“Running Late Again?”
Nik’s voice on the phone sounded muffled, as if he were calling from somewhere far away—maybe the banks of the River Thames on one of those drizzly evenings when the sky can’t decide whether to rain or just sulk.
“Yeah. Till eleven, maybe later. We’ve got a supply chain nightmare,” replied Emily, switching to speakerphone. With one hand, she finished typing an email to a client; with the other, she absently stirred her now-lukewarm tea. The mug sat on the edge of the desk, surrounded by crumpled drafts of reports she hadn’t even glanced at.
“You might as well not live here anymore,” he said after a long pause. No accusation, just a fact. But there it was—that quiet ache for the evenings that weren’t empty, the mornings when conversation didn’t dissolve into silence.
“You know how it is,” she said, hearing her own voice wobble with exhaustion.
“Yeah.” The silence stretched, thick as London fog, full of all the things neither of them dared say.
Emily hated that silence. It was too loud, too heavy, drowning out their unspoken words and the tired little lies they told themselves—that everything was fine, that it would hold.
She got home past midnight. Their flat in a quiet corner of Croydon greeted her with darkness, save for the dim glow of the hallway light Nik always left on—”So you don’t trip over your own shoes.” The light spilled onto the floor, spotlighting a lone sock (definitely his). In the kitchen, a note: *Food in the microwave. Asleep.* The handwriting was rushed, like he’d scribbled it while running away from something.
She sat at the table, reheated dinner, ate in the half-light without tasting anything. Everything was where it should be—hot food, warm light, care in two short lines. But inside, she felt cold. She opened her laptop, scrolled through a report, closed it. The screen stared back, blank as a mirror with no answers. After washing her face—avoiding her own tired eyes—she crawled into bed beside Nik. He slept facing away, breathing evenly. There was a little more emptiness between them than yesterday. Or maybe she just imagined it.
Morning brought traffic jams and a broken shoe strap. On the bus, Emily ended up next to a woman in her late forties loudly complaining into her phone: “He rolled in at dawn again, reeking of lager, and I—like an absolute mug—still wait up for him.” The words hit like an echo. Backwards. That woman waited despite the hurt. Emily lived with Nik, but it felt like they orbited separate universes, barely brushing past each other.
At the office, her boss didn’t notice she’d arrived early. He wouldn’t have noticed her report either if she hadn’t plonked it on his desk. “Alright,” he grunted, eyes glued to his screen. Same old script: task, report, nod, silence. Even praise sounded like an order.
Emily retreated to the office kitchen, made tea. Watched the teabag sink into hot water, leaving a dark trail, dissolving something unseen. It was the only real thing in that moment.
Then it hit her: everything she did was *correct*. Flawless. Reliable. But it was motion without direction—like a car speeding smoothly down a motorway with no destination. She poured herself into reports, deadlines, tick-boxes, never asking: *Does this lead anywhere except another folder on the desktop?*
That evening, they ate dinner together. In silence. Spoons clinked against plates, wind rattled the windows, the fridge hummed—proof life carried on. Nik stared at his food, avoiding her gaze. Then, out of nowhere:
“Not working late tonight?”
“Shouldn’t be,” she said, her voice shaky with something like hope.
“Fancy the cinema?”
She nodded, hesitating—weighing whether she had the energy to *live*, not just scramble through the days. Then she stepped behind him, wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He was warm, solid, real. Like a lighthouse in a storm.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I just want to keep it all together. Work, us, home… Everything.”
“I know,” he said softly. “But we’re not building a fortress, love. We’re living. Yeah?”
She didn’t answer. Just pressed her face into his shoulder, breathing in the scent of his shirt. He squeezed her hand—like that alone could anchor them.
At the cinema, they watched some flashy action flick—car chases, cheesy one-liners, explosions. The plot barely mattered. In the dark, the seats were comfy, the screen was huge, and their fingers stayed tangled. For the first time in ages, she remembered how to breathe.
Afterwards, they walked through the neighbourhood. The air smelled of rain and blooming lilacs, streetlamps casting warm pools of light that made the houses look almost dreamlike. Somewhere nearby, teenagers laughed, the sound foreign but alive. Nik rambled about his colleague who’d bought a dodgy second-hand car, some nonsense from the Tube. Nothing important—just the ordinary backdrop Emily suddenly realised she’d missed so desperately.
At their doorstep, she stopped. Something inside her shifted—not fear, not doubt, just a pause where a word took shape.
“Y’know,” she said, “I think I’m *almost* okay. Almost.”
Nik looked at her. No surprise in his eyes—just warmth, like he’d been waiting for this.
“Let’s make it all okay, then. Bit by bit.”
She nodded. And for the first time in forever, she didn’t just want to *manage*. She wanted to *be*.
