Sorry for the long wait, had to learn the Thriller Dance or the Zombie bits anyway to teach my Year 6's today...
Friday, July 2nd
Nikki was back.
For most of the week they had worked alongside each other, but not together. Leo had been very careful to allocate the work so that they rarely had to be in the same room as each other, but allowed them to choose to be together as they wanted. On Monday Harry hardly saw her at all, but as the days went by their closeness began to return.
She looked better than she had done in weeks, Harry noted. Her serene calmness had returned and even though they were hardly talking, her presence was gradually melting his fear that she would never ever be his friend again. He tried not to stare. There were no external signs to see, no bulges, no extra fullness around the bust and Harry prided himself on being certain that if there were, he would have noticed it. They would have to talk about it eventually, but that could wait for them to re-establish their working relationship first.
On Tuesday she smiled at one of his jokes, on Wednesday she had punched him on the arm, as they fought over who could get to the filing cabinet first. And on Thursday she managed to have a good natured disagreement with him over the ethics of accepting freebies from drug companies in exchange for pedalling their products.
Today was Friday and she seemed more withdrawn than she had all week. Harry worried that perhaps she had come back to work too soon, and that the stress was getting to her.
"Are you o.k.?" he asked, as he found her sat at her desk, staring at her laptop without actually looking at it.
"Hmm, oh Harry, yes I'm fine." came the automaton response.
"Nikki!" Harry said in his warning tone, "I'm sure Leo wouldn't mind if you wanted to leave early."
He added more gently.
"No, it's not that Harry." she said. And he was sure he noticed her eyes tearing up.
"We should ..we should really talk, Harry." Nikki stammered.
Harry was quiet, he knew it was coming but was she ready, was he ready?
"Are you sure you're ready?" he asked.
"Yes." she was wearing her stubborn face, but he could tell there were cracks in her resolve.
"When I was away," she said quietly, "I stayed with a friend near the beach it was so beautiful, would you come to the seaside with me tomorrow?" she asked.
"Of course, I would lo.." Harry stopped himself and then continued, "it would be great to go to the beach with you, I'll pick you up. About 10:30, sound alright?"
"Great, thanks Harry, I'll see you tomorrow." And for once she took his advice and left early.