**Just Friends**
The phone interrupted Josie’s simple dinner. She rarely cooked for herself. Mornings started with coffee, lunch was a rushed sandwich from the café near work, and supper was often just tea and biscuits—or, if she was starving, a hastily fried egg. Weekends meant visiting her parents, where her mother would pack stacks of Tupperware, as if refusing them would spark a family feud.
Josie was sipping the last of her tea when that grating ringtone blared from the bedroom. She’d been meaning to change it—something softer, less like a drill boring into her skull. The number was unfamiliar, but persistence meant urgency. She answered.
“Hello. Didn’t think you’d pick,” came a voice she hadn’t heard in years but recognized instantly. **Hang up**, her instincts hissed.
“Please, don’t. I need to talk to you,” the caller—her old friend, Milly—begged, as if sensing Josie’s hesitation.
A pause. Then:
“I’ve got no one else. You’re the only one who can help. Send me your address. It’s important.”
Something was wrong. Milly wouldn’t call otherwise. Once, they’d been inseparable, but that was another lifetime.
“Fine. I’ll text it,” Josie said, then hung up.
Her pulse hammered. Why now? As she typed, her fingers trembled. Milly replied at once: “Be there soon.”
Josie washed her cup, sat at the table, and exhaled.
Years of burying memories, pretending she’d moved on—yet one call had unearthed them all, an avalanche of what-ifs.
***
Her mother adored *The School Waltz*, an old film still beloved long after its era faded. Josie was named after the heroine—though she looked nothing like the actress. Her hair was mousy blonde, her eyes small and grey. Her figure was another insecurity. “You’ll grow into it,” her mother assured, but she never did.
Every summer, Josie was sent to her gran’s in the countryside—now just a handful of elderly residents. The only excitement was Tommy, the neighbour’s grandson, who visited each July.
Then, one summer, he wasn’t the scrawny boy she remembered but a lanky teen. She hesitated before hugging him. Tommy, oblivious, dragged her to the river as always. But this time, she waited till he was waist-deep before yanking off her dress, terrified he’d notice her flat chest.
By August, they parted without swapping numbers. A silent rule: village summers and city life didn’t mix.
The last summer before sixth form, Tommy didn’t come. “Gone to Spain with his mum,” Gran said. Bored, Josie invited Milly—who’d never seen the countryside—for a weekend.
Then Tommy arrived, taller, broader. When Milly saw him, she lit up. “You two ever kissed?” she whispered that night.
“Don’t be daft. We’re mates,” Josie scoffed. She’d regret those words.
Soon, she was the third wheel. Relief came only when summer ended.
Tommy faded from her thoughts, but Milly drifted too—uni, new friends. Then, a wedding invite.
“You’re *marrying*? First year? And your mum’s okay with it?”
“She’ll be a gran soon enough,” Milly grinned. “Be my bridesmaid?”
New Year’s Eve, Josie opened her door—and there stood Tommy. The groom. She wanted to vanish. Every photo showed her hollow smile. She left midway.
Milly didn’t apologise. “You *said* you were just friends.” Calls dwindled after the baby came. Josie forbid herself to think of them.
Yet no bloke compared to Tommy.
***
A decade passed. Gran died; the village house sold. Then—the call.
Milly at the door was unrecognisable. Gaunt, her once-lush hair thin, dark circles like bruises. “Tea?” Josie offered, avoiding her gaze.
“I’m dying,” Milly said flatly. “They say surgery might help, but I won’t survive it.”
“Cancer?”
“Worse than I thought. Look after Alfie when I’m gone.”
“Don’t be silly—”
“Tommy can’t do it alone. My parents are useless. Please.”
Josie’s throat tightened. The kettle screamed.
A week passed. No news. Then—Tommy’s call. Milly was gone.
His flat reeked of despair. Alfie, wide-eyed, clung to her. Tommy? Drunk.
She stayed. Cooked. Cleaned. Endured his benders. “You lost a wife—he lost his *mother*!” she finally snapped.
Months later, Alfie whispered, “Dad’s got a girlfriend. She’s vile. Wish it were you.”
“Just friends,” Josie sighed.
But Alfie kept escaping to her. Tommy, now a drunk shell, barely noticed.
Then—summer. The village. A new neighbour: William, steady as oak.
Tommy arrived once, slurring he’d take Alfie. The boy fled back to Josie.
William proposed. She said yes.
A year later, Tommy died—bad vodka, his girlfriend too.
At the funeral, Josie realised: no anger left. Just gratitude. Without Milly, she’d never have met William.
Alfie stayed with them. And Josie? She’d finally grown into herself.
(*Diary entry ends with a scrawled note: Sometimes, the wrong path leads you home.*)
