She lay on top of her bed and looked at the reminders of her teenage years and of simpler times. The posters were gone now, but she could still remember where they had hung. Westlife and Robbie Williams, grinning down with their pop-star pouts.
This place had been her sanctuary. If she closed her eyes, she could conjure an image of her teenage self, sitting on the floor, her back leaning against the wall, long bronzed legs stretched out in front of her. Jess sat opposite, legs crossed, singing along – badly – to whatever they were listening to as they drank from Coca Cola cans and laughed about their current crushes. Although, for Libby, quite often her crushes were the dark and brooding heroes of whatever book she was reading. How she would spend time imagining them holding her and kissing her the way they kissed the heroines that she read about. She lost hours fantasising about Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights – only to realise as she grew that he was a much more sinister character than her fourteen-year-old self had realised. Jess’s crushes had been mainstream. They included actors, singers, and even footballers, during a particularly short-lived but obsessive football phase.
So many secrets had been shared in this room – so many hopes and dreams too. Not to mention all the promises that they would stay friends forever and ever and never ever fall out.
Who would have thought the fall out would come when they were both mature women, living their own lives? And that it would, technically, have a boy at the centre of it?
Libby had wanted to fix it, of course. So she sat up, phone in hand and composed at least a dozen text messages which she, ultimately, would never send to Jess. First, she apologised. Then, she ranted a bit – her hurt pouring from her fingers as she jabbed at her phone screen. Then, she tried a conciliatory approach. But none of it felt right – so she deleted them all and instead lay back staring at the ceiling, trying to work it out.
She thought, for a moment, of going downstairs and asking her parents if she was a thoroughly unlikeable person, but she knew she couldn’t rely on their answers – on account of them being her parents and thinking the sun shone directly out of her arse. Then she wrote and rewrote a number of different text messages to Ant – some pretending as if nothing had happened with Jess – in her usual flirtatious tone. Some asking if he thought she was selfish? But she deleted those messages too. Least said, soonest mended, her grandad used to tell her – so she switched her phone off and allowed the tiredness of the day to wash over her – waking occasionally to let the wave of unease lull her back to sleep.
Libby woke late, without her phone switched on to beep her into consciousness, and stared at the wall at a shaft of light cutting through the curtains. It was another hot day – she could feel it already. Her bedroom was stuffy. The air dead. Her first thought was of Jess. Maybe she’d been overthinking things. Maybe they’d both just been tired and snippy, due to the heat of the day making them feel worse.
It would no doubt all get sorted that day, she told herself. Messages not written in the heat of the moment would be exchanged and by tea time the storm in a teacup would be a thing of the past. Something never to be spoken of again.
Except by tea time no messages had been exchanged, not one. Not from Jess or Ant. And Libby was certain she wasn’t going to make the first move. Maybe, just like the weather, they all needed a little more time to calm down.
In the meantime, she was busy. Building work continuing apace. Minor crises being solved every day. Some horrible surprises (the pipework running through the yard at the back of the shop needed replacing, at Libby’s expense) but some high points as well. When the tattered lino was ripped from the shop floor, everyone had been astounded to find a stunning parquet floor, which just needed a little TLC, had been hiding underneath. Libby could’ve wept with joy.
It was enough to distract her, but by Thursday she was feeling very much on edge.
The heatwave had become almost insufferable, especially as she and the tradesmen tried not to fall over each other as they worked. And not one message had travelled across the airwaves from Jess to her or vice versa. Her WhatsApp was barren of new messages from the woman who was supposed to be her best friend.
By the time the thermometer had climbed into the mid-twenties on Thursday, Libby’s hurt was starting to fester.
Jess had left her in limbo and she had also hit her directly where she knew it would hurt. Criticising anything to do with her shop was the lowest of blows. Jess knew, more than anyone, how much it meant to her. Grandad Ernie had been a de facto grandparent to Jess as well. They’d all spent so much time together when they were younger.
Things had been cooling even more with Ant too. They’d exchanged cursory text messages. She didn’t send him pictures of how things were going. If Jess was telling the truth, Ant didn’t really care anyway.
She’d made no plans at all to see him that weekend. Yes, he’d asked if she would be working and she’d replied simply that she would. She didn’t go into any other details. God forbid, her telling him that she finally had a shop name and was starting to work on their branding and marketing materials would prove to him she was as single-minded as her friend had said she was.
No. She would do it herself. Well, with the help of her parents and a team of tradesmen who she was actually starting to grow quite fond of. She resolved that she didn’t need Jess or Ant to hold her hands.
But God it was hard. She might’ve been angry, she might’ve been hurt. But that didn’t mean she didn’t miss Jess. They’d never gone this long without communicating before and she felt as if a part of her was missing – a part that knew exactly how her mind worked and how to calm her down when she started to spiral.
And she was starting to spiral a bit. Despite the builders being great and her parents being lovely. Despite Harry letting her have a free ice lolly, and offering to buy her a half-pint in the pub some evening. Everything still felt off-kilter without her support network.
She wanted Jess to be in her life. She needed Jess to be there for her at this time more than any other. Just as Libby herself had been there for Jess when she wanted to pack in her medicine studies after throwing up the first time she cut into her cadaver.
The lack of a blinking light on her phone signalling a new notification taunted her. Libby turned the phone face-down on the counter and went back to trying to drown out the sound of Terry and Gerry The Sparks singing – or rather, screeching – along to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on the radio as they worked.
A while later, a knock on the glass of the open door caught her attention and she looked up to see Noah standing in the doorway. ‘You don’t mind me calling over?’ he asked.
‘No, of course not,’ she said, but really Noah was just another complication in her life she didn’t need right now. Not that anything else had happened since Saturday. He’d behaved perfectly normally towards her.
‘I just wanted to check you were okay with the shelving units arriving tomorrow? Keith has been on, just checking. He said he tried to call you but he didn’t get an answer. I knew you were over here, so I figured I’d be as quick walking over and asking you myself.’
Libby cursed at the phone on the counter. ‘I’d put my phone on silent, to try and concentrate some more on work,’ she said, turning it over and seeing two missed calls from Keith – and no notifications from anyone else. ‘But, yes, tomorrow, should be fine.’ Libby looked around the shop. The walls were still bare. Wiring exposed. The plasterboard needing to go up before the shelves could be fixed to their intended spot, but she supposed she could store them in the stockroom, which now, at least, was rodent-free.