The three flashing dots seem to last forever.
Yes! I forgot you’ve been on holiday! Was it fun? Where did you go? Are you tanned? Did you get the email with all the deets? If you didn’t, it’s 7 pm in Holborn! I’ve attached a link! What are you going to wear? I’m SO excited. I’ve got this floor-length coral number, it’s got kind of appliqué flowers all around the top and it’s SO fancy. Lol. Will you wear heels? Do you think there’ll be dancing? I love dancing. Do you like dancing? This is my first ever work gala! Eeeeeeeeekkkk! Are you excited?
That’s an awful lot of questions to answer in one go.
Honestly, I wish people would just keep their communication to the essentials and leave The Irrelevants until they’re at least standing in front of you, or—in an ideal world—never.
Frustrated already, I type:
Yes. Cornwall. No. Haven’t looked. Thanks. Don’t know. Don’t know. Maybe. No. Not really.
See you there.
Cassie.
Then I look at my watch and winch myself painfully out of bed.
I know I promised I wouldn’t fiddle with time anymore—a promise I’ve broken once already—but for a few seconds, I genuinely consider erasing the entire last month of my life just to get out of this one social event.
Increasingly irked, I go to my open rack and stare at it.
Nobody at work knows about all my vintage clothes, or that I’m a diligent collector of color and texture and shape and fabric. My hoard makes me so very happy. There’s a ruffled primrose dress and a pair of soft, pink balloon-silk trousers and a red corduroy jacket with a gold silk lining so gorgeous it makes my womb hurt. There’s velvet and cashmere, damask and linen and muslin; plums and indigos and creams and aquas and celadon and apricot and lavender. All things bright and beautiful. Anything that brings me happiness gets carried home, and then I wear my five allocated jumpsuits Monday to Friday so all the joy doesn’t get ruined at work.
Sighing, I run my fingertips over the rack, but I’m so tired now everything suddenly feels scratchy and unwearable. Also, I don’t want the bad memories of a work gala to seep into an outfit I otherwise love and ruin it forever.
Frustrated, I tug on my chicken dressing gown and walk into the kitchen. Sal is perched in the breakfast nook, surrounded by what looks like seven dismantled jumpers. Something I said must have stuck: she has clearly eschewed the YouTube channel for what I assume is an attempt at either knitting or whatever it’s called when you take it all apart again.
“Hello, Cassie!” Sal glances up and looks genuinely happy to see me. Something in my stomach feels warm. “You’re back! Did you go somewhere nice? You look well—you’re glowing. I wanted to say thank you again for the other night. I’ve been trying to listen to my gut, or my throat, or whatever it is, and I’ve decided to start my own knitwear range! I’ve got little labels made up and everything.”
She gestures at tiny black fabric tags with Salini Sews embroidered on them. Now is probably not the right time to point out that she’s not sewing anything; she seems happy and inspired, and that’s what matters.
“Sal?” I hover awkwardly by the table, unable to meet her eyes. “Do you think I could have my dress back?”
She frowns. “Sorry?”
“The big blue tulle dress I gave you a couple of weeks ago. I don’t need it back back, but I’ve got this party ball gala thing tonight and I want to wear something I already hate so it doesn’t make me hate something new.”
Sal stares at me, eyes narrowed, and I think I may have broken an unspoken social rule about gifts: beware the Trojans, etc., and also asking for them back so you can sweat profusely in them in public.
“Oh,” she says with a frown. “No. I don’t think so.”
I flush hot. “Please.”
“No.” Sal assesses me carefully. “You can’t go to a ball wearing something you already hate, Cassie. It’ll be no fun at all. Why don’t I lend you something? That way you can just give it back when you’ve turned against it and I’ll make sure you never have to see or touch it again. Something supersoft, right? Wait there.”
Sal jumps up, bounces up the stairs and disappears into her bedroom.
My throat abruptly tightens.
