Chapter 10: The Reckoning
The ginger cat, now named Marmalade by virtue of his colour and a lack of any collar, made himself at home with the quiet authority of a feudal lord. He claimed the sunniest spot on the rug, batted at the tassels of Roz’s textbooks, and watched her with those ancient amber eyes as she paced the small confines of her flat on Monday morning.
The kiss from Leo was a smudge on the corner of her mouth that wouldn’t fade. It wasn’t the kiss itself—it was the casualness of it. The utter lack of ceremony. It made her feel young, naive, a child playing at adulthood in a world where people just… did things like that. It sat uncomfortably beside the memory of Ally’s kiss under the close light, a moment that had felt tectonic, earned. One was a question. The other felt like a footnote.
She spent the weekend studying, the cat a purring paperweight on her notes. She ignored three cheerful texts from Ally, full of exclamation points and victory—Italy had been narrowly beaten, his knee had held, he was flying high. She’d sent back a simple, So proud of you!, which felt horribly inadequate. The distance between his physical, roaring world and her new, silent one felt like a chasm. And now she had to go back into the quiet, where Leo was.
The Sandyford Centre felt different. The beige walls seemed closer. She kept her head down in the staff room, making tea with intense concentration.
“Hey, you.” He was there, suddenly, refilling his own mug. Same corduroy jacket, different band t-shirt. He smiled, easy as anything. “How was the weekend? How’s the new flatmate?”
Roz’s hand tightened on the spoon. The sound of it clinking against the mug was too loud. She could feel heat rising up her neck. She kept her eyes on the swirling tea. “Fine. He’s fine.”
“Good.” Leo leaned a hip against the counter, sipping his coffee. “He looked like a character. One-eared warriors always have the best stories.”
She couldn’t do this. The pleasantry was a layer of lint over a splinter. She put the mug down with a sharp tap. The liquid sloshed. “Why did you do that?”
“Do what?” His brow furrowed, genuine confusion.
“On Friday. At my close. You kissed me.”
The confusion cleared, replaced by a flicker of surprise, then a mild, dismissive understanding. “Oh. That.” He waved a hand, as if shooing a fly. “It was nothing. Just a… friendly thing. A goodbye.”
“‘A friendly thing’?” Her voice was low, trembling. “You don’t just kiss people. Not like that. Not out of nowhere.”
He studied her face, his head tilting. The therapist’s assessing gaze was now turned on her, and it made her skin crawl. “Roz,” he said, his tone softening into something infuriatingly pedagogical. “It was a peck. On the cheek, practically. I thought you were… I don’t know. I thought you were someone who’d understand casual affection without making it a thing.”
The words landed like a series of small, precise slaps. Without making it a thing. He’d framed her discomfort as a failure of sophistication, a sign she was ‘making’ something out of his nothing. It was a brilliant, cruel inversion.
“It is a thing,” she said, the anger giving her words a sharp, clear edge. “When it’s not asked for, it’s a thing. When it’s from a colleague, it’s a thing. You don’t get to decide what it is for me.”
He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, but his expression was still one of faint bemusement. “Okay. Okay. I hear you. I’m sorry if I overstepped. Truly. I just…” He shrugged, a loose, effortless movement. “I’m a tactile person. It’s how I am with friends. I misread. Won’t happen again.”
It was the perfect, professional apology. It conceded nothing of substance. It made her anger feel bulky and unsophisticated, exactly as he’d implied. Making it a thing.
Dr. Sharma appeared in the doorway. “Roz, are you ready for the ten o’clock? Lily’s here.” Her keen eyes moved between the two of them, sensing the charged air.
“Yes. Coming.” Roz didn’t look at Leo again. She picked up her notebook and walked out, her spine rigid.
The session with Lily was a refuge. Here, the rules were clear. Her job was to witness, to be steady. The girl drew in a sketchpad, furious, dark strokes of charcoal. Roz didn’t speak. She just sat, a quiet presence in the room, holding space for the silent storm. It was a different kind of strength. It required no explaining.
Later, during her lunch break, she hid in a small courtyard at the back of the centre. The air was cold, biting. She pulled out her phone and stared at Ally’s last message: Back late Tuesday. Dinner Wednesday? I need to see you.
She wanted to say yes with a desperation that frightened her. She wanted the solid ground of him, the clear, physical language of his world. But the smudge was still there. And now, so were Leo’s words. Casual affection. Was that all it was? Was she, with her history and her engine and her quiet, just incapable of understanding that? Was Ally’s intensity another kind of misreading?
