to see him tonight, it’s okay. We could go another night, I suppose.’
‘Do you mind?’
‘Would it make any difference?’ She puts a just whisked frothy coffee in front of me.
‘Of course it would, don’t be like that, Jas.’
‘It’s fine, I was just messing with you,’ she says, but I don’t think she was. ‘If he’s as gorgeous as he looked on his Meet Your Match profile, I don’t blame you wanting to see him rather than me.’ She plonks herself back down on her chair with her coffee and takes a sip. ‘I might get a job as a barista if this doesn’t work out,’ she says.
‘I thought you were going to be a matchmaker if social work isn’t for you?’ I joke, trying to lighten things. I feel guilty now. She’s ambushed me slightly with our supposed cinema arrangements; what I thought of as a vague idea, was clearly seen by Jas as a booking. ‘Jas, I really am sorry, I wouldn’t have said yes to Alex if I’d thought you and I had made a firm plan.’
‘It’s fine, it’s fine.’ She drops the remains of her sandwich onto the desk. ‘But it’s not about me or the cinema – I just think you so should have suggested meeting tomorrow. Don’t be so willing. “Make them wait” is my motto.’
‘Yeah, but if he’s honest, and doesn’t play games, then why should I wait?’ She doesn’t respond. I think she’s more pissed off about the cinema than she’s making out.
‘Look, Jas, I’m sorry about the cinema.’
‘I don’t care about the cinema – I can go with someone else.’ She clearly does care.
‘You don’t have to go with someone else. We can go tomorrow night,’ I say firmly. ‘And I take on board what you’re saying. Yes, I get involved easily, I fall fast. But I’m not applying your “controlled emotional involvement” rule to my personal life.’ I smile to soften the irritation in my voice.
‘That’s not what I’m saying. All I ask is that you don’t leap into another relationship and regret it, hon. Jeez, I sometimes feel when I’m talking to you like I’m talking to one of our teenagers.’
I ignore this, sometimes she pushes it too far. Likening me to some kid who’s making bad choices is hardly fair.
‘You know how you’re always saying to me that I shouldn’t get so involved with my clients’ cases?’ I say, biting into my tuna baguette.
Jas looks up from her coffee. ‘Yeah?’
‘Well, perhaps I am too involved. But it’s because I have nothing else to fill my mind. And going out with a really nice guy like Alex will give me some perspective. So instead of worrying about clients, I’ll have someone else to think about, won’t I?’
‘I suppose,’ she says, throwing her sandwich wrapper in the bin, a full stop to our conversation. ‘Sorry, babe, I have to get on with work now. I’m going to have to throw you out.’
‘Of course.’ I stand up and move out of her office, clutching the remains of my baguette and cup of frothy coffee. I know Jas too well: she can’t hide her feelings and she’s angry with me for being what she would see as ‘weak’. She doesn’t want us to argue, though, so she’s going to work through her feelings – I know this because she told me that her therapist has said she must isolate herself when people make her angry or hurt her. I haven’t intentionally hurt her, but from her perspective I have, by not taking her advice. She’s complicated. Childhood abuse does that to a person. And Jas’s sudden anger is just one of the emotional responses in an adult who’s been sexually abused as a child.
We deal with damaged children all the time in our work, and that’s what we are, Jas and I – we’re damaged children who’ve grown up. But that doesn’t define us. Most of all we’re friends, and we understand each other. We both want the other one to be safe and happy, and she’s just looking out for me, as I do her – I just wish she’d trust me to make the right decisions sometimes. And when it comes to Alex, I really believe this is the right decision.
Waiting outside the bar for Alex is hell. I rushed home from work after a difficult day, including a call-out from Chloe Thomson, a sixteen-year-old with slight learning difficulties. Chloe also has a challenging home life: her parents split up when