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Anna arrived in London under a sky heavy with clouds, the kind of gray that seemed to soak into everything — skin, clothes, even thoughts. The city was just as she remembered it: busy, cold, humming with the rush of people who always seemed a little too determined to get somewhere else.

It had been two years since she had last set foot here. Two years since she had packed up what little she could carry and left without looking back.

She tightened her coat around her and pulled her suitcase behind her through the terminal, her heart beating faster than she liked. It wasn’t fear exactly. It was something older, deeper. A kind of ache she hadn’t felt in a long time.

The first thing she did wasn’t check into her hotel or even find something to eat after the long flight. Instead, she caught a cab straight across the city to a small, familiar café tucked away near South Kensington — a place she hadn’t seen in years but could still find with her eyes closed.

Waiting for her there was Linda.

Linda had been Anna’s classmate and best friend at Oxford, and later, Anna had referred her for an assistant position in the lab where she was working. They had spent long nights running experiments, poring over data, sharing whispered jokes over terrible coffee. Linda had been the one steady thing during those chaotic years — loyal, kind, and unshakably supportive.

But things had changed after Anna started working under Julian.

The long conversations had grown shorter. The laughter had faded into careful, measured exchanges. And eventually, when Anna left the lab, they had all but fallen out of touch. There were no fights, no harsh words — just a slow, painful drifting that neither of them seemed able to stop.

And now, sitting across from Linda after all this time, Anna felt a strange mixture of hope and guilt knotting in her stomach. There was so much she had never explained — so much she still didn’t know how to say.

Two years ago, she told Linda about how Julian kicked her out of the business. Anna hadn’t realized how much she had missed Linda's steady support at that time, the kind that never wavered no matter how much time had passed. Especially when she needed it the most.