One Moment

by Becky Hunter

Genres: Friendship; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

One moment in time can change everything...
The day Scarlett dies should have been one of the most important of her life. It doesn't feel fair that she'll never have the chance to fulfil her dreams. And now, she's still ... here ... somehow, watching the ripple effect of her death on the lives of those she loved the most.
Evie cannot contemplate her life without Scarlett, and she certainly cannot forgive Nate, the man she blames for her best friend's death. But Nate keeps popping up when she least expects him to, catapulting Evie's life in directions she'd never let herself imagine possible. Ways, perhaps, even those closest to her had long since given up on.
If you could go back, knowing everything that happens after, everything that happens because of that one moment in time, would you change the course of history or would you do it all again?

Release date: March 12, 2024

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 352

Sample

The morning that I die I’m in a rush to leave the flat. I couldn’t get to sleep last night, too on edge, replaying what happened earlier in the evening, my stomach curdling with anxiety, so I slept through the alarm. Now I can’t find the bloody key, we’ve run out of instant coffee, and I don’t have time to make a proper one. I check the time on my phone as I scurry into our tiny kitchen and swear—silently, so I don’t wake Evie. I have a meeting near Borough Market first thing, and at this rate I’m going to miss it. It’s not like I can ring, push it back. The whole bloody day is backlogged up to the party this evening, which I have to be on form for, because Jason has gotten these investors interested in my idea for a new label.

My mind immediately turns to Jason then. No. I’m not thinking about him. I’m not. I promised myself I wouldn’t—for this morning at least. Besides, Jason isn’t the point of the party. These people, they are interested in me. My idea. I want to use recyclable materials, which is very on trend at the moment, and they liked my designs too, the “boldness” of them apparently. It would be so cool. To create something all my own. It will make all of the long hours, the shit pay, the endless fawning over people more important than me worth it.

I stop looking through the fruit bowl for my keys—I know it sounds obscure, but Evie once found them there—and take a breath. Evie can let me in later. I spin around on the fake terra-cotta tiles—really they are just plastic, and the edges are peeling away in the corners and where the cupboards meet the floor—and reach for the whiteboard and pen that Evie keeps stuck to the fridge. It’s one of those magnetic pads; she picked it up for us a few years ago because I kept losing all the Post-it notepads. It’s a tradition for us to write notes to each other. It started when we first moved to London together. I was working as an intern, which basically meant no money and endless hours, and Evie was out temping while also auditioning for all those amateur orchestras, so we hadn’t been in the flat together at the same time much and Evie had started the notes. A way to make us both feel less lonely, and to keep each other up to date.

She doesn’t do it much anymore. Some days I know she finds writing too difficult, other times I think she simply doesn’t have anything to say—the days when she can’t bring herself to leave the flat. Occasionally, on good days, she’ll write something or do a little drawing, and I know it’s to convince me that she’s okay. But mostly she leaves it to me.

The same photos are still stuck to the fridge from when Evie and I first moved in. Us on the beach in Crete, just after we finished A Levels, grinning like loons with our arms around each other. Me holding a champagne bottle—one that Evie had bought for me after I finished my degree. Us at my twenty-first, surrounded by a group of people we’ve mainly lost touch with today. There used to be a photo of Evie at her graduation too, holding her violin, but she tore it down on a bad day about six months ago. Looking at the photos makes my stomach lurch, thinking of last night. I went too far, I know I did.

Trying to push that aside, I take the whiteboard and rest it on the countertop, in between the fruit bowl—which, incidentally, never has any fruit in it—and the pile of washing up. I should have cleared it up last night really, but after the argument I’d stormed straight into my room. The chopping board covered in crumbs, knife coated in butter, and leftover cereal bowls stare at me accusingly and I have to look away.

