Page 67 of The Friend Request

‘A hamster. Apparently, Grace Kellaway’s got one and it can run through a maze. I said we’d discuss it.’

‘Which means no.’

‘Which means no, but I’m letting you deliver that verdict.’

I lean my head on the car window, close my eyes, and let the conversation surround me. This is what I’ve been missing. Not the big declarations, not the I’m sorry and the I forgive you and the painful unpicking of who did what and why. Just this. The small, pointless back and forth of two people who know each other well enough to share a joke about their daughter and the ongoing hamster negotiations. The language of a marriage that still works, underneath everything.

‘How are you doing?’ I say, and I really want to know.

He takes a moment. I can picture him standing in the kitchen, or sitting at the table, running his hand over his face the way he does when he’s thinking about how to say something properly. Alex never answers a question without considering it first. It’s the solicitor in him. It’s also the husband.

‘Better,’ he says. ‘I was in a bad way when I left you there, Kim. I won’t pretend I wasn’t. I drove back and sat in the house on my own, and I was – angry doesn’t cover it. I was so angry I couldn’t sit still. I walked around the house for two hours. I stood in the kitchen and looked at the spot where you said he—’ He stops. Breathes. ‘Anyway. That was then. By Wednesday, I could think about it without wanting to put my fist through something, and by yesterday, I could think about it without thinking about him at all. I just thought about you. About us. About what I actually want, when I take all the noise away.’

‘And what do you want?’ My voice is barely there.

‘I want you to come home,’ he says. ‘I want things to be better. I’m not saying I’m over it – I’m not, and I don’t think I will be for a while, and there are conversations we still need to have that are going to be hard for both of us. But I don’t want to lose this. I don’t want to lose you over something that happened because we stopped paying attention to each other.’

My eyes are stinging. I press the heel of my hand against them and breathe through it. Outside the car window, the town carries on as if nothing is happening – the woman with the pushchair going into the chemist, the teenager on the bike doing another lap, a seagull fighting a crisp packet on the pavement.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I know I’ve said it and I know it’s not enough, but I’m sorry, Alex. For all of it. For not telling you. For letting it get as far as it did. For the kitchen, and the party, and the⁠—’

‘I know.’

‘I should have come to you straight away. The first message, the first time he got in touch, I should have shown you and told you and trusted you to⁠—’

‘Kim. I know. And we’ll talk about it. But not on the phone in a car park in Wales.’

I half laugh, half sob, and wipe my face with my sleeve. ‘Fair enough.’

‘I can come and get you,’ he says. ‘End of the week? Friday, maybe. Mum could come here and watch Olivia. We could have the weekend together – properly together, I mean, not the version I planned, but close enough.’

The cottage with the fireplace, the view of the hills, and the blue door. The weekend he’d booked to save us, before I’d given him a reason to wonder if we were worth saving.

‘I’d like that,’ I say.

‘Good.’ A pause. ‘And, Kim – the messages. Has anything else come through?’

‘Nothing. Not for five days. I checked just now, before I called you. Nothing.’

‘All right.’ I can hear him processing that – deciding what it means and what to do about it. ‘We’ll deal with it when you’re home. We’ll go to the police together. Do it properly.’

‘Together,’ I say.

‘Together.’

The word sits between us. Not a promise, exactly – we’ve both learned something about the weight of promises this week – but a plan. A direction. The outline of a way forward that has both of us in it, and for the first time since I sat on the sofa and watched his face change while I told him everything, I feel something that isn’t guilt or fear.

It might be hope. I’m almost afraid to call it that.

‘I should go,’ Alex says. ‘Mum’s bringing Olivia back soon, and I said I’d have tea on.’

‘Give her a kiss from me. Tell her I love her. And tell her no to the hamster.’

‘I’ll tell her the first two. The hamster’s on you.’

I smile. My face is wet, and my nose is running. I’m sitting in a borrowed Land Rover that smells of dog, and I’m smiling.

‘Alex,’ I say. ‘I love you.’