Tess brought a laundry bag and a pair of flat shoes.
“Mine are a bit big,” she said. “Better than those.”
I looked down at the shoes that had rubbed my toe all afternoon.
“Thanks.”
She put the spare pair on the floor beside me. I changed without arguing.
Mara knew where we were going. I had sent Callum a message saying I wanted to collect my things with Tess, and he'd answered that he wasn't there. The door was on the latch. We could go in.
There was another message after it.
Your charger is at the kiosk. I'll get that to you.
I showed Tess both. She read them without taking the phone from me.
“If he's there, we can come away.”
“I know.”
We walked through the back streets. I kept expecting him to appear. Tess walked at my pace, carrying the empty laundry bag folded under her arm.
“You don't have to do this tonight,” she said as we reached the shop.
“I do.”
I couldn't leave my T-shirt waiting on his chair for another visit.
The stair door was open. Upstairs, his room door moved when I pressed it. I called his name before going in.
No answer.
Tess stayed by the doorway while I looked round. Our dinner tray was in the bin. The little space where we'd packed the mug box was empty because I'd taken it home.
I put my bag on the bed and began with the easy things. T-shirt. Socks. Shampoo from the bathroom. The toothbrush I'd bought when I got tired of carrying one back and forth.
Tess held the laundry bag open for me.
“There's a cardigan here,” she said.
It was on the back of the chair, under his towel. I lifted both and separated them. The cardigan had a faint damp smell. I put it in the bag anyway.
“You can wash it when we get back.”
“Yeah.”
I went to the windowsill. There were two lip balms, one mine, one I'd bought for him. I took the one with my nail mark in the cap.
His trainers were under the chair. The laces I'd pulled tight against my smaller feet still held their little twisted knots. I crouched and loosened them before I could stop myself.
“Lena?”
I stood up.
“Nothing.”
Tess didn't ask what I'd been doing. She folded my cardigan so it wouldn't trail out of the laundry bag.
“I said a horrible thing to you,” I said.
She looked at me across the bed.
“You did.”
“I'm sorry.”
She pushed the last sleeve into the bag.
“I wasn't enjoying it.”
“I know.”
“I liked coming up to your room. I wasn't doing it to monitor your boyfriend.”
I nodded. My throat hurt too much to answer properly.
She pulled the drawstring closed.
“You can carry that. I'll check behind the door.”
There was nothing of mine behind it. Still, she checked, and it gave me a minute to look away from her.
My phone lit in my jacket pocket. Callum had sent another message.
Please don't take everything. We can still talk.
I turned the screen off.
“Got it all?” Tess asked.
I looked at the bed. He'd made it that morning after I collected the tin. I had sat there counting Ruby's money and wondering whether he was giving me back something I could trust.
“I think so. Apart from the charger.”
We left the door on its latch, as we'd found it. I told him we were out. I didn't add anything about staying or talking.
Downstairs, Tess took the heavier laundry bag from me.
“I can carry it.”
“So can I.”
She walked on before I could try again. I followed with the smaller bag hanging from my wrist.
At the hotel, I filled the kitchen kettle. While it boiled, I cleaned the spoon Tess always complained was sticky, found her favourite mug and put a tea bag in it.
When I came back upstairs with two mugs, she was sitting on the floor beside my suitcase. The laundry bag was open. She had put the damp cardigan straight on the drying rack.
I gave her the tea.
“Hot this time,” I said.
She took a careful sip.
“Dangerously competent.”
I smiled. It shook a little, but it was a smile.
Tess moved the shared-household box to make space for me to sit. One flap came open, showing the white mug inside. I folded it shut again. We'd only bought them yesterday. I couldn't sort through everything tonight.
Tess sat with me while our tea cooled. When I finally began to cry, she took my mug out of my hand before I spilled it. She didn't tell me to stop wanting him.
After a while, she passed me the kitchen towel because I couldn't find my tissues.
“It's clean,” she said.
I laughed once, badly, and used it.