Don’t worry about the washing up, I scrawl on the whiteboard, I’ll do it later. I stop. Maybe she’ll take that the wrong way, assume it’s because I think she can’t do it or something. Especially after last night. I rub out the words, start again. I’ll be back late this evening, so don’t wait up. Big night!! I’ll message, let you know how it goes. But curry and wine tomorrow, yeah? I leave it at that. No point trying to put everything down on a whiteboard. We’ll talk tomorrow, and it’ll be fine. There is nothing Evie and I can’t fix, surely.

I put the cap back on the pen and head out of the kitchen to the adjoining living room. It’s as I’m crossing the threshold from plastic tiles to old beige carpet that something slices into the sole of my foot and I swear, loudly. I bring my foot up, see blood seeping through my black tights, along with a tiny shard of glass, glinting in the artificial light of the flat. I hobble to the sofa to pick the shard out, placing it on the little coffee table. A memory of last night flashes into my mind—one of our glasses smashing across the floor in the kitchen, water and glass going everywhere. Evie and I staring at it, until Evie made a stiff movement toward the cupboard under the sink, where we keep the dustpan and brush.

“I’ll do it,” I said quickly.

“It’s fine,” Evie said, through gritted teeth.

“But I—”

“I said it’s fine, okay!”

I glance at Evie’s door. I should check on her, I know I should. But I’m already late, and I don’t know how long that conversation will end up taking. I need to get going. I want to get going—there is so much to look forward to today.

I stand up, ignoring the prick in my foot, shove my long black boots on, and grab my handbag from where I’ve dumped it by the front door. I love this handbag. I saved up all through my degree to get it. It’s a beautiful crocodile print by a designer who was up-and-coming at the time—a talking point for future interviews.

I’m opening the front door when I hear the click of Evie’s bedroom door. I look over my shoulder at her. She’s always pale, but she looks paler than normal today, with dark shadows under her eyes. She’s wearing flannel pajama bottoms along with that ugly T-shirt of Will’s that she still wears to bed, even though the bastard left her. She’s looking at me a little warily, and I imagine I look the same to her. The residue of last night’s argument making itself known.

She’s got headphones on and she slips them off her head, flushes slightly. She pretends that she doesn’t listen to music anymore—at least the type of music I know she loves. That’s why she’s always listening on headphones, rather than playing it out loud in her room, because she doesn’t want to admit that she’s doing it. I know she does, though, and she knows I know, but neither of us says anything about it. It’s a thing.

“You’re leaving?” The slight accusation in her voice sends an unpleasant jolt through me. It is too close to what she said last night.

I clear my throat. “Yeah. I left you a note.” I gesture toward the kitchen, but Evie keeps looking directly at me.

“I thought you were starting later today, because of the party?”

“I am.” Why do I sound so formal? This is Evie, for Christ’s sake. I hate this. Evie and I don’t fight, not really. She is the constant in my life—I need her to be the constant in my life. But I can’t think of what to say to make it better, not in the timeframe I’ve got.

She’s still waiting for an answer, arms crossed over her chest. There’s a moment here when I could tell the truth—what I’m doing this morning, and why. But it’s the wrong time. The argument is still too fresh for both of us, and I don’t have time to explain properly. So I lie. “I have to go in early to work, start the prep.” The words taste bitter on my tongue.

She nods slowly, while I do a quick scan of her, up and down. Assessing, in the way I’ve gotten used to doing over the past two years or so, trying to check if she’s okay, to figure out what kind of day she might be having. Evie narrows her eyes, and I know she’s clocked what I’m doing.

“Are you coming to the party later?” I ask quickly.

“Maybe,” Evie says after a beat. “I’ll let you know, is that all right?” She’s too stiff. Is she regretting last night too? Probably—she hates losing her temper.

“Of course.” I doubt she’ll come. She rarely comes out these days. Though tonight is important for me, so maybe she’ll surprise me. Or maybe not, after last night. The anxiety curdles again in my stomach.

A message beeps on my phone and I scramble in my handbag for it. My heart spasms in that way that is both pain and pleasure when I see who it is. Jason.

Meet me before you go into work today. I want to see you. Not a question, but then that’s not really Jason’s style. Another message follows: I’ll be at the Soho flat until eleven.

