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NOW

Had it been that time in the cafe when she’d first started to realise how much Will had come to mean? Sophie wondered.

‘I’ve missed this, you know,’ she said, sipping her latte and feeling it warm her throat.

The rain still pattered down outside, but in the cafe everything was bright and welcoming. If anything, the dank, cloudy weather outside simply added to the cafe’s charm.

‘What, coffee?’ Will joked.

‘Ha ha. No. This.’ She paused. ‘You.’

His eyes met hers, questioning. ‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. Look, sorry about how things went. It was a weird time.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said emphatically.

‘It still is, in a way,’ she added.

He nodded, taking a sip of his own drink. ‘I get that.’

‘But it’s OK. I’ve kind of realised that it’s always going to be,’ she said. ‘Weird, I mean. I thought things would eventually start to feel like they used to. But I don’t know. It’s as if I’ve lost a limb or something. It’s never going away.’

He was silent for a minute. ‘Yeah, makes sense,’ he said at last. ‘But maybe that’s OK. Maybe it’s good.’

‘Losing a limb is good ?’

‘Ha. Well, no, but metaphorically, having that… absence. It’s normal that going through something like that would change you. It changed me too. Obviously I wasn’t as close to Tom as you were. But he was my friend. He was someone I thought I’d have in my life for years and years. Now… well, things are different.’

She looked at him. ‘Yes, I see that.’

They smiled sadly at one another.

‘Anyway, how are things going with you?’ she asked, determined to change the subject. Once the topic of Tom came up, she’d found conversations almost drifted away – it was hard to bring them back from the life-shatteringly awful to the trivial again. But she needed the trivial – it was what kept her in the moment.

‘Ah, OK,’ he said. ‘Still rowing.’

‘Yeah? Still the five o’clock starts?’

He nodded. ‘Can’t seem to help it,’ he admitted. ‘It’s an addiction.’

‘Pretty good addiction to have, as they go.’

‘Yep, slightly better than heroin, no worse than crack or cocaine.’

She laughed, the sound bubbling up from within her. ‘Yes, I think rowing probably doesn’t have its own support group.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Do you remember the rowing club lot?’ he joked. ‘More like a therapy group than a club half the time.’

She laughed again, it felt good. A silence descended, but it was companionable rather than awkward, and they both took a sip of their coffees.

‘Remember the party where we first met?’ she said. ‘ A Midsummer Night’s Dream costumes.’

‘Yeah,’ he smiled. ‘I’m still friends with some of the guys on Facebook. It seems like no time since we left, but some of them have got grey hair. Whereas I obviously haven’t changed a bit!’

She laughed. ‘I know. Neither of us have.’ She gave him a friendly nudge.

‘Scary, isn’t it?’

‘What, getting old?’

‘Well, old-ER.’

‘A bit,’ she said. ‘But I guess it’s a privilege too.’

They were silent for a moment then, ‘Sorry,’ she added.

‘What?’

‘Well, bringing the mood down. I wasn’t really thinking about Tom when I said it. It’s just odd, seeing the years tick by and thinking about where you thought you’d be, comparing it to how things are.’

‘Oh, God. Definitely. But you know, I was talking to my grandad and he said he feels the same.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Ninety-four.’

‘So basically, there’s no hope for us,’ Sophie said, laughing. ‘Destined to reach our tenth decades and still wonder where all the time went.’

‘The human condition,’ he suggested.

‘Yeah. If we’re lucky.’ And there it was again, that dip of sadness. Tom entering the conversation by stealth.

‘Do you want to—?’ he said, then stopped abruptly.

‘What?’

‘No, don’t worry.’

‘Come on, Will. You can’t leave me hanging like that. Do I want to what? Have another coffee? Travel to the Congo? Do a bungee jump?’

He grinned. ‘I was just going to ask if you fancied giving rowing another go. If you can cope with it, that is.’

She flexed an arm. ‘I never really stopped,’ she admitted.

‘What?’

‘Been going to the gym. You know, keeping up with it a bit. It’s not the same, but…’

‘Oh, that’s cool.’

They sipped their drinks quietly for a moment. ‘Sorry how I was back then. I wanted to call but…’

He nodded, acknowledging.

‘But it would be nice to row again – for real, I mean.’

‘Really? Because I’d really like that too.’

‘I’ve missed it,’ she said. Then, ‘And you. I’ve missed you.’

She looked at him, setting her cup down in her saucer. Was she really going to say it? ‘And you know,’ she said, feeling her cheeks get hot, ‘I’d like to be friends again, too. If that’s OK?’

He smiled. ‘Soph, we never stopped being friends.’

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘For what?’

‘Just still being there, while I disappeared. Not minding. Not everyone’s like that, you know. Some of the people I… dropped, when things were bad, they’ve kind of moved on. I’ll send them the odd message, email. And they’re friendly enough, but it’s like they’ve filled all the spaces in their lives and haven’t got room for me any more.’

‘That sucks.’

‘Yeah.’ She stirred her drink. ‘Sometimes I think people are afraid of me.’

‘What?’ he spluttered, almost spilling his drink. ‘Because of the bicep?’ he joked.

‘Because of Tom. Because being around me reminds them that life is short, fragile. And I don’t think people want to think about that most of the time.’

He raised a shoulder, a brief shrug of solidarity. ‘I get that, a bit. Like the guys from uni – they mention Tom sometimes of course, they raise a pint to him when we meet up. But then it’s all chat about jobs and football and house prices. Nobody wants to bring down the mood.’

‘Tom would have hated to bring the mood down,’ she said, thinking about how much he’d always tried to make people laugh, spread some sort of joy.

‘I know.’

‘Well, maybe we’ll talk about him,’ she said. ‘Remember the fun parts as well as all the shit that followed.’

‘Sounds like a plan.’

‘Rowing and reminiscing it is,’ she said.

‘And coffee?’

‘Definitely coffee.’

They clinked their cups together to seal the deal, and Sophie thought back to what Sam had told her when she’d turned up on the doorstep with a hangover and life advice. It had been hard forcing herself to go out. But each time she forced herself into life, things felt a little better.

Despite still feeling exhausted, shaken from the events of the past two days, Sophie realised, sitting there in the silent room, that she was smiling.