Part Six

'It's 9am and welcome to Radio London City…' the radio echoed around her flat as she made her way from her bedroom to the kitchen. It was Sunday morning; her one day off during the week and she was planning to make full use of it, starting with a cup of tea, a fry up and binge watching episodes of Made in Chelsea (a guilty pleasure).

The doorbell rang and Rae groaned.

"It's 9am!" She pleaded to nobody.

Glancing down, she was still in her pyjamas with her hand hovering over the kettle switch ready to set it to boil. The doorbell rang again, clearly somebody was anxious to be let in.

"ONE MINUTE." She yelled, even though she knew that whoever it was wouldn't be able to hear her.

Rae lived in a top floor flat in a row of terraced houses. It was an old Victorian building, painted white on the outside although it had seen better days with flecks peeling off from the wind. Inside she'd decorated it all herself, the kitchen had chrome cabinets and a big silver fridge and the floor was a black tile while the walls were white. The living room had a deep red feature wall with plush, black leather sofas and a 42 inch smart tv. Rae loved her flat almost as much as she loved her café. It was somewhere that she'd created for herself without anybody else chiming in or telling her how she should make herself happy.

Grabbing her purple dressing gown from behind her bedroom door, she thought back to her old toothpaste tube gown from when she was a teenager. She'd thrown it away when she'd reached university after she heard some girls sniggering about it in the halls of residence, part of her still regretted that decision.

Tying it tight around the middle of her torso, she opened her the door to the flat and let her feet pound down the stairs to the lobby area. She threw open the building's front door and was confronted by Archie, with an "I'm Sorry" balloon.

She shoved the door closed but he stuck his foot in the way, forcing his way in.

"Rae…" He said.

Rae glared at him but turned around, leading the way up the stairs back to her flat.

"Shall I make us a cuppa?" Archie asked as Rae landed on the coach, still glaring at him. "I'll make us a cuppa."

He let go of the balloon, watching as it drifted up towards the ceiling.

"Archie. Cut to it." Rae ordered, voice clipped.

"Ok…" Archie sat down on the sofa opposite from her, running one hand nervously through his floppy hair and his other hand fiddled with the frame of his glasses.

"I'm sorry for how things ended." He said.

"So you admit you were in the wrong?"

"For storming out on you, yes."

"What about for not telling me anything about Finn?" Rae asked again.

Archie hesitated a second before standing up and beginning to pace the room. "Here's the thing, I still think that... well, I think that… Rae, well. Erm."

"Archie…"Rae warned him.

"I still think I was in the right for not telling you."

Rae felt tears rush to her eyes out of frustration. "Right, well then I think you should leave… again."

"Rae, we can't keep doing this, we're not teenagers anymore!" Archie said, sitting next to her cautiously.

Rae let a tear slide down her cheek, "But you don't get what this is doing to me. You're oh-so-worried about Finn but what about me? I came back from Uni expecting to be getting back with my dream guy. The guy who I never really fell out of love with. He's the reason why I got back with he-who-shall-not-be-named you know? All progress I made at Uni was destroyed because he wasn't there and I'm not proud of that."

"I know, Rae! I know but you're so different now and what happened with you-know-who only made you to be who you are today and that person's pretty special."

Rae inched away from Archie, her eyes hurting. "Yeah but that's the point, with Finn back I'm not that girl… I'm the same 18 year old that was in love with him, hurting when he cheated on me. I'm still that 21 year old who did stupid things when she found out he'd disappeared… and now he's back and I just want to know why."

"I think you should speak to Finn." Archie replied.

"I did Archie, he took me out and then I heard him on the phone to some girl when he'd told me moments before that there wasn't anybody."

Archie faltered and Rae stared at her feet, exhausted from all of her emotions that been accumulating for weeks. Everything that had been leading up to that moment suddenly felt heavy on her shoulders and she found herself weak, unable to say anything else.

She felt an arm drape itself around her and she leaned into the familiar embrace of her old friend.

"Sorry for arguing with you." She whispered into his chest.

"Sorry for letting it go on this long…" Archie replied, breathing into her hair as he placed a single kiss on the top of her head. "Just do me a favour?"

"Yeah?" Rae asked, peering up at him.

"Give Finn one more chance, if he cocks it up again then I'll have your back one hundred percent."