Sal somehow understood what I needed without making me feel weird about it first, and now I think I might be about to cry. Desperate to show my gratitude, I swallow and look at the labels again. Maybe I can sew them all in for her, to say thank you. I cut out all the labels in my own clothes, obviously, but it’s a thing other people enjoy: they seem to put such great store in whatever they say.
The kitchen door opens again and I brighten. “Sal—”
“Well, hello.” Derek swaggers in and grins at me. “Where have you been, you dirty little stop-out?”
I freeze and look at the table. “On holiday.”
“With a new guy? Must have been a good few days.” Derek opens a cupboard, assessing me as he selects a plate. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Cassandra. Although it looks like you did. More than once, judging by the state of your hair.”
If Will is a man with a myriad of destinies and futures contained inside him, I think Derek might be the opposite: he has just the one, and he’s going to goddamn fulfill it in the same way if it kills him.
Dismayed, I try to inhale deeply and realize I can’t.
“Hey.” He opens the fridge and leans his body into it. “I’m just joking, Dankworth. Banter, you know? You don’t need to look quite so appalled. I’m not a predator or anything. I’m just playing around.”
Terror mounting, I pick up a label and stare at it.
“Do I make you nervous, Cassie?” Derek picks out a container of fried rice and struts over to the dinner table. “I don’t mean to, you know. I just want you to be comfortable here, Cassandra. My casa is your casa, after all. Or, I should say, your Casa-ndra. Ha ha.”
With a fork, he picks out a green pea and pops it in his mouth.
Rigid, I glance at the kitchen door and wait for Sal to come back. It’s about to happen. I can feel the end of the loop coming again, like the end of a roll of toilet paper, and it’s way, way sooner than it should be. Yet again, everything I’ve done to avoid my fate has only brought it to me faster. Derek keeps hitting on me, I’ll say. And Sal will say, What the fuck. Derek? And Derek will open his eyes wide and say, I cannot believe you would say that, Cassandra. I’m incredibly hurt. I was just trying to make you feel welcome in your new home, and next thing I know, I’m apologizing profusely and they’re yelling at each other and laptops are being left with “Rooms to Rent” already opened for me.
With shallow breaths, I watch the door and pray for Sal to come back or not come back: I can’t work out which.
“So who’s the lucky guy?” Derek grins and takes a small step toward me. “Because you’re quite the catch, if I do say so, Cassandra Dankworth.”
He leans over for the salt and I feel his hand rest gently, just for two seconds, on my waist.
Pain shoots through me, and that does it: every tiny bit of doubt and hesitation evaporates. I cannot believe he convinced me I was imagining this. I cannot believe I apologized. His creepiness is now as clear as those bloody teeth-whitening strips he leaves stuck to the floor of the bathroom every week.
“Derek.” With a flash of bright purple, I stand up. “Keep your fucking hands away from me, you rampaging dickface.”
He blinks. “Huh?”
“You will not touch me ever again.” I take a step toward him, so our noses are almost touching. My rage feels like a bolt of lightning I can throw across the room. “You will not enter my bedroom. You will not make inappropriate comments. You will not gaslight me ever again. The next time you do, I am going to rip your fucking fingers off and ram them, one by one, down your throat. And then I’ll go back in time and do it again. And again. And again. Do you understand, Derek? I can literally turn back time to torture you and I will, happily, so consider this my only warning.”
He opens his mouth. “I was just trying to be fr—”
“No,” I hiss, finally certain. “You were not.”
“What’s going on?” Sal says in a carefully light voice behind me. “What’s with all the shouting, guys? That’s normally a job I take very seriously. You’re going to make me fully redundant.”
Cheeks flaring, I spin round to face my flatmate. Sal has an armful of beautiful evening gowns skimming the floor, and I’m so touched and simultaneously so ready for this to be over now. I’m done with the looping. I’m done with the prophecies. I’m done with inching through time as if on a Battleship board, trying to remember all the places I’ve already exploded.
“Derek keeps hitting on me,” I say firmly.
Sal’s eyes widen. “What the fuck. Derek?”