I feel the heat flash through me, the way I’ve never been able to control around him, but I drop the phone back in my handbag. I tell myself I won’t go, that I’ll stick firm to the line I’ve drawn there.

Evie is still looking at me. She doesn’t comment, but I wonder if she suspects who the message is from. Probably. We’ve never been able to hide anything from one another—never usually wanted to. Out of everyone in the world, Evie is the one person I could tell anything to, and I know she feels the same.

“I’ve got to go,” I say, because I really do.

Her eyes flare then. That sparky anger lighting up the green. I’ve always admired her eyes, how expressive they are. It’s the one place she can’t hide her anger, even though I know she tries.

“I’ll see you later, okay?” I try to make my voice upbeat, to pretend that nothing is going on here, but I can see the bitterness, from the way she keeps her face so straight, the way her arms tighten around her. She does not want me to leave. Maybe she doesn’t want me to leave her here, alone, or maybe she thinks I should stay until we sort this out, have a proper conversation.

But she nods, and I take that as permission. Because I do have to go—the day is calling to me. And I need time, to figure out what to say, how to make this better. I make the effort to flash her a quick smile before I step out into the musty-smelling corridor of the first floor of our block of flats, where the light seems to be endlessly flickering.

“Scar?” She calls my name as I’m shutting the door, and I pull it wider again so that I can look in at her. “I…” She blows out a breath. “Nothing.” The nothing echoes in the space between us. She doesn’t know what to say either, does she? Why should she? She might have ended up saying something she regretted, but I was the one who pushed last night, so I’m the one who needs to make it better. It’s a pattern between us: I make the mistake, I plead for forgiveness, and Evie forgives me. I just have to figure out how, exactly, to plead this time. Later, I tell myself. I need to get today out of the way—there’s a lot that can change in one day, after all.

“Good luck today, yeah?” Evie continues. “I’m sure you’ll be great—it’ll be your Melanie Griffith in Working Girl moment.”

I smile for real then. Because she’s deliberately breaking the tension between us, offering me an olive branch. “Or Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde?”

Evie cocks her head, her long dark hair spilling to one side. “No one ever doubted you could do it, though, did they?”

“I haven’t done it yet,” I say gruffly.

Evie smiles, a little sadly. I’m not sure how to read it, that sadness. Maybe that, in comparison to her, I’m on the way to achieving my dream, whereas she… “You have. Even if this doesn’t come off, which I think it will, you still will have.”

My feet start tapping, impatient for the rest of me to get moving. “Eves, I’m so sorry but I really do have to—”

“Go. I know.” She waves a hand in the air, gesturing me on my way. “I’ll be fine.” She says it firmly and I feel sure, in that moment, that it’s a promise. That Evie and I are stronger than one argument; that, no matter what, we will stick together, as we always have done.

But I don’t get a chance to test that theory, do I?

I shove my hands into my coat pockets as I walk along Borough High Street, protecting them from the biting chill that has captured April. Despite the cold, it’s bright, the sun shining out of a clear blue sky, and the day seems almost hopeful. I suppose that’s ironic, really, given what happens next.

I’ve caught up with myself in terms of time, with the first thing on my to-do list already ticked off, but that doesn’t stop me walking quickly, my boots clicking along the pavement, joining in the morning chaos of London. Rush hour is officially over, but everyone in London seems to be perpetually in a hurry. It’s part of why I love this city. I love the unpredictability of it, the constant movement, never knowing who or what might be around the corner.

Because I left the flat without one this morning, I head into the nearest coffee shop and order a black Americano. I taught myself to like black coffee years ago, when I first started my degree. There are no calories in it, and I have to stay slim for work. I’d rather have one of the Easter-themed drinks, full of sugar and cream and yumminess, that are still on sale despite the fact that Easter was last weekend. No point in wasting the calories on it, I tell myself firmly.

