"My foot was behind that line!"
"She was just there at the wrong time, Rach," I begin to explain, taking her hands in mine, my thumb stroking her skin gently. "I just... when you turned me down in the pub, God, it hurt so much." She looks down at her feet. Clearly the memory of that night haunts her just as much as it does me.
"I know," It's barely a whisper. "I'm so sorry."
"But you shouldn't have to be! It was my fault," She looks up at me, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Your head was all over the place, Rachel. You nearly died in that fire and then you had all the stress of the gun that day, the last thing you needed was me trying to act as though none of it had happened. I just didn't realise at the time." I pause for a second as she squeezes me hand, her eyes fluttering shut, and I know she needs to hear more. "I shouldn't have given up so easily. But Melissa, she was..."
"Less complicated?" She finishes. My heart almost breaks for her, the sadness in her voice enough to make me understand just how unhappy I must have made her feel when I'd started a relationship with Melissa.
"Not really. You're not married to two other blokes, are you?" I laugh, trying to lighten the mood and it works as her lips curve upwards into a small smile. "But me and you, I thought that was it for us. I didn't want to risk our friendship by trying to force you into something you didn't want. But I was lonely Rach, I needed someone. And like I said, Mel was just there at the wrong time and I was drunk and..." But she cuts me off before I can continue.
"You were drunk?" She asks, bemused.
"Yeah, at the pub after her first day. I didn't mean for it to happen so soon after... well, what happened between us, but it just sort of did." I'm puzzled when she leans forward and puts her head in her hands and breathes in deeply. "What? What is it?"
"I came to the pub that night," she told me, her fingertips massaging her temples in frustration. "To apologise to you, really, I'd been too scared to bring it up before then. But I saw you both through the window getting cosy and I knew I'd missed my chance." She looked up at me and it was only then I noticed that she had tears in her eyes.
"Oh don't cry, Rach," I whisper, wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her into me. "I'm here now, that's all that counts, right? Melissa's gone and I'm still here, with you." She sniffs and nods.
"Yeah," she whispers, burying her head into my shoulder as her arms drape over my shoulders. I kiss the top of her head tenderly and the contact causes her to lift her head up so she is directly facing me. "I thought I'd lost you for good when she asked you to choose, Eddie."
"You had nothing to worry about," I murmur delicately, as she stands up, entwining her fingers with mine, leading me out of the lounge and towards the stairs. "It was always you."