I never saw the train speeding up, never noticed the colours around me beginning to merge until it was too late. The way they bounced off one another even as five-years-olds – I wanted it, I craved it. I prayed that one day they would need me the way they needed each other.
As they grew older, they grew closer – not like other girls I studied, so easily torn apart by boys or differing interests. They were like sisters – closer even, because they had chosen each other.
If you asked me to pin down the moment it all changed, I would tell you it was impossible. A series of unfortunate events that jolted our lives off their tracks. Sliding-door moments, they call them. If I had chosen to prepare my letters before entering the post office that day; if I had remembered to pick up the packet of envelopes from my kitchen drawer rather than having to steal a dozen loose ones from the stationery cupboard at work; if a family of rats hadn’t chosen that week to chew through the electrics at the local post office, forcing me into the town, things would have turned out differently for four women.
I had been rushing, the task I had set myself that day firm and unerring in my mind. I’d already been put so far behind by my uncharacteristic disorganisation, I didn’t have time to mess around. I was determined not to be sidetracked by the books that lined the shelves of WHSmith, or by the stationery strategically placed at the entrance of the post office contained within the bookstore. So determined was I to beat the lunchtime rush that I almost didn’t see them, probably wouldn’t have if Bea hadn’t chosen that moment to let out a shrieking laugh, a laugh I would have picked out at a Justin Bieber concert, and in that instant I almost felt the flapping of the butterfly wings that would cause a tsunami in our lives.
I froze, my breath catching in my throat.
They walked past the entrance to the post office, just the two of them that day, Eleanor heavily pregnant and insisting they use the lift, her hand resting on her stomach to emphasise her encumbered state, Bea humouring her, although I was certain she would be groaning inwardly at her friend’s theatrics
I turned away from them too quickly, almost stumbling into the woman next to me in the queue. I muttered an apology, or perhaps the words had formed in my mind but got lost before they had crossed my lips. Ignoring the rush of blood to my face and shoving my post back into my bag, I bolted towards the stairs, not knowing what I planned to do when I reached the top, and saw them leave the lift.
In truth, I did nothing, just watched from behind a gondola of brightly coloured cards emblazoned with birthday greetings as they linked arms like carefree fifteen-year-old girls, rather than the thirty-something women they were, and left the store, the air inside seeming more alive for having had them in it.
By the time I reached the fresh air of the high street, the roar of blood in my ears had slowed to a steady pulsing, the flames that had blazed under my collar had been extinguished and my legs no longer shook. I flattened my back against the cool stone wall and let all my senses return to their resting state, allowed my eyes to close for a second as my composure returned.
It might seem irrational – allowing that small act of seeing them in a place that I hadn’t expected them to be to shake me to the extent it did. In some ways it was akin to seeing your teacher in their normal clothes and realising that they continue to exist when you are not looking at them, that their life carries on even without you holding up the microscope to it. I hadn’t been prepared. I hadn’t even known Bea had the day off work – and I thought I was at a point where I knew everything about them. Obviously I hadn’t been paying close enough attention. I’d let the ball drop and now here we were.
My sliding door, my choice. Would I return home now, letters shoved hastily into my handbag, and let my normal life whitewash over the last ten minutes, ugly graffiti on a wall quickly replaced by a pastel hue? If I had, who knows how