AI The green neon of the Raven's Nest bleeds through the smudged front window, painting the rain-slicked Soho pavement lime. Inside, the air smells like burnt pretzels and stale bourbon, walls lined with frayed maps of European capitals, black-and-white photos of men in parkas huddled on a snowy Prague street corner half-hidden behind a stack of beer coasters. Silas leans on the oak bar, his left leg shifted an inch back to take weight off his bad knee, a silver signet ring glinting as he polishes a pint glass with a rag that’s seen better decades.
Rory drops her Golden Empress delivery backpack by the foot of a bar stool, the straps slipping off one shoulder, her left wrist brushing the counter as she pulls herself up. The crescent scar on the skin there catches the low string light strung above the taps, faint as a moon sliver. She finished her last run ten minutes prior, dropped an order of pork dumplings and chow mein to a group of gallery owners three blocks over, her socks still squelching inside scuffed white sneakers. Silas slides a Guinness across the bar, foam sloshing over the edge onto a coaster printed with a raven midflight.
Only you could turn a 20-minute delivery into a 45-minute detour to pet every stray cat on Oxford Street.
Rory snorts, peeling the label off a bottle of dill pickles set out for bar snacks. They were hungry. One had a limp. I couldn’t leave him.
The bell above the front door jangles, cold rain wind whipping in, sending a stack of napkins sliding off the end of the bar. A woman shakes water off the hood of her black wool coat, her face turned away as she fumbles to lock an umbrella, her brown hair cut into a sharp chin-length bob, no streaks of neon, no silver studs along the curve of her ear that Rory remembered from the girl she grew up with. The woman turns to head for the only empty booth at the back, and her eyes lock on Rory’s. Rory’s beer stops halfway to her mouth. That’s Eva Marlow, her next-door neighbor in Cardiff, the girl who taught her to steal pears from the retired farmer’s orchard at the end of their street, who’d sat with her in Cardiff General’s A&E when she crashed her dad’s old BMX and carved that crescent into her wrist on the bike’s rusted handlebar. They hadn’t seen each other in three years. Not since Rory texted her from a Cardiff service station, sobbing, Evan had broken her phone, had grabbed her arm hard enough to leave a bruise that lasted two weeks, and Eva had written back come to London, I’ll send you the train fare, and then the number went dead. Rory had called every line she had for her, showed up at the flat Eva had listed on her Instagram, and found a retired nurse who’d lived there for 12 years. She’d thought Eva ghosted her, that she’d left her hanging when she needed her most. Now Eva’s boots scuff the wooden floor as she walks towards the bar, not looking away. Rory sets her beer down, her palm flat on the worn oak.
You still drink Guinness. I thought you’d switched to something fancy. Aperol spritz or whatever.
Rory’s jaw unclenches a little. She’d recognize that thick Cardiff lilt , the way she drew the end of sentences up like a question, anywhere. You still lie about being fine. I see that too.
Eva huffs a laugh that doesn’t reach her eyes, and pulls out the stool next to Rory’s, shrugging her coat off to drape over the chair’s back. Silas looks up from wiping the bar, nods once, and Eva orders a gin and tonic, no lime. The same order she used to beg for at the shitty pub back in Cardiff, when they’d sneak in with fake IDs at 17. It’s the only thing that hasn’t changed. Silas slides the glass over, then retreats to the far end of the bar to give them space, his limp quiet as he moves to drop a bowl of pretzel nuggets in front of the two backpackers loitering in the corner. Eva twists the thin gold wedding ring on her left finger, over and over, the same nervous tick she had as a kid, when she’d twist the cuff of her hoodie until the seam ripped before admitting she’d messed up.
You’re living above the bar? I asked around, after I got your text. The landlord said the girl above the Nest stays out of trouble, pays her rent on time. That sounded like you.
You asked around? You could have called. Could have texted. I thought you died. I thought Evan found you or something, that’s how quiet you went.
