Page 52 of Her Fixer Upper

‘You’re anything but, Freya. But if you won’t woman up enough to tell him how you feel, then you can’t get away with being sad when he goes off with the lovely Serena for the evening.’

‘Fine, I admit it. Despite my best intentions, yes, I have fallen for him. But it’s not a simple situation. You make telling him sound easy, but it’s really, really not. There’s a lot to consider. There’s so much at stake if I say something and he’s not in the same place, which I really don’t think he is,’ I protested. ‘We share a house. We’re financially tied to each other. If I go and make things all awkward between us by declaring undying love while he’s very much friend-zoned me, it’s going to mess everything up. We’ll have to carry on living together, all the while knowing that there’s this great big uncomfortable elephant of a declaration sharing the house with us. I can’t bear to imagine the sad but kind look he’ll give me when he has to gently let me down. I know he’ll be super nice about it, but that’ll be even worse. Things will never be the same again. Can you imagine how humiliating it would be? I don’t think I’m brave enough to put myself out there like that.’

‘But it might not happen. Because you won’t know for sure until you say something. But we’ve had this conversation before, Freya. If you’re not ready to be brave yet, that’s okay. The one thing I would advise is not to leave it too late. You don’t want to regret it. Sometimes you’ve got to take a chance, and trust that things will work out for the best. That’s what I did with Nim. And in the meantime, my other piece of advice for you is to channel your powers of confidence tonight towards staying upright. The girls aren’t going to let you go until you’ve whizzed around the track at least once.’

She gestured at the circuit that had been marked out on the very solid-looking floor. Members of the Screaming Sisters roller derby team were warming up, streaking around the room at lightning-fast pace, weaving their way in and out of each other with only centimetres to spare. It looked utterly terrifying, and I would have run away if I hadn’t been wearing roller skates. Suddenly the prospect of speaking to Charlie felt like a doddle in comparison.

I’d expected to hate every minute of the training session. After all, it played on all my weaknesses – my fear of getting hurt, my inability to loosen up and go with the flow, and of course my lack of confidence in shouting up and saying what I wanted. But Leila and her teammates proved to be a supportive bunch, cheering everyone on, and making all us newbies feel like we were making good progress as we tried out the various skating exercises designed to help boost our confidence and develop our skills. Towards the end of the evening, I even dared let go of Leila to do a tentative, extremely slow lap of the track, and was greeted on my return by cheers as loud as if I’d won the league for them. I wouldn’t be making the team any time soon, but to my surprise I found I’d thoroughly enjoyed the evening, pushing myself out of my comfort zone and making some new friends along the way. It had been so long since I’d been part of an activity group, I’d forgotten how much fun it could be. I was fired up with enough enthusiasm to sign up for their beginners’ classes, which would be running up until Christmas.

‘Proud of you,’ said Leila, giving me a hug after the session finished.

‘What, for staying on my feet? I was the slowest by far,’ I said. ‘And I must have fallen over more times than everyone else combined. I swear my skin is going to be black and blue in the morning.’

‘But you kept at it, even though you were terrified. Sometimes the things that scare us the most give us the biggest return,’ she said.

‘Ha ha, I know exactly what you’re getting at,’ I retorted.

‘I promise I’ll stop going on about it. But regardless of what happens with you and Charlie, you’re still growing as a person, my lovely friend. The Freya of the beginning of the year would never have let loose and allowed herself to have fun like this.’

‘That’s because the Freya of the beginning of the year was still saving for her house deposit,’ I pointed out.

‘Nice try, but you’ve told me enough times that you’re still as poor as a church mouse, which if you don’t mind me saying is a very weird phrase. Maybe there are some rich church mice. But that’s beside the point. I think you used saving for the house as an excuse not to push yourself to do things that made you worried. Now you’re feeling the fear, and doing it anyway. Well, in most areas of life.’

‘I get the message, thanks, Leila. That promise to stop going on about it didn’t last long, did it? The crux of what you’ve been saying is that I am now a person who knows her own mind and does what she wants. In the spirit of that, perhaps you’ll leave me to make my own decision about the Charlie situation and act accordingly?’

ChapterTwenty-Four

The weekend before term started, Charlie and I decided to make one final push and complete the kitchen so it was one less thing hanging over me when I was back at work.

‘We might as well have one completely civilised room to enjoy as the nights draw in,’ said Charlie. ‘Much better to be able to prepare food in a safe environment and all that, rather than having to cook under the stars.’

I experienced a pang of nostalgia as I thought about that wonderful night where we’d eaten mushroom risotto under the fairy lights in the oak tree. I was going to miss romantic evenings like that, even though I suspected the romance had been very much one-sided. Charlie’s next comment confirmed my fears.

‘Besides, with a finished kitchen we could start getting valuations, if you like,’ he added.

‘Sure, if that’s what you want,’ I agreed, although the thought of selling the house and moving on was far from the enticement it used to be. My dream of a home of my own had evolved a lot over the past few months. The practicalities of living alone didn’t concern me, but the idea of existing without Charlie by my side did.

To help eke out our ever-depleting budget, we’d ordered a flatpack kitchen that we were going to put together ourselves. I’d spent several hours poring over the instructions, but they might as well have been written in Greek for all the sense they made. Charlie, on the other hand, had done his usual trick of barely glancing at the pictures before he set to, laying out the component parts.

‘It looks like a jigsaw puzzle, and I can’t even pick out the edges to make it easier,’ I said.

‘A 3D jigsaw puzzle, no less,’ said Charlie in a gleeful tone. If I wasn’t very much mistaken, he was enjoying himself.

I braced myself for the ensuing chaos. But while I religiously followed the step-by-step guide and made very little progress, Charlie was soaring ahead. In no time at all, he’d constructed an actual cupboard with seemingly no wasted effort, and was ready to slide it into position next to the windows underneath which the plumber was going to install the sink.

‘I’m impressed,’ I said. ‘Have you been secretly studying or something?’

‘What makes you say that?’ said Charlie. ‘Maybe I’m turning into a hugely talented carpenter. The instructions aren’t the be-all and end-all, you know.’

Using a pencil, he marked the cupboard’s position on the floor, then moved it back into the centre of the room.

‘Look at this,’ he said, pointing at the floor where the cupboard was going to stand.

I knelt down beside him.

‘One of Ted’s painted paw prints. The outline is so clear, it’s like he did it deliberately,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it was his way of making his mark on the room.’

‘Better than his usual cocking his leg method,’ said Charlie, smiling. ‘I think we should follow suit.’

---