"Sharice, what are you doing here?" Straight to the point, as ever. She hasn't changed much, a few more lines around the eyes maybe, and her hair was different, but that self confidence, that hadn't gone.
She has been preparing what she was going to say for weeks, but now the moment has come, her mind has gone blank.
"I… I've come to see you"
"Well I can see that, Sharice! Where are your grandparents?"
"Oh, back home"
"They do know that you're here, don't they?"
"Yeah yeah, can we go somewhere, and talk?"
"Well OK, I'll take my break now" She turns to face the desk, "Noel, I'm going on my break, page me if you need me"
She sits on the sofa in Zoe's office. There are pictures of her on the windowsill. Maybe she does still think about her then. Contact between them had been daily in the first few months, and Zoe had even visited a couple of times. But after a while, things had faded, and Zoe became too busy with life with her new boyfriend. They haven't emailed in six months, both too wrapped up in their own lives.
Zoe comes back in with two cups of coffee.
"I can't believe you're drinking coffee now, you're all grown up!"
"Yeah, well even the short time I spent with you must have had an influence on me."
"Cheeky!" Silence falls as they drink.
Zoe wonders why Sharice has turned up. She looks so old, drinking coffee, wearing makeup. She feels guilty that she has missed so much of her life, since Jordan and the tumour, since becoming clinical lead, time hasn't exactly been on her side, and even the time for an email every now and then has become hard to find. But through all the layers Sharice has built up, the barriers she has always had around her to protect her from the outside world, barriers similar to the ones that Zoe herself holds too, there lies a scared little girl. The same scared little girl as before, the same expression on her face as when Zoe told her that her parents had both died. No amount of makeup can hide that kind of fear.
"Sharice. We can either sit here for hours while you beat around the bush, or you can tell me now, and we can try and sort this out." She looks her dead in the eye and smiles slightly.
"I'm scared, Zoe," She brushes the hair out of her eyes where tears are beginning to form, "I don't know what to do. I don't really know what to do anymore."
"What to do about what? Sharice, what's happened, why have – "
Sharice cuts her off: "He died. He died." And tears now falling freely down her cheeks, she crumples and sobs into Zoe's shoulder.