Eva’s glass clinks hard against the bar as she sets it down, her knuckles white. I didn’t want you to see me. Not like this. Back when we were 19, you crashed that BMX , I sat with you in A&E for four hours, I promised I’d never leave you hanging. Then your mom died, and I got the tattoo apprenticeship in Manchester, and I bailed. I didn’t come to the funeral. I couldn’t face you, because I chose a stupid apprenticeship over the only person who’d ever had my back. Then three years ago, you texted me, scared out of your mind, needing me, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be the person you needed again, because I’d already failed you once. I moved to London six months after that, got a job at a marketing firm, got married , did all the things I swore I’d never do, because it was easier than being the girl who left her best friend when she needed her most. I built a whole new life so I wouldn’t have to look at the part of me that hurt you.
Rory stares at her, the crescent scar on her wrist burning. She’d carried that anger for three years, that sharp, heavy hurt that Eva had abandoned her when she was running from the worst thing that had ever happened to her. She’d imagined a hundred reasons: Eva was dead, Eva was in trouble, Eva hated her. Never this. Never that Eva had been too ashamed to show up. Eva pulls a crumpled photo out of her leather work wallet, slides it across the bar. It’s them, 16, covered in pear juice, sitting on the roof of Eva’s childhood house in Cardiff, Rory’s left wrist wrapped in a neon pink bandage, Eva’s hair dyed electric blue, holding up a middle finger to the camera.
I carry that everywhere. I never stopped thinking about you. I saw the Golden Empress sticker on your backpack when I walked in, and I knew. I’d googled the restaurant a week prior, worked up the courage to walk in and ask for you. I couldn’t do it. I came here tonight to wait out the rain, and I walked straight into you.
Silas’s voice carries soft from the back of the bar, not intrusive, just a warning. Last call in ten.
Rory picks up the photo, runs her thumb over the crease down the middle, the fold Eva had made a hundred times just to pull it out and look at it. Evan’s in jail. He got arrested for assaulting another girl, a year after I left Cardiff. I didn’t need you to save me. I just needed you to be there. I would have come. If you’d told me you were scared , I would have shown up at your flat, no questions asked. I failed you too. I stopped calling after a dozen tries. I assumed the worst. I never stopped to think you were hurting too.
Eva’s eyes glisten, and she swipes at a tear before it can smudge the matte black mascara she’s wearing, the kind of fancy, expensive product the old Eva, who wore only smudged eyeliner she stole from Boots, would have never bothered with. I bought a ticket to Cardiff last month. I was going to show up at your dad’s house, ask for your number. I got off the train, and I turned right back around, got on the next train to London. I was too scared you’d tell me to go to hell. I would have. If I was you, I’d tell me to go to hell.
What’s your number now? Rory pulls her phone out of her windbreaker pocket, unlocks it, shoves it across the bar. I still have the same one. Text me when you get home. I want to meet you for coffee tomorrow. Not here, not in some bar where we’re both scared to say what we mean. At that café in Covent Garden we used to tape photos of to our bedroom walls, the one with the lemon tarts. We used to say we’d sit there all day, eating them and writing stupid songs.
Eva types her number into Rory’s contacts, her hands steady now. I’ll buy two lemon tarts. I owe you three years of them. I’ll show up early. I won’t bail.
She pulls her coat on, slings her work bag over her shoulder, pauses at the door to look back. Rory lifts her Guinness in a toast. Eva does the same with her half-full gin and tonic, then pushes out into the rain. Silas walks back over to the bar, leans against it, nods at the door swinging shut behind her.
That girl carry a lot of weight . Same as you.
Rory tucks the crumpled photo into her wallet, slings her delivery backpack over one shoulder, and turns for the stairs that lead to her flat above the bar. The rain taps against the stairwell window, the bar’s green neon glowing bright against the dark street below. For the first time in three years, the heavy, unspoken guilt she’d carried, the part of her that wondered if she’d been wrong to stop reaching out, if she’d been as bad at being a friend as Eva had, lifts a little. Time piles things up, she thinks, fumbling for her flat key. You don’t even notice the weight until you run into someone who knew you when you had nothing to carry.