The Flatshare

by Beth O'Leary

fidget. “Well, you tell Richie he owes me a letter.” “He’ll write. I should go. But—thank you. Tiffy. I’m so glad it was you, and not the drug dealer or the man with the hedgehog.” “Pardon?” “Don’t worry,” he says quickly. “See you later.”

Are you kidding me.

She smiles up at me and I feel something shift in my chest. Hard to describe. Maybe like a lock clicking into place.

Agghhhhhh

I turn my head into the pillow. Don’t want her to see that I’m smiling like a love-struck teenager because she just said “next time.”

Are you kidding me

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say automatically, the way you learn to from the age of eight.

So clever

don’t let it be a barrier between you. I left it too long to tell my—I left things too late, and now I wish I’d just said what I wanted when I still could. Think what my life could have been. Not that I’m not happy with my lot, but … you do waste an awful lot of time when you’re young.

it’s awful. I want her to mother me, not the other way around, and it almost makes me angry seeing her like this, even while it makes me sad.

“She said yes!” Justin yells, standing up, stretching his arms out wide. “She said yes!”

Wtf

I feel a sudden, sickening fear that I won’t ever be able to shake him, no matter how many times I see him walk away.

Look at him. Aged ninety-two, he’s tracked Mr. Prior down, put his best suit on, traveled all the way up from the coast. All for a man he loved a lifetime ago. He sits there, head bowed like a man in prayer, waiting for the strength to face what he left behind.

“So where are you now?” I ask eventually. “Look up. Opposite pavement, by the bakery.” I see him now. He’s silhouetted against the bright yellow light of the bakery’s sign, the phone to his ear, his other arm cradling a bouquet of flowers.

screaming.

“Tiffany Moore,” he says, “I have every intention of continuing to look at you in this fashion for many moons to come.”

He smiles. “I don’t think so. Doesn’t work that way. Sometimes the happy thing just happens.”

“It was never home until you were there, Tiffy.”