‘Elle? What’s going on? Is everything okay?’
She sat up but said nothing. This figure didn’t feel like Elle. For one thing, rotting in bed had never been a habit I’d associated with her for the entirety of our twenty-five-year friendship. That wasmyspecialty. And, when I switched on the bedside lamp, I noticed her eyes had zero sparkle, as if her spirit had retreated deep inside.
‘Why are you here? Aren’t you meant to be heading to Stevenage round about now for Christmas?’
More silence. I sighed, and opened one of the windows to try and freshen the room up. She continued to say nothing.
‘You’re scaring me, Elle. I’m calling Rory.’
‘No! Don’t. Please. He thinks I’m with you in Scarnbrook.’
‘What?’
‘I… really don’t have the energy to explain right now.’ She collapsed back down onto the mattress and turned away from me.
‘Snap out of it, Elle. I know this job stuff is shit for the both of us, and we need to talk about it, but we also need to talk about the strings you’ve been pulling for my article.’
‘It was a good article,’ she whispered, although it was muffled by the pillow.
‘Say that again?’
She turned over and glared at me with misplaced defiance. ‘I said it was a good article, all right? Happy now I’ve given you your little nugget of praise?’
I was so used to seeking her approval that I couldn’t help but feel wounded. My automatic response in this situation would be to fawn and fix. But fawning and fixing had only led me here. And, now I really didn’t have anything else to lose, it was time to try something different: confrontation.
‘Happy?! I’m anything but happy. The last few days have been horrific, not helped by the fact you’ve been completely ignoring me.’
She sat bolt upright again, this time throwing aside the bedcovers and standing to face me, her eyes regaining some of their fire, although her legs appeared to be a little shaky.
‘Meignoringyou? I’ve barely heard from you all week! Ineededyou, Mally! Frannie’s been sick, Rory’s been working around the clock covering for a colleague, and I’ve been having to deal with angry freelancers who are demanding to be paid for articles that will never be published… you’re not the only one with problems, you know!’
‘If things were that bad, you should have called! Or sent another message! I’m not a mind-reader.’
She pushed past me and ran to the bathroom, locking the door behind her. I could hear her sobs echo off the tiles. It must’ve only been the second time she’d cried in my presence. I tapped on the bathroom door gently.
‘Elle? I’m getting really worried. Let me in, please? Otherwise, I’ll have no choice but to call Rory.’
I was tempted to phone him regardless of whether she let me in or not. Because I was fast realising I didn’t know Elle as well as I thought I did.
But then I realised something else: Elle had undoubtedly made some bad decisions, but she’d comeherein her moment of need. Because I was still her safety net, even though I was paying way too high a price for that, and this friendship was anything but equal. I’d call Rory when the time was right, but for the time being this was up to us and us alone to resolve.
Elle unlocked the door and I immediately put my arms around her, tightly. The last time I’d seen her this upset was when I’d told her about the conditional offer I’d received from Bristol University, and my plan to stay in Scarnbrook for my degree. I’d been taken aback by her reaction that day, and she’d eventually confessed that she’d been banking on me coming to Cardiff with her.
‘We need to escape this place, Mally!’ she’d said, with seemingly zero awareness of how much the village meant to me and my family.
As I held her now – conscious that she was refusing to relax into the embrace – I wondered how my life might’ve turned out if I’d stood up to Elle back then and accepted the place at my local uni. Whether we’d still be friends. Would Livvie – would my entire family – have made it if I’d stayed?
Tears stung my eyes as I murmured, ‘It’s okay, it’s okay. We’ll figure this out and make everything all right.’ I had no intention of changing the course of my life for her any more like I’d done back then – and countless times since – but right now, in this moment, both of us needed to feel better before things could move on. She extracted herself from my arms.
‘Fuck, Mally. I’m sorry, okay? I guess you know the truth about me now, hmm? I’m a cold-hearted bitch who doesn’t deserve good people like you in my life.’
‘Stop talking like that, Elle. I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to push me away so I don’t get too close. But this isn’t the kind of relationship you can deliberately sabotage with a throwaway comment about my bad breath. We’ve come too far for that.’
‘Huh, you and Tom Brinton really did hit it off, didn’t you?’
‘I’m sure you know all about it. I can’t believe you set me up like that. It was really cruel. I genuinely thought he liked me.’
Elle sighed. ‘I wasn’t in touch with anyone else – just Ryan. I only heard about what was going on between you and Tom from him.’
