like this. I – I barely ever cry.’

‘I have no reason to believe that,’ I reply andthatmakes her smile – briefly, albeit. It’s like a crack of sun through the clouds.

‘That’s fair,’ she says softly. ‘Fair enough.’

We’re both silent for a moment, and she takes a small sip of her coffee. Then:

‘Can I come with you?’ she asks. ‘To get the food?’

‘Course,’ I say, my heart lifting. ‘You want to borrow a jacket?’

‘No, this is good,’ she says, tugging the sweatshirt over her head. Her hair is all askew when she emerges, and I reach out to smooth it down without thinking. I offer my arm, too, when she wobbles and nearly falls trying to wedge her feet back into her heels. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t feel particularly strange when she slips her hand into mine afterwards, squeezing it gently. I squeeze it back, a reply.

Neither of us lets go this time.

AUDREY

‘I’D JUSTFEEL BETTERIF YOUCOULD TELLUS MOREABOUT WHAT’Shappening.’

‘I know. I wish I had more to tell you.’

‘Have you spoken to Leanne? Does she not want you back in London?’

‘The London agency gets a cut of whatever I make over here. They don’t care.’

Mum sighs, the sound crackly down the phone. No doubt she’s pacing around like she always does when she’s stressed, except usually it has something to do with a shipment or a supplier. Not her newly evasive daughter who’s currently doing something similar, padding circles around a strange apartment in her bare feet. Except it doesn’t actually feel that strange – maybe because it’s Ezra’s, and Ezra’s never really felt like a stranger.

‘I don’t like it when you talk like that,’ Mum says quietly. ‘We’ve never even met Isabelle.’

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