Page 40 of The Friend Request

I grin, and so does he. It feels so stupidly easy, standing here taking the mickey out of each other like we used to, that I wonder how we let it get so hard. How I let it get so hard. Because it was me, mostly. I know that. Alex was here the whole time, holding the door open, and I kept walking past it.

Olivia is waiting in the doorway, bag trailing off one shoulder, hair scraped into something that might once have been a ponytail. She glances between us, clocking the fact that we’re standing close together, that we’re smiling, that nobody looks like they’re about to start an argument. She doesn’t say anything about it. She just drops into a chair and asks if there’s toast.

I make her toast. Alex tops up his coffee. Olivia eats with one hand and scrolls through her phone with the other. Alex raises his eyebrows at me behind her head, and I mouth pick your battles. He shakes his head but lets it go. We stand around the kitchen together, and it feels so ordinary and so fragile that I want to cup my hands around it like a candle flame and keep the draught out.

After they’ve gone – Olivia first, earbuds already in, door slamming behind her; Alex a minute later, kissing me on the cheek and squeezing my hand before he picks up his keys – I sit at my desk and open the cover design I’ve been avoiding all week. A psychological thriller, ironically. Woman on a bridge, rain, blurred city lights. The brief says ‘atmospheric and unsettling’, and I think I could design that in my sleep right now.

I work for two solid hours without checking my phone once. The type sits exactly where I want it on the first attempt. The colour palette comes together without the usual forty-seven revisions. I send a first draft to the publisher, sit back, and feel competent for the first time in weeks. Like I’m a person who can do things, not just a woman drowning in her own past.

When I finally pick up my phone, there’s nothing from Ross. No texts, no missed calls, no notification from a number I don’t recognise. Just a message from Alex – Hope today’s a good one x – and a reminder about Olivia’s friend coming over at the weekend.

I type back You too x and put the phone face down on the desk.

This is what normal feels like. I’d almost forgotten.

The thing about trying is that once you start, you notice how little effort it actually takes, and then you feel terrible about all the weeks you didn’t bother. I cook dinner that evening instead of suggesting takeaway. Nothing fancy – chicken stir-fry, the one where I use too much soya sauce and Olivia pretends to be appalled but always finishes her plate. Alex opens a bottle of wine, and we eat at the table instead of on the sofa with the television on. Olivia rolls her eyes but stays for twenty minutes before disappearing upstairs with her phone clamped in her fist.

After she’s gone, Alex reaches across and takes my hand.

‘This is nice,’ he says.

‘It is.’

‘I’ve missed this.’

My throat tightens. ‘Me, too.’

He runs his thumb across my knuckles. ‘I know things have been a bit off lately. I know that’s partly me. Work’s been mad, and I get home and I’ve got nothing left, and that’s not fair on you.’

‘It’s not just you,’ I say, because it isn’t, and because the guilt of letting him take the blame for something that is mostly my fault turns my stomach.

‘Well,’ he says. ‘Whatever it is. Let’s just keep doing this, yeah?’

I nod. I squeeze his hand. And I don’t trust myself to say anything else, because if he asked me to explain where I’ve been for the past month, I wouldn’t know how to answer without lying or telling the truth, and both of those feel equally dangerous right now.

But he doesn’t ask. He just finishes his wine and tells me about a case at work that’s driving him mad, a property dispute where both sides are lying through their teeth. I listen properly, ask questions, and it feels like the easiest thing in the world.

We go to bed at the same time. We lie facing each other in the dark, and he tucks my hair behind my ear. I lean forward and kiss him, and he kisses me back, and for a while there’s nothing in my head except the warmth of his hands and the weight of him and the quiet of the house around us.

I can do this. I can be here.

I can keep my family together.

By Friday, things are better still. We’ve fallen into a rhythm that I’d forgotten we were capable of – small touches, actual conversations, Alex texting me during the day, me replying straight away instead of leaving it hours. Olivia hasn’t said anything, but she’s come downstairs twice without being asked and sat in the living room with us while we watched television, her feet tucked under a cushion. I know she can feel the difference even if she’d never admit it. The three of us, together, in the same room, not performing for each other. Just existing.

I take her to buy new PE trainers after school, then suggest we go back to our favourite café on the high street for a hot chocolate. The Christmas lights are up along the high street already, strung between the street lights, not yet switched on.

‘Can I get cream this time?’

‘You can get whatever you want.’

She narrows her eyes. ‘What’s the catch?’

‘No catch.’

‘You’re being weird lately,’ she says. ‘Like, nice weird. But still weird.’

‘I’m always nice.’