Lindsey Kelk - A Girl’s Best Friend

The duck wrinkled his rubber bill and I knocked him into the bath.

‘I hate you,’ I said, holding my breath and sinking underneath the bubbles, but there he was, all judgemental painted-on eyes, when I re-emerged.

‘I’m not jealous,’ I told him/myself. ‘She’s had so many shit jobs, this is amazing for her.’

‘Remember that time she got fired from the dog walking service for bringing the wrong dog back from the park?’ he asked.

‘I do,’ I admitted.

‘She took a Great Dane out and brought a Labrador home.’

‘She did,’ I admitted. ‘The owners weren’t that happy.’

And now she was more or less running the show at Bertie Bennett’s new label. My friend, Amy, working for my friend, Al. He was fashion royalty and she was a woman who couldn’t get a second interview at Topshop because she laughed when they told her she’d have to work Saturdays and every other Sunday.

The duck still looked sceptical.

‘She likes to have her weekends free,’ I mumbled. ‘But I think it’s nice that she’s finally found something she loves.’

Silence.

‘Maybe we could brainstorm some ideas that would help me, that might be more productive?’ I suggested, poking my toes up out of the water.

‘One, you could assume your flatmate’s identity and run away to Hawaii to shoot a feature for a fashion magazine,’ he suggested.

I gave him a level stare and said nothing.

‘Oh right,’ he said. ‘You’ve done that already. Two, go to Milan and shoot a retrospective of Bertie Bennett’s fashion archives and document the creation of his first designer collection.’

‘Come to think of it, that sounds familiar as well,’ I said. ‘What do you want me to say? Stop sulking, accept the photography isn’t working out, be a grown-up and get a proper job?’

The duck gave me the beady eye.

‘Or four,’ I finished. ‘Drop a little rubber duck into the toilet and wait for one of Amy’s flatmates to flush him?’

Before he could reply, the handle on the bathroom door began to jerk up and down.

‘There’s someone in here!’ I yelled, sloshing around in the bath water. The door was only held shut with one rusty old bolt and I wasn’t convinced it would hold.

‘What?’ a male voice shouted on the other side.

‘I said there’s someone in here!’ I shouted back.

Why would you keep trying the door when someone was clearly inside? Amy lived with idiots. Correction, Amy lived with Al and Kekipi in amazing houses and hotels all over the world. I lived with idiots.

‘Are you going to be long?’ the voice called.

‘As long as it takes for the hot water to come back on,’ I called back, trying the tap with my toe. Still freezing. ‘I need to wash my hair.’

And washing my ridiculous mop required enough water to cause a hosepipe ban in the Home Counties.

A loud sigh rattled through the wooden door. ‘I’ll have to have a shit downstairs then.’

I made a sour face at the duck and waited for the disgruntled footsteps to fade away.

‘I’m so glad I decided to take Amy up on her offer of a place to stay,’ I said to the duck. ‘I’m having such a wonderful time here.’

The duck sailed past my kneecap with a quirk of his little plastic eyebrows that suggested I could have come up with other options.

‘Maybe we could pack up and go and stay with Charlie?’ I suggested.

The duck gave me a death stare. He and Amy both had Charlie Wilder at the top of their shitlists.

‘Oh, wait. We can’t, he hates me.’ I paused. ‘So you can stop looking at me like that or we’re off up north to live with my mother.’

As much as I missed Amy, I knew she had to come home sooner or later. It was nothing compared to how much of a gaping hole Charlie had left in my life. He was the third member of our squad but even I had to admit I could understand why he wasn’t busting my door down to be best friends forever.

I’d been nursing a crush on Charlie Wilder since the first day of university and when it seemed as though we had finally found a way to be together, we managed to cock it all up. Him by sleeping with my former flatmate behind my back and me by falling in love with the worst man alive. And the more I thought about it, the less sense it made.

The duck gave a reassuring quack and floated back down towards the taps.

The hardest part was having absolutely no idea what was going on in his life. We used to talk or see each other almost every day, but after an ill-fated trip to Italy earlier this year, when Amy and I were out there with Al, he had blocked the pair of us from all forms of social media. No status updates, no tweets, no Instagrams, Snapchats, Vibers, WhatsApps or even so much as a Periscope update to give me a clue as to what was going on in his life. When someone declares their undying love and then you declare your undying love to someone else, a freeze out is to be expected. I’d stopped trying to talk to him after thirty-six unanswered text messages.

I missed Charlie. I missed Amy. I missed the certainties and straightforwardness of my old life.

The handle jerked into life again, the bathroom door rattling on its hinges.

‘I’m still in here!’ I yelled. ‘I’m in the bath!’

I missed being able to have a bloody bath in peace.

‘There’s no bog roll downstairs,’ the man’s voice bellowed through the door. ‘Can you chuck us some out?’

I looked over to see one sad piece of toilet paper fluttering from the draft that blew in around the warped wooden bathroom window frame.

‘There’s none in here, either,’ I shouted back. ‘Sorry.’

‘F’king hell,’ the voice grumbled outside the door. ‘What am I supposed to do, wipe my arse with my hand?’

I gave the duck a desperate look.

‘First things first,’ I muttered. ‘Let’s get out of here ASAP.’

The duck’s buoyant bob seemed to suggest he agreed. As soon as possible. If not sooner.

An hour later, I was safely wrapped up in Amy’s giant bed, in Amy’s tiny bedroom, holding a letter in my wrinkled fingers. It was one hundred and thirty-six days since I had been given this note. One hundred and thirty-six days since I had opened the envelope and seen his handwriting for the first time. It was something I’d never thought about before, his handwriting. Between emails and texts, I hardly ever saw anything written down these days, but as soon as I saw this, I knew it was from him.

My handwriting had always been flagged as an area for improvement in school, and now that I hardly ever so much as picked up a pen, it was a disgrace. Nick’s handwriting was perfect, of course. Elegant, joined up, and entirely sure of itself. His beautiful, heartbreaking words, etched into a page he had torn from the expensive leatherbound notebook he carried around with him and then hidden away in my passport for one hundred and thirty-six days.

Dear Tess,

I told you I didn’t know if I could do this and it turns out that I can’t.

I’ve been thinking about it all week and I just can’t see another way. Even if you hadn’t left, I still would have been on a plane to New York in the morning – you gave me a coward’s way out. Don’t think this is your fault.

I’d been fooling myself into thinking this was fun and easy and that I could do it but there’s nothing fun and easy about the way I feel. Everything you said last night was incredible. I love you so much, my bones ache. You, Tess, are spectacular and everyone should be so lucky to have you in their corner but I’m not ready for you and it’s not fair.

I could stay and we could keep playing this game but eventually, I’d hurt you one too many times and you would put up with so much before that happened, so I’m saving us both the heartache by leaving now, before I turn you into me.