Page 24 of The Wake-Up Call

“Porra!” I mutter, already typing back.

Izzy

I lie back on my bed, pull the laptop onto my knees, and reach for my tea. It’s a spiced loose-leaf tea blend—it’s a total faff to make, but I love it, and lately it’s become a bit of a ritual for my rare, precious evenings to myself. I open Netflix, looking for something new, even though I already know I’ll be rewatchingCharmed, and then I make the mistake of checking my phone. Sixty-eight unread messages from seven chats.

I am a people person. I’ve always had a whole gaggle of friends, and that’s exactly how I like it, but lately I’ve started to feel like I’m keeping up with my WhatsApps for the sake of it. Replying just to get rid of the unread messages, not because I really want to hear how my old colleagues’ kids are, or how a mate from school is getting on with her new job.

An ex-boyfriend once said that I collect people and don’t let them go, and the comment has really stayed with me. At the time I told him you can never have too many friends, and that there’s nothing wrong with being loyal, but when everything happened with Drew last year, it made me see things a little differently.

From the moment I met her, I knew we’d get along. She walkedinto my flat for a viewing with this big, cheeky smile and fabulous square glasses, and I was smitten. I was on furlough and needed the extra money, and I knew that whoever moved into my box room would be spending a lot of time with me—the perils of flatsharing in a lockdown. But she seemed so fun, I instantly relaxed.

And Drew could be really fun when she wanted to. Say, when she was trying to get a room in your flat. But once she was installed there with a twelve-month contract, she was a different person altogether. I tried so hard to rediscover that side of her. I coaxed her into a more positive outlook as she whinged on my sofa about being bored; I bowed to her requests to change my flat’s decor because it was “too childish” and “too pink” in the background of her video calls. Basically, I was so determined to be friends with my flatmate that I put up with almost twelve months of absolute nonsense. And then she kissed the man sheknewI liked, and I realised that I was making all this effort for someone who gave zero shits about me.

My outlook has started to shift in the year post-Drew. Maybe I don’t need to keep people in my life at all costs. Maybe I don’t need to be surrounded in the way I did back when my parents died. There are a few people who will always bring me joy—Jem, Grigg, Sameera. But as I scroll through my recent conversations, I ask myself who I am looking forward to catching up with from this list, and the answer is kind of shocking. There’s pretty much nobody I actually want to see.

The phone rings in my hand and I let out a yip of surprise, spilling tea on my duvet cover.

“Shit,” I say, dabbing as I answer the video call.

“Hello,” Grigg says, unfazed at being greeted with a swear word.

Not much fazes Grigg: he is the exhausted father of a seven-month-old who wakes up five times a night, and still he remains unflappable. We met when we both spent a summer waiting tablesat the Jolly Farmer pub on the edge of the forest, and even aged sixteen, he had the air of a mild-mannered old man. I remember watching him drop a tray of full pints: he stood there for a moment, looking thoughtfully at the carnage on the floor around him, and then said,You know, Izzy, I am just not sure I have found my calling, here. He’s an accountant these days, and likes it much better.

His wife, Sameera, bobs into view in the background, giving me a wave with a slice of pizza in her mouth.

“Hey, sweetness!” she calls through her mouthful.

“How’s my favourite godson?” I ask.

“Sleeping! At bedtime!”

“Amazing!”

“I know, right? Did Sexy Scowly Receptionist really see Grigg’s message?” asks Sameera, giggling already.

“Not my message,” Grigg says. “I was merely relaying a message from you, darling wife. I have never saidangry-shagin my life before.”

“Don’t laugh, Sam!” I say, but I’m giggling along with Sameera, who is doubled over behind Grigg. “It was so awkward!”

“Did he know it was about him, do you think?” Sameera calls, disappearing off-screen.

“I don’t know,” I say, reaching for the spare pillow to bury my face in it. “I obviously tried to make it sound like it wasn’t. I don’t even want to shag him! That’syoutalking, not me! But now he’s going to think I want him.”

“Don’t you?” Grigg says. He’s gnawing on a pizza crust. In the rare windows of time when baby Rupe is asleep, they tend to do everything at once—I’m pretty sure Sameera is putting on a wash in the background. “Didn’t you write him that love letter last Christmas?”

From somewhere off-screen, Sameera throws a handful of dirty laundry at Grigg. He barely flinches.

“Grigg!”

“It was not a love letter,” I say, “it was a Christmas card, and yes, I had a crush on him once, but all I said in that message to you was that there was a bit of avibeat the mo—that doesn’t mean I want him. We still hate each other.”

“You don’t need to like someone to fancy them,” Sameera says.

“Don’t you?” Grigg asks mildly.

“I don’t fancy him,” I say, but the moment I say it, I know I’m lying. I know, deep down, that I didn’t want to cover myself up when Lucas caught me half-dressed through the lost-property-room door, and that if I weren’t still attracted to him, I’d have squealed and dashed out of view as quick as a rat. “Oh, shit,” I say, re-burying my face in the pillow.

“I think this is good!” Sameera says. “You always go for such...”

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