Page 4 of Safe Hands

The first two miles were always a negotiation. Her calves complained, her breathing wouldn’t settle, and some reasonable voice pointed out that she could turn around at the roundabout and nobody would ever know. Then the third mile arrived and took it all away.

That was the part nobody warned you about. Everything went quiet—the under-eighteens, the empty room at the end of the hall, Paige’s face when she’d said sabotaging—flattened into the slap of trainers on wet tarmac and the numbers ticking over on her wrist. Clean. Nothing to manage. She could have run into the dark and kept going.

Which was, of course, why she had to watch this. Lauren knew the shape of it. In her twenties, she’d found it at the bottom of a fourth pint, on the end of a rolled-up twenty at somebody’s house party, and in a woman who never called back when she said she would. Same feeling, cheaper price.

It was the passing car that finished her, ninety minutes in, sending an arc of gutter water up her left side. There was no point feeling smug about exercising instead of dying from a hangover if you drowned doing it.

Lauren let herself in through the back door and squeaked across the kitchen tiles, reaching for a tea towel to dry her phone. A few hours ago, the room had been full of voices, boxes, Paige’s mess and Becky’s commentary. Now there was only the faint tap of rain against the window.

“This is pathetic,” Lauren said, staring at the numbers on her watch.

It had been easier to ignore Paige’s absence when her things were still lying around. Now rainwater plopped from her clothes onto the tiles, one drip at a time, and she stood there and let it.

She slumped into the chair Paige had occupied earlier and huffed, scattering the remaining breadcrumbs across the table like dull glitter.

Why was this so hard? At thirty-four, she should have been able to handle an empty house.

The bills still lay beside Paige’s abandoned plate. Lauren picked them up and tapped the edges against the table until they were perfectly aligned. Utilities. Insurance. Council tax. No debt. No disappearing acts. No waking up with that crawling sense of dread.

She looked around the kitchen, lit by the spill from the hallway.

No Paige.

“What would you say if you were here?” Lauren asked.

She smiled because she knew the answer: “You’ve got this. And clean up those crumbs.”

Lauren reached for the broom propped in the corner. Maybe if she channelled Paige for long enough, she’d get through this.

After sweeping the crumbs into a neat pile, she stared at them before tipping them into the bin.

“You’ve got this,” she said again, softer this time.

The words sounded better in Paige’s voice.

2

Carly

The phone buzzed against Carly’s leg. She ignored it and stood beside a battered vending machine while rainwater dripped onto the vinyl floor.

“Everything okay?” Beth asked, kicking a protein tub under the leak. “That look usually means Samantha’s being a bitch. Again.”

“She’s called three times, but right now, we’ve got bigger problems.”

As if summoned, a gust of wind rattled the gym’s steel frame. A fresh stream of water breached a seam in the roof and splashed Carly’s shoulder.

She flinched, wiping at the damp patch with her fingers. “Tell me we have a plan to fix this.”

Beth stared up at the corrugated metal. “Short of arson? No. The roof is more sealant than steel, and I haven’t found a door handle that works without a prayer and a solid yank.”

“Right. I’ll add prevent total collapse to the list.”

“You need a drink.”

“I need a contractor and a therapist.” Carly looked around the tired reception area, the peeling signs, the scuffed skirting boards, the damp spreading across the floor. “Tell me why I took this on?”

The question didn’t need an answer. This was her dad’s last deal before he stepped back and handed her the keys to all of it, and she’d promised to see it through. A straightforward brief, on paper. Less straightforward with a non-existent budget and a roster of customers who half-expected to be crushed mid-spin class.