Chapter Two

By Friday evening, I had reached the point where even the sound of my email notifications felt personal. Five days of meetings, deadlines, endless follow-ups, and people asking questions whose answers were already sitting in their inboxes had left me counting down to Saturday, not because I had anything exciting planned, but because I could finally wake up without an alarm telling me what to do.

And when Saturday morning arrived, I did exactly that. Nothing.

I stayed in bed longer than necessary, scrolled through my phone without absorbing a single thing, and allowed myself the luxury of being completely unproductive. There was no schedule to follow, no timelines to manage, and nobody waiting for an update on anything. For once, the only person whose expectations I had to meet was myself, and thankfully, I wasn’t particularly demanding. A few notifications greeted me, most of them from group chats I had muted weeks ago. There was also a message from Tasha, sent late the previous night.

Leaving early tomorrow. Don’t miss me too much.

I replied with a laughing emoji and a reminder to drive safely, only for her to send me a picture of the weekend bag she’d packed.

Her boyfriend had apparently planned an entire weekend away for the two of them. There were dinner reservations, a hotel booking, and what looked like an itinerary. 

I stared at the picture for a moment before dropping my phone onto the bed. 

Some people were clearly determined to make the rest of us look unproductive. 

I was happy for her, of course. Tasha deserved to be loved loudly and taken on spontaneous little adventures. Still knowing that my usual weekend companion would be unavailable left me with an uncomfortable amount of free time. 

I could have gone shopping or finally watched the movies I had been saving for a quiet weekend. I could have gone for a walk, tried a new restaurant, or done any of the countless things people suggested when they heard that a woman in her thirties had no plans. 

Instead, I lay in bed for another twenty minutes, scrolling through my phone and wondering what to have for breakfast. 

Eventually, hunger won.

I dragged myself into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and stared at its contents.

Half a bottle was water. A jar of mustard. A lonely onion. Something in a plastic container that I decided not to investigate.

I closed the refrigerator. 

Then I opened it again, as though the situation might have improved during the brief interval.

It hadn’t.

A quick inspection of the cupboards revealed an equally disappointing collection of items. I was out of bread, eggs, milk and coffee. The coffee discovery was particularly offensive. I could tolerate many inconveniences, but being expected to function on a Saturday morning without coffee felt unnecessarily cruel. 

I made a mental note of everything I needed and headed back to the bedroom.

The plan was simple: throw on some clothes, drive to the supermarket, buy my groceries and essentials, and return home before the weekend could properly begin. 

I had absolutely no intention of making an event out of it. 

Twenty minutes later, I was standing in front of my wardrobe, contemplating my clothing options with the seriousness of a woman preparing for a public appearance.

I eventually settled on an oversized, faded T-shirt, loose jogging trousers, and a pair of trainers that had seen better days. I pulled my hair into a messy bun, grabbed my handbag, and glanced at myself in the mirror.

Presentable enough for a supermarket.

Besides, I wasn't going there to impress anyone.

That, as it turned out, was the first mistake I made that morning. 

The supermarket was busier than expected. Families navigated their trolleys through crowded aisles, children negotiated for sweets with the desperation of seasoned lawyers, and people seemed determined to occupy the exact spaces I needed to reach whatever was on my shopping list. 

I picked up a basket near the entrance and began my mission.

Simple.

I had just turned into the cereal aisle when I realised I needed laundry detergent as well. I sighed, changed direction, and added it to my mental list.

It was while I was comparing two brands of detergent that I heard a man’s voice behind me.

“You still take shopping this seriously?”

I barely registered the question at first. I assumed he was speaking to someone else, so I continued studying the labels. 

Then he added, “Or are you planning to write a project on which detergent performs better?”

I turned around, already preparing a response for a stranger who had apparently decided that my Saturday morning required his commentary.

The words died somewhere between my brain and my mouth. 

He was tall, dressed in a plain dark sweatshirt and jeans, with one hand resting casually on the handle of a shopping trolley. His features had matured over the years, losing some of the boyishness I remembered, but that familiar, faintly amused smile remained, as though he already knew something I didn’t. 

For a second, I couldn’t place him.

Then I looked at his eyes. 

Oh.

No.

It couldn’t be.

Tom Harrison.

Of all the people I could have run into on a Saturday morning, it had to be him. 

Back in high school, Tom had been the kind of boy everyone knew about but very few people genuinely knew. He had possessed an effortless confidence that seemed to irritate teachers and fascinate the students who orbited the popular crowd. He was clever, sometimes infuriatingly so, and had a habit of questioning rules that everyone else followed without thinking. 

