Growing Up Twice by Rowan Coleman Read Free Book Online Page A

fact maybe it would be another way to distance myself from Owen, to show solidarity with Rosie’s determination to get over Chris, even while she’s carrying his baby. Owen always said I was never impulsive enough. I hesitate a moment more, that sense of vertigo creeping over me once again, and then I decide. I’ll show him.
    ‘OK, yes. Come on, let’s bloody move!’ I catch on to Rosie’s excitement. ‘But I’m not moving south, you can’t make me move south, OK?’
    ‘Ha!’ Rosie jumps to her feet. ‘I’ve got it. We’ll move back north, we’ll go home to Stoke Newington and live near Selin! They’ve got cafés there now, an organic supermarket and everything.’
    Stoke Newington. No tube, but the number 73 would take me straight to Tottenham Court Road, which is only two minutes’ walk from the office. And we’d be going home really, so it would be much less of a change than it might have been. Rosie is a genius.
    ‘Of course!’ I agree. ‘Then the three of us will be close and Mrs Selin loves babies, I bet she’d babysit any time you liked.’ I’m talking about Selin’s mum. We have always referred to parents as Mrs Rosie, Mrs Jen, Mr and Mrs Selin. ‘I’ll go and get a copy of
Loot
right now.’ And I already have my coat on when a sudden sinking feeling stops me in the doorway; I turn and look back at Rosie. I can tell she has just had the same thought I have.
    ‘How
are
we going to tell Selin? She’ll kill us,’ I say, forgetting for a moment that none of this is my fault. ‘And what about your mum?’
    ‘I’m not worried about telling
her
…’ Rosie says. We look at each other a moment longer and I shut the front door behind me. In times of difficulty, denial is always the safest place.
    In the newsagent I buy a token copy of
Loot
– though I know in my heart that it is probably already useless by 11.45 on a Monday morning – and a large bar of Cadbury’s. Before I go back into the building I take out my phone and check the received-calls register. I check the last number to call my phone and compare it to the number he left. They aren’t the same. I dial to pick up my messages and find that it was the bookshop calling to tell me my ordered items are now available.
    I stand in the doorway for a moment longer and look at the dark sky. It’s funny to think that only a couple of days ago it was bright blue and warm enough for a vest top. I remember the touch of the sun on my face as he tipped my chin back to kiss me. A small knot forms in my stomach. I close my eyes just for a second and think of his kiss. My lips tingle.
    This is insane. I’m twenty-nine, he’s far too young for me, one of my best friends is pregnant and anyway he hasn’t even called yet. I think about switching my phone off. In the end I just put it back in the pocket of my coat and go inside.
    ‘Rosie, get some biros and get ready,’ I call as I walk through the door.
    ‘OK. There was phone call for you, while you were out.’
    ‘Michael?’ I ask before I can stop myself, even though I know he doesn’t have the land-line number.
    ‘No.’ She sighs and crosses her arms. ‘Owen.’

Chapter Nine
    Rosie has gone into the kitchen to put the kettle on again. Rain has just started to hit the windows and I reach under the three-legged dining table that leans against the wall, bring out the buckets and situate them around the room. Usually the ceilings don’t leak unless the rain gets really heavy, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.
    Owen used to laugh at my
faux
-destitute lifestyle. He used to say it was bohemian and I used to think, ‘Yeah, right. I’m a very bohemian Customer Service Administration Manager (UK) for a hardware-component manufacturer.’ And then, when he was back into writing his literally fictional novel, with so far not one word actually committed to paper, as far as I knew, I’d be Miss Mundane Bureaucracy. I’d be Miss Lower Middle Class Mediocrity. And I’d know that I