Page 18 of If We Were Young

“Morning, Natalie.”

I shot a tight smile at Natalie as she twisted the tube of her lipstick shut and pocketed it before I could mention that make-up should be done at home. I didn’t want to stop to make conversation. I had passed the need for polite conversation as we all waited to find out if I could keep the business running. That Supersaver Foods hadn’t got back to us frayed my nerves shorter with every passing second, on every single bill paying level that you could think of.

I’d been giving them all a one-on-one trying to pep talk them. I’m not sure they understood my ‘next level’ speech. I didn’t want to scare them all by admitting that there was a chance I wouldn’t be able to keep the company running, but I also needed them to understand that this was a business and we needed to do business things.

Fred and Natalie couldn’t spend the day flirting.

Fred couldn’t keep rolling in at ten with a terrible hangover and then tell me at four he had a doctor’s appointment. Well he could, because honestly, the man could get away with anything.

I was explaining to Natalie that lunch breaks should only be for an hour and that make-up should be applied during personal time when I glanced up at my screen.

Every particle of breath inside my body evaporated.

Facebook Messenger flashed at me.

Messenger request from Matthew Carling

Please accept to view message.

My hands slicked with sweat and slid off the keyboard.

“Ronnie?” Natalie called me, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

I blinked again and again trying to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.

He wasn’t even on Facebook. Not that I was a stalker or anything. Well I was. It was part of my evening routine and had been since Zuckerberg invented a way for desperate exes to stare at photographs of their previous partners in their new lives while gorging themselves on Ben and Jerry’s. I called it the Let’s Look for Matthew Game. Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter.

“Ronnie!” I snapped my eyes up at Natalie.

“Uh?” There was nothing in my brain at all. Nothing. Facebook had swept it all away with one notification.

“You were talking about lunch. Are you saying I have to eat during my actual break, or can I eat at my desk when I come back?”

“You just need to make sure your work is done, that’s all.”

“I always do.”

I shook my head, trying to lift the fuddled fog that had descended. Facebook? “That’s fine, you could fit it in after you’ve finished your granola at eleven. Sorry, Natalie, can you, uh, go?”

Natalie threw me a curious glance as she headed out. It would be around the office in seconds, but I didn’t care. I grabbed my phone and pressed until I saw Ange’s face.

“Are you having a panic attack in the toilets again?”

I groaned, my heart racing in my chest, and placed a clammy hand against my even stickier forehead. “I’m having an emergency.”

All laughter dropped from her voice. “Is she okay?”

She meant Hannah.

“Oh no, she’s fine. Well I’ve got her on house lockdown after punching some boy in the nuts yesterday but other than that she’s fine.”

“What did he do?” Ange’s tone held a note of reverence for my daughter and her flying fists. Sometimes I believed that she could have been Angela’s daughter and not mine.

“Apparently he breathed too loud next to her.”

Ange sighed. “That happens to me all the time.”

“It’s not funny.” I reprimanded but my heart wasn’t in it. My heart had stopped beating because of the extreme heart attack situation arising around me.