I briefly smile at the slightly harried-looking guy—young, early twenties, I’d guess—behind the counter, before getting out my phone, scrolling through WhatsApp automatically. Someone bumps into me and I scowl, but don’t bother looking up to see who it is. I’ve gotten a little immune to it, I think, from years of taking the Tube—getting bumped into is par for the course here.

My fingers linger over the message from Jason. I know, I know, I promised myself I wouldn’t think of him, but he’s going to be at the party and I can’t just ignore him. Well, theoretically I could. I could also not go to the flat, pretend I never saw the message, and when we see each other this evening he’ll no doubt be the perfect example of professionalism. No one will notice the looks he sends me across the room. No one will notice the way I smile at him, because I’m a shameless flirt and I smile at everyone like that.

Fuck, I want to see him. I want to go to that flat. I shouldn’t, I really shouldn’t. But I do.

“Black Americano!” The way the guy shouts it makes me realize it’s not the first time he’s said it, and I shove my phone back in my bag—without replying to Jason. I take the paper cup, annoyed at myself for forgetting the reusable takeaway cup that Evie got me for Christmas last year. We started doing stockings for each other when we first moved to London and although the presents were pretty crap at first, relying mainly on charity shops, the last couple of years we’ve actually put some decent stuff in there, coffee mug included. It’s unashamedly garish—bright pink and purple with silver writing that says, “Bring on the Sparkle.” It’s so ridiculous and every time I hand it over to baristas, they sort of do a double-take. I was slightly appalled when I first unwrapped it, I’ll admit, and Evie burst out laughing at my expression. It was a reminder, according to her, not to take myself too seriously, because generally everything I own is carefully chosen, always on trend. The mug’s not something I’d usually be seen dead with, and initially I used it solely to honor my friendship with Evie, but now, I have to admit, I bloody love it. Every time I get it out, it makes me smile, which I’m sure was Evie’s intention.

Evie. Maybe I should ring her or message her, or something. Though she offered me the olive branch, it still feels odd that we didn’t officially resolve anything. But no. I think—stupidly, it turns out—that I’ll have time for that later. It’s for the same reason that I don’t answer the call from my mum when her name flashes on the screen. I know what it’ll be about: my thirtieth birthday is coming up soon, and she wants to make a splash. I love her for it, I do, but I don’t want to talk about that right now.

There is so much pressure: to have this big party, celebrate the end of your twenties. But I don’t want to be at the end of my twenties, because I’m supposed to have everything sorted by this point, aren’t I? And yes, work is good, and I love London, but there is so much that isn’t sorted. Well, mainly my relationship status. It’s stupid, I know, to get hung up on it. Evie isn’t in a relationship, either, something that keeps me sane, but most of our school friends from back home are married off. My single colleagues and I reassure each other with the fact that London is different, that we don’t have time for the dating apps. And sometimes that makes me feel better. But mostly I wonder what the hell I’m doing and why I haven’t found someone yet. Because, let’s be honest, Jason doesn’t count.

I head back out of the café, take a sip of my coffee, and grimace slightly at the bitterness. Ahead of me, the pedestrian crossing is counting down: three seconds left to get across. It’s one of those perpetually busy crossroads where you have to cross one section of the road and then wait in the middle for ages until the lights change on the other side—unless you’re one of those who has nailed the timings and can dash across before the cars start coming.

Usually I’m one of those who rush, so I don’t have to waste precious seconds of my life waiting for the lights to change. So I don’t know what it is today that makes me pause—pause for that second too long, so that I’m stuck on my side of the road, with two sets of lights to get through now.

I shift from foot to foot as the cars come too fast through the crossing. The cyclists come around too, zooming past in their green cycle lane. I watch as some guy on a bright-red bike careens around the corner. It’s impossible not to notice him. Unlike the other kamikaze cyclists, he’s not wearing Lycra. Instead he’s in jeans and a jumper, marking him out as different. He’s wearing no helmet, messy brown hair clearly on show.

