Page 31 of The Friend Request

‘Kim? Are you still there?’

‘Yes. Sorry. I’m – yes, I know him. He’s – it’s complicated.’

‘Can you give me his name?’

The silence in the hallway presses against me. The front door is solid at my back, the chain on, the lock turned. The television still murmurs in the living room, the fridge hums in the kitchen, and the blood rushes in my ears.

If I give them his name, they’ll contact him. They’ll speak to him. And Ross will tell them everything – the dinner, the walk, the kiss. He’ll show them the photo, and they’ll look at it and see a woman who went willingly, who leaned in, who closed her eyes, and the whole thing will shift from a woman being stalked to a domestic mess that a married woman brought on herself.

And Alex will find out. Not from me, in the way I’d choose, with the context and the apology and the desperate hope that he might understand, but from a police officer or a follow-up call or a letter arriving on the doormat.

‘Kim?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I think I’ve – I’m sorry, I’ve made a mistake. It’s fine. I’m fine.’

‘Are you sure? If you feel unsafe, we can⁠—’

‘No. Thank you. I’m sorry for wasting your time.’

I hang up.

My hand drops to my lap. The phone screen glows and fades. And I sit on the bottom step in the hallway and feel the walls close in because I’ve just done the thing I swore I wouldn’t do – I’ve trapped myself. I can’t tell the police without telling Alex. I can’t tell Alex without explaining why I was at that dinner, why I let Ross kiss me, why I’ve been keeping all of it locked inside me like something precious instead of something rotten.

I am on my own with this.

The thought turns my stomach. I press my palms against my knees and breathe the way the midwife taught me thirteen years ago when Olivia was coming and the pain was too much and I needed something to hold on to. It doesn’t help. Nothing helps. My whole body is still vibrating with the memory of Ross’s face at the window, and every time I close my eyes I see the door handle lifting and dropping, lifting and dropping, that small click that meant the only thing standing between me and him was a button I’d pressed half a second before he reached me.

What if I’d been slower?

I stand. I take off my coat, hang it on the hook by the door, carry my bag into the kitchen, and put the kettle on, because that’s what you do, isn’t it? You put the kettle on. You go through the motions. You act like a person who is fine until the acting becomes real, and maybe by then you are fine, or at least close enough that nobody can tell the difference.

The kettle boils. I make tea. I wrap both hands around the mug and stand at the worktop and stare at the dark window above the sink. My reflection stares back – white face, wide eyes, hair falling out of its tie – and for a second, I don’t recognise her.

I hear the car before I see the headlights.

The engine note is familiar – Alex’s Audi, the low rumble I’ve heard pull into this drive a thousand times – and then the lights sweep across the kitchen wall, the engine cuts, and I hear the doors open and Olivia’s voice, high and bright, saying something I can’t make out.

They’re home.

I put down the mug. I smooth my hair. I tug the sleeves of my jumper over my wrists because my hands are still shaking, and I arrange my face into something that might pass for relaxed if nobody looks too hard.

The front door opens. The chain tinkles where it catches – I forgot to take it off – and Alex’s voice sails through the gap, patient, somewhat tired.

‘Kim? The chain’s on.’

‘Sorry – sorry, one second.’

I cross the hallway, unhook the chain, open the door, and there they are. Olivia first, barging past me with her rucksack and her phone, smelling of car freshener and someone else’s house.

‘Grandma gave me twenty quid,’ she announces, kicking off her trainers. ‘And Grandad says I’m taller than Auntie Sarah now, which is obviously a lie because Auntie Sarah is massive. But I didn’t correct him because of the twenty quid.’

‘Smart girl,’ I say and sound almost normal. Almost.

Alex follows her in, carrying Olivia’s overnight bag and a Tupperware of something his mum has sent back with them. He sets the bag down by the stairs, puts the Tupperware on the hall table, and looks at me.

‘All right?’ he asks.

‘Fine. Good. How were your parents? I thought you were coming back tomorrow?’