As promised, Alex takes the tube with me to work on Monday morning. Though I moan loudly about him treating me like a kid, I’m grateful for his protection. We stand on the train, clutching the rail that hangs over our heads, and he does his best to make me smile.
“How's the job going?” he asks. “Managed to burn anybody yet?” It's a standing joke in our family: when I was fourteen I got a Saturday job in our local cafe. It lasted exactly 32 minutes, the time it took to pour a cup of tea over my first customer.
“Not yet,” I say dryly. “But I’m not ruling it out.”
&nbs
p; He walks me to the office block, an arm protectively slung around my shoulders. And though the circumstances could be so much better, I'm glad we at least get to spend some minutes together.
We part outside the electronic doors, after Alex gives me a short, sharp hug. I feel his hands curl into fists, digging into my back.
“If he turns up, you call me, okay?” His voice is gritty. “I'm working over in Tower Hamlets, I can be here in a few minutes.”
I wrap my hand around his still-tight fist. “I'll be fine.” I'm not scared of a man who broke a three-month-old baby's bone. Disgusted, maybe, but not frightened.
The more I think about him, the harder it is to categorise my emotions. They swing back and forth like a pendulum, from shocked to angry, sad to disbelieving. When I lay in bed that night, my mind flitted from my mum's lies to my father's violence and at one point I wanted no more to do with either of them. But there's a difference between telling falsehoods to protect the one you love and deliberately harming a child.
“What time do you finish?” Alex interrupts my thoughts. I squint at him, the morning sun making me blink before it slides between two clouds.
“I'm not sure. I'll be fine, Al. I promise I'll be careful.”
“I don't know...” He looks torn. “I'll come and pick you up.”
“Alex,” I say gently. “I'll be okay. You can't spend your life taking me back and forth to work. You've got a family of your own, a job... you can't be responsible for me as well.” When he hesitates, I attempt to reassure him. “I'll get somebody to walk me to the station after work.”
It won't be difficult, there are so many co-workers leaving the office at the same time as me.
He breathes out, rubbing his head. “All right.”
Stepping inside One Canada Square lends me strength I didn’t know I needed. It makes me feel normal, like everybody else who waits impatiently for the lift, feet tapping and chests huffing. I'm so busy soaking it in that it takes me a moment to realise somebody's talking.
“Can you drop by my office at ten? There's something I need to discuss with you,” Diana Joseph asks. She flicks her hair out of her eyes and I look at them, trying to read the rationale behind her request. I may have only been working here for a matter of weeks, but I've already learned that a meeting with HR usually means one of two things. Either you're out of a job, or you've got a promotion. She definitely isn't there to hand out tea and sympathy.
“What for?” An image from Friday night flashes through my mind. Callum holding me, his mouth millimetres away from mine, his warm breath bathing my face.
He said he'd go to HR and confess what we did. I wonder if he has.
“There's something I want to tell you.” Diana purses her lips like an old woman and it's clear I'm going to get nothing out of her here. At times like this I'm not sure if she's a stickler for confidentiality or on a power trip.
She says nothing more until we both step out of the elevator on the tenth floor, and even then it's just a terse reminder of our meeting time. I stand in the corridor, watching her stalk her way towards the HR office, and come to the conclusion that I don't like her very much.
I suspect the feeling is mutual.
When I walk into the office, Callum's door is open. He glances up from his computer and my body lights up. His expression is unreadable as he tilts his head to the side, making me wonder what’s going on in his mind.
“Good weekend?” he asks. I hear a ping as an email arrives on his computer but he doesn’t look down.
“It was...” I screw up my face, trying to find the right word to encapsulate a weekend full of revelations and recriminations. “It was interesting.”
I can cope with this, I tell myself. Callum behind his desk, me behind mine. I can fight off the urge to touch him, to feel his skin touching mine.
Then he stands up and walks out from his office into mine, and he's all muscle and presence. I want to tell him to go away and I want to tell him to come closer. Everything about him is confusing.
And lovely.
It only takes two strides of his long legs to reach my desk, where he leans on the corner. “Did that guy show his face again?”
I shake my head.