He arrived at school late more often than was considered acceptable, got into arguments with teachers who mistook his silence for defiance, and seemed entirely uninterested in the social hierarchies that governed the rest of us. While other boys worked hard to establish their place among the popular crowd, Tom appeared content to stand outside it. 

He was also, inconveniently, very good-looking.

That only made people more eager to invent stories about him. 

There were rumours about his family, rumours about people he spent time with, and rumours about why he never seemed to care what anyone thought. Some people called him arrogant. Others said he was trouble. A few insisted he was going nowhere in life. 

I had never bothered to find out which, if any, of those things were true. 

I had my own reputation to protect back then. I was the responsible girl, the one who did her assignments, kept her grades up, and avoided unnecessary drama. I liked being seen as sensible. Tom, with his unpredictable ways and refusal to explain himself to anyone, represented precisely the kind of complication I didn’t want near me.

So I kept my distance.

If we happened to be in the same room, I spoke to him only when necessary. If our classmates began discussing him, I listened without contributing. And if he ever caught me looking in his direction, I was quick to look away. 

I had convinced myself that I was simply being sensible. 

Standing in front of him now, I wondered whether sensible had sometimes been another word for judgmental. 

Because the man before me didn’t look like the boy I remembered. 

Or perhaps he did, in ways I hadn’t figured out. 

There was still that confidence in his expression, that slight amusement in his eyes, as though he could see straight through whatever explanation I might offer. But he seemed calmer now, more settled. There was nothing particularly intimidating about him, nothing that suggested he was the sort of person I had once been so careful to avoid. 

He looked like an ordinary man doing his Saturday shopping. 

Which, somehow, made the encounter even stranger.

“Wow,” I finally managed. “It’s really you.”

He glanced at the detergent in my hand.

“Unless there is another Tom wandering around supermarkets looking for old classmates.”

I laughed despite myself.

“I just wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“That’s usually how unexpected encounters work.”

“You’re still annoying, I see.”

“And you’re still avoiding direct answers.”

I raised an eyebrow.

He laughed, and for the first time since turning around, I felt some of the awkwardness begin to dissolve.

“So,” he said, looking me over briefly, “how have you been?”

“Good. Really good. Working, mostly.”

“Still the responsible one, then?”

“Someone has to be.”

“Fair enough.”

He said it so casually that I couldn’t tell whether he was teasing me or simply making an observation. With Tom, I remembered, those two things had always been annoyingly difficult to distinguish.

“And you?” I asked. “What have you been up to?”

“Living, working, trying to remember why I came to the supermarket in the first place.”

I glanced at his trolley. It contained a loaf of bread, a carton of eggs, and a bag of oranges.

“You’re not doing a very good job of remembering.”

“I got distracted.”

“Clearly.”

His gaze shifted to my basket.

“Milk, eggs, bread, coffee, detergent. Let me guess. You woke up this morning and realised your entire household had collapsed.”

“Are you always this observant, or have you been practising?”

“Years of experience.”

“Doing what?”

“Mind your business.”

I laughed again, genuinely this time. 

It surprised me how easily the conversation had found its rhythm. I had spent years remembering Tom as someone I would never willingly approach, yet here I was, exchanging jokes with him between shelves of household cleaning products.

He didn’t seem offended by my surprise, nor did he appear interested in reminding me of the distance I had once maintained. If anything, he seemed perfectly comfortable with the situation. 

I wasn’t sure whether that made me feel better or worse.

“So.” he said, “are you in a hurry, or can I buy you a coffee sometime? You know, so we can catch up properly.”

I blinked. 

A coffee?

With Tom?

I looked down at my decidedly unglamorous outfit, then back at him. 

“I came here for groceries.”

“And you’ve done an excellent job of acquiring detergent.”

“You’re impossible.”

“So I’ve been told.”

I had errands to run, a house to tidy, and an entire weekend waiting for me at home. There was no reason to turn a chance encounter into anything more than a pleasant surprise. 

Besides, we hadn’t seen each other in years. We were practically strangers now. 

Yet, for reasons I couldn’t quite explain, the thought of hearing what had become of him didn’t feel entirely unwelcome.

“Maybe,” I said.

He nodded as though that were a perfectly reasonable answer. 

“All right. I’ll take maybe.”

He pulled out his phone, glancing at me. “How about you give me your number? We can grab that coffee whenever you’re free. It doesn’t have to be today.

I laughed softly. “You’re assuming I’m going to say yes eventually.”

“Not at all,” he replied, his smile widening. “I’m just leaving the possibility open.”

I took his phone and entered my number before handing it back.

“I will give you a call,” he said with an easy smile. “We can arrange that coffee whenever you’re free.” 

