Chapter 6

Isla didn't hear from Rachel after she left for Brighton on Saturday. She didn't hear from her on Sunday, either. And by the time Monday evening hit, she was genuinely really worried. Her WhatsApp messages hadn't even been read.

In the ten years that she and Rachel had been friends, they'd barely spent even an afternoon without exchanging messages, so to go nearly three days…

Something was wrong. Something had to be wrong. There was no other explanation.

The moment the clock hit five pm, Isla was out the front door of Stuffie Hospital London, almost as if she'd packed all her bags and was waiting casually on the stairs so that she could run out the door, fast.

Isla was on the Tube faster than she realized was possible during rush hour, and got off at Ealing Broadway after suffering through far more commuters with lack of appreciation for personal space than any one person should ever have to interact with.

Taking a deep breath when she hit the fresh air, she went to head down the road toward Rachel's place. Paused. She should probably let Rach know she was coming. That was polite, right? That's what people did when they visited. They didn't just turn up.

Rach and Isla always just turned up at each other's places; there was never the need to message before. But something was wrong, Isla had established that already, and so standard practices probably needed adjusting.

You've stopped answering my messages, and haven't even read some of them, and that never happens. I've been vaguely normal and so I'm coming over instead of putting out a call for a search party.

She was aware that she sounded slightly manic, panicked. She felt manic and panicked. Hopefully Rach wouldn't mind the intrusion.

Picking up the pace, Isla strode down the road, managing to give off enough of a ‘don't fuck with me' vibe that commuters just parted before her. Ealing was a busy commuter, but far enough out of Central London that the rental properties were a more manageable price.

Rach's flat was small, a one-bed basement flat with limited windows, no garden, and a tiny living room that only just about had enough space for a sofa and a desk.

Originally there had been no desk, but when Covid hit, Rach had needed one—much like the rest of the world—and Amazon had delivered. She'd made a fuss about accepting the office chair with proper back support that Isla had insisted on ordering for her, but she'd since agreed that it was indeed a nice chair and very comfortable. She'd stopped short of admitting that Isla had been right, but it had been implied.

When Isla reached the front door, she paused. She knew this flat so well. The two of them had both been single when the pandemic hit, both been alone, and they'd formed a bubble with each other. Isla had a—mostly unused—car, and she'd insisted on driving over, so Rach didn't have to blow half her paycheck on taxis. They'd spent so much time together; Isla crashing on the sofa on the days when she didn't have client meetings. Sitting on the couch in the living room, answering emails, whilst Rachel worked on various different design briefs, had been a strange kind of comfort. It had felt safe.

It had felt right.

And now, standing here, Isla wasn't entirely certain how to feel. It was almost as if there had been an imperceptible shift in how the two of them related to each other, and she'd missed the memo.

She didn't like missing memos. Half the time at Stuffie Hospital London, she was the one sending the memos.

Isla felt left out.

She could have knocked on the door.

She didn't.

Instead, she sat herself on the stairs that led down to the basement's front door, and wracked her brain to try and work out what could be going on.

Nothing had changed. They were the same to each other that they had always been. There was no reason Rachel would suddenly have gone incommunicado like this. Nothing she could think of, unless…

Unless Rachel had guessed Isla's secret.

It wasn't really much of a secret. Her friends and even her work colleagues teased her about her not-actual-girlfriend fairly regularly.

Sometimes it felt like the entire world knew that Isla was in love with Rach.

The entire world.

She huffed a sigh.

Everyone but Rach.

And if Rach knew… if Rach had worked it out…

Her hands went clammy, and Isla suddenly thought she's made a terrible mistake in turning up at Rachel's flat. What if it was too weird? What if it creeped out Rach to the point where she didn't want to see Isla anymore? Because as much as she was in love with Rachel—and she really was—a huge part of that was about their friendship.

Isla could survive without Rachel's love.

She couldn't survive without Rachel's friendship.

Taking a deep breath, Isla stood up, bracing herself. The worst thing was not knowing. It probably wasn't anything to do with Isla in the slightest, but until she knew, she'd be on tenterhooks, worrying if her life was going to change in some unknown, horrible way.

She knocked.