She had swung from feeling relieved at not having heard from Alice and Jules to aggrieved; yes, they had stuff going on, but so did she. A month or so ago she’d found the note she’d written in the apartment, a barely coherent scribble on the back of a receipt, telling the girls she had to leave. It fell out from her sherbet-striped jumper, which she’d moved from her case to her chest of drawers on her return. How odd, she’d thought. Her friends hadn’t known she’d had to go but she still hadn’t heard from them. She couldn’t have seen them, of course, or told them what she’d been through, but knowing they were at the end of the phone if she needed them would have been sustaining. She was starting to feel like she’d been ghosted but that brought a wry smile. They would never ghost each other. It had been three months though, the longest they hadn’t been in touch. It would be so easy for her to send a message over WhatsApp. Why did she keep putting it off? She wasn’t sure. Was it the guilt towards Alice that had resurfaced when she was pregnant? Was it guilt that she’d not wanted something that Jules was so desperate for? Occasionally, she wondered whether Jules would ever be able to forgive her if she knew. And although that would be unfair, she understood and before getting in touch with Jules and telling her what had happened, she needed to be sure she was ready to say goodbye to their friendship.

*

Ted’s company was housed in a tall City building with a sushi restaurant on the roof. The front-desk team were enthusiastic patrons of La City Pâtisserie since they’d been issued with discount cards by Ted’s firm. Alex smiled at her as she approached. ‘Up to see Ted?’ they asked, handing over a visitor’s badge.

Nina checked Jules’s social media while she waited for a lift, as she did most days now, hoping for a photo of a scan or a discernible bump, but she still hadn’t posted anything since Paris. In the lift she struggled to find a suitable distraction, her phone signal cut off and her social media feeds frozen as the lift climbed higher, stopping at each floor.

Was she doing the right thing? Raking up something that had happened over a decade ago? Yes, she told herself, yes. It can’t be a dark secret festering away in your past any more. You need to confront it. Tell Ted, tell Alice. Make peace with them both if you can and move on.

Ted’s firm was arranged with an open-plan area in the centre and offices for the partners lining the outside glass walls. Nina passed unhindered towards Ted’s office, the bank of secretaries who usually occupied the middle space (and always asked her how she was and if she was seeing anyone) thankfully all out at lunch. Ted’s door was closed. Make peace and move on, she urged herself as she knocked, not wanting to disturb him if he was mid-meeting or conference call, although she suspected he was most likely eating lunch at his desk. Behind the door she heard a kerfuffle, a chair pulling back quickly and a muted ‘shit!’