“You’re surprisingly reasonable, Tom.”

“Don’t sound so shocked. I’ve had years to improve.”

I shook my head, laughing. “Some things never change.”

“Maybe,” he said, slipping his phone into his pocket. “But some things do.”

For a brief moment, our eyes met, and I found myself wondering what exactly he meant by that. 

Before I could ask, he stepped back and gave me a casual smile. 

He reached for his trolley.

“It was good seeing you,” he added. “And for the record, I think the blue detergent is better value.”

I looked down at the two bottles. 

“How would you know? You haven’t even looked at the prices.”

He was already walking away when he glanced over his shoulder.

“Trust me. I’ve got a good eye for these things.”

I stood there watching him disappear around the aisle, and had absolutely no idea what to make of the last ten minutes. 

Then I looked at my basket.

I still needed coffee.

Somehow, I suspected that was no longer the most pressing thing on my mind. 

By the time I finally made it through the checkout, my basket had somehow turned into two bags of groceries and a receipt long enough to qualify as a short story. So much for a quick shopping trip.

I loaded everything into the boot of my car and settled into the driver’s seat, letting out a sigh of relief. The supermarket had been busier than I’d anticipated, and the unexpected reunion hadn’t exactly been part of my plans for the morning. 

Tom.

I hadn’t said his name aloud in years, yet somehow, seeing him brought back memories I’d long since filed away and forgotten about. It was strange how someone could belong so firmly to a past version of your life and then suddenly appear in your present, looking as though no time had passed at all. 

Well, not exactly as though no time had passed. We were both older now, presumably wiser, and hopefully less concerned with the opinions of people who had nothing better to do than gossip about others. 

I started the engine and pulled out of the parking space.

The drive home was short, and by the time I turned into my street, I had managed to convince myself that the encounter wasn’t worth giving much thought to. We were old schoolmates who had happened to cross paths. We’d exchanged a few words, shared a laugh, and swapped numbers. 

People ran into old classmates all the time. 

There was absolutely no reason for me to keep thinking about it. 

And yet, as I carried the shopping into my flat, I found myself remembering the way he’d smiled when I’d finally recognised him. 

Annoying. 

That was the word I’d have used to describe Tom back in school. Annoying, unpredictable, and entirely too comfortable doing whatever he pleased. He had never seemed particularly interested in fitting in, which was precisely why people had always found something to say about him. 

I wondered whether any of it had been true. 

Then I caught myself.

Why did I care?

I placed the groceries on the kitchen counter and began putting them away. Milk in the refrigerator, bread in the cupboard, eggs on the shelf. I arranged everything with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had finally restored a little order to her life. 

Once I was done, I made myself a cup of coffee and prepared a late breakfast. I ate by the kitchen window, watching the occasional car pass along the street while  mentally planning the rest of my day. 

Laundry needed doing. The bathroom could use a proper clean. There was a book on my bedside table that I’d been promising myself I’d finish for weeks. 

A perfect respectable list of Saturday activities. 

I started with the laundry, then tidied the living room, wiped down the kitchen counters, and changed the bedsheets. By early afternoon, the flat looked considerably better, and I had earned the right to spend the remainder of the day doing absolutely nothing. 

I showered, changed into a comfortable pair of lounge wear, and settled onto the sofa with a bowl of snacks and the remote control. 

My phone lay beside me. 

At some point, I picked it up to check the time and to see if there were any notifications. Maybe a text from Tom. There wasn’t any. 

Still, I couldn’t help wondering what sort of life he’d built for himself. What had he studied after school? What did he do for a living? Was he married? Did he have children? Had he always lived in the same city, or had life taken him somewhere else entirely before bringing him back here?

I stopped myself before the questions could multiply any further. 

He was an old classmate, not a mystery I needed to solve. 

I locked my phone and tossed it onto the sofa beside me. 

The television played on, filling the room with dialogue I barely followed. Outside, the afternoon gradually gave way to evening, and the familiar quiet of my flat settled around me.

It was peaceful. Comfortable. Exactly the kind of Saturday I’d been looking forward to all week. 

So why, then, did a small part of me keep wondering when Tom would call?

I reached for my phone again, annoyed with myself before I had even unlocked it. 

There were no new messages. 

Of course there weren’t. We’d only just exchanged numbers a few hours ago. He had a life of his own, and I had no reason to expect him to call immediately. 

Besides, I wasn’t waiting for him to call.

I was simply checking my phone.

At least, that was what I told myself before setting it facedown on the coffee table and returning my attention to the television. 

The rest of the evening passed, I watched a movie from my watchlist, and eventually went to bed feeling pleased.