Scarlet ♠️
Clara opened the door before I knocked.
She had been watching for my car from the window, I knew this because the door swung open as I was still coming up the path, and Clara was standing there in her dressing gown with her hair not yet done and two mugs already in her hand, which meant the kettle had been on for a while. She looked at my face for approximately one second.
Then she stepped back and let me in without saying a word.
That was the thing about twelve years of friendship. You develop a language that doesn’t require words.
Clara took one look at me, the clothes I had put on too quickly, the face I had not yet managed to arrange into anything presentable, the way I was carrying myself like someone who had been awake all night holding something heavy, and she unde