He’s also holding the handlebars with only one hand in the middle, the other pressing his phone to his ear. He’s laughing, presumably at something the other person is saying, as he heads toward the lights where I’m standing. Maybe it’s that which draws me to him, keeps my gaze focused on him as he shoots past me, running through the lights literally the second they turn from amber to red, without so much as checking over his shoulder.

The fact that I’m standing, watching as the lights change, means that I see it all. See the man flying through the lights at the wrong time. Watch as one of the oncoming cars from the other direction—potentially running their own red light at the last minute—beeps loudly. As the cyclist visibly jolts, swerves, still one-handed, then has to immediately swerve the other way, out of the cycle lane, as another car comes straight at him.

The green man is flashing, the lights beeping. I should be crossing the road now. But I’m still watching this man, now a few meters beyond me, to my left. Watching as he falls, headfirst. And I’m holding my breath, because he doesn’t get up. A couple of cars beep, but no one stops. No one on the pavement is moving, either—the classic bystander effect. Usually I, too, would leave it to someone else to sort out. That’s the thing about London sometimes: there are so many people around to help, it means you don’t have to.

But this time I jerk into action. Coffee spills through the small opening in the lid of my cup, heat searing my hand. I drop it completely, black liquid seeping across the street.

I step off the pavement, into the cycle lane where he has landed. In hindsight, I’ll wonder why I did it. Maybe it was the argument, still turning around my mind—if I was out in the world, living a life that Evie could not, then I could at least do something useful while I was at it. Maybe I was thinking of the message from Jason, about the fact that I needed to face up to what I was doing—and so I felt I should try to reset the balance, good deeds versus bad. But at the time I’m not aware of any of those thoughts. I’m acting without really thinking about it.

When I get to him, his bike is strewn across the road, causing the passing cars to swerve around it, but he is still sprawled in the green cycle lane. I crouch down and the man groans. I feel a rush of relief. If he’s groaning, I’m pretty sure he’s not dead.

He looks up at me. He’s got nice eyes. They’re deep brown, like a dark mocha, and they seem warm. “Are you okay?” I ask, as a car rushes past, beeping, like that will make the bike get out of its way. He nods and I hold out my hand, pull him to his feet. He grunts, and I brace against his weight. There is more beeping behind me. Can they not see there’s been an accident?

Cyclists come swooping past now as, presumably, the lights change, and I pull the man to the side, out of harm’s way. He frowns at me, and briefly I wonder if I should check for concussion. What are you supposed to do? Ask what day of the week it is? Who the prime minister is?

He looks around at the pavement, dumbfounded, as if wondering how he ended up there. I glance down too, see his phone, completely smashed, lying a couple of meters away. After checking quickly for any oncoming cyclists, I dart to it, grab it off the ground. Hand it back to him.

“Thanks,” he says. “And thanks for…” He trails off, gestures at himself, his bike, still lying a short distance away from us.

“You shouldn’t be on the phone while you’re riding your bike.” I say it primly, almost condescendingly, and I wrinkle my nose with how it sounds. Another car comes past, and I feel the wind it leaves in its wake whipping across my back.

The man’s eyebrows shoot up, but he doesn’t look offended. “Suppose not.” Then he grins, a nice, easy expression, one that makes me instantly at ease: infectious is what I think to myself in that moment. He waves a hand to encompass his body—his face is scraped on one side, and his hands look like they are a little skinned too. “Clearly not.”

I offer him a little apologetic smile, then, as he seems to be making no move to get it, I hurry into the road to grab his bike, timing it with the lights changing. I bend down to grab the handlebars, then hold it out to him. “Sorry, what I meant to say was—”

It happens so quickly after that. Mid-sentence, my words stolen away from me. I barely register the change in his expression, the way he lurches toward me, out of the cycle lane and into the road, as if to grab me. He’s not looking at me. That’s my main thought, in the nanosecond that I have to think. That contorted, panicked expression isn’t being caused by me, but by something behind me, over my shoulder.

I don’t have time to turn, to see. I don’t hear the brakes, the horn, the shouting. Not right awa. . .