Her thumb hovered over the screen. She typed, I need to see you too. She deleted it. Typed, Wednesday is good. She stared at the words. They were true, but they felt like a lie by omission.
Leo appeared in the courtyard she winced inwardly. He made a big show, mind if I...? He sat down. Go ahead Roz walker back inside. She would see Ally tomorrow.
She would see Ally tomorrow.
The thought was a life raft she clung to through the afternoon’s final appointments, a solid point in a day that felt slick with ambiguity. She packed her bag with sharp, efficient movements, the ghost of Leo’s dismissive smile finally fading under the mundane weight of her coat zipper and the scarf she wound tightly around her neck. The evening air outside the Sandyford was a cold slap, bracing and clean, washing the clinical smell from her lungs.
She was halfway to the bus stop, passing under the sodium glow of a streetlamp, when her phone buzzed in her coat pocket. The screen illuminated a number she didn’t recognise, but the message was unmistakable. Hope the rest of your day was better. L.
Ice water flooded her veins. How the fuck had he got her number? It wasn’t listed on the internal roster; she’d checked. Her hands trembled, making the screen blur as she stabbed at it. The casualness of the text, the presumption, it was worse than the kiss. It was a breach. A silent, digital intrusion into her private space. She blocked the number with a vicious tap, her breath coming in short, visible puffs in the cold air.
Something uneasy ran through her, a sharp, electric current of violation. It wasn’t fear, not exactly. It was the erosion of a boundary she’d thought was concrete. He was in her clinic, and now he was in her pocket. The professional world, her sanctuary of rules and protocols, felt suddenly porous.
She practically ran the last block to her flat, the key fumbling in the lock. The door swung open to a wall of warmth and the rich, savory smell of frying onions and garlic. Music, something indie and melodic, played from a speaker on the counter.
“Hey, you’re back!” Jenni called from the kitchenette, a wooden spoon in hand. Marmalade was twined around her ankles, then bolted for Roz, meowing a pointed complaint about the delayed dinner service. “I’m attempting a risotto. It’s a gamble.”
Roz stood in the doorway, the cold still clinging to her coat, the sterile silence of the clinic still ringing in her ears. The domestic scene before her—the steam, the cat, Jenni’s cheerful incompetence—was so violently normal it felt surreal. She couldn’t speak for a moment, just absorbed the warmth and the noise.
“You okay?” Jenni asked, her smile fading as she took in Roz’s expression. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Long day,” Roz managed, her voice rough. She shrugged off her coat, the action feeling heavy. She bent to scoop up Marmalade, burying her fingers in his dense, ginger fur. The vibration of his purr was an immediate, primal comfort. “A really fucking weird day.”
“Well, weird day antidote is carb loading and cheap wine,” Jenni said, decisively tipping a glass of white wine into the pan. “Or beside it. Same difference. Tell me.”
Roz carried the cat to the worn couch, sinking into its familiar depths. She watched Jenni stir, the unease from the text still coiled in her gut, but now surrounded by the fortifications of home. She took a deep breath, the scent of cooking and cat and safsheety filling her lungs.
“There’s this guy at the placement,” she started, her words slow, testing the weight of them. Marmalade butted his head against her chin. “He kissed me. On Friday. Just… out of nowhere.”
Jenni stopped stirring. “What the hell? Who?”
“Leo. A therapist. And then today he acted like I was being ridiculous for being upset about it. Said he thought I was ‘someone who understood casual affection.’” She repeated the phrase with a flat, bitter taste. “And then, just now, he texted me. I don’t know how he got my number. I blocked him.”
“Jesus, Roz.” Jenni abandoned the risotto, grabbing the wine bottle and two mugs, bringing them over. She handed one to Roz. “That’s not casual. That’s fucking creepy. That’s a red flag parade.”
Hearing it stated so plainly was a relief. It validated the chill she felt. “It made me feel like I was the one being strange. For making it a thing.”
“It is a thing,” Jenni said, echoing Roz’s own words to Leo but with ferocious conviction. “He made it a thing the second he touched you without asking. The text is just harassment confetti. You should report him.”
The word ‘report’ sent a different kind of anxiety through her. The paperwork, the conversations, the inevitable he-said-she-said. It would stain her placement, make her that student. “I just want it to go away,” she murmured into her mug.
“It might not,” Jenni said gently. “Guys like that rely on that. On you wanting it to just go away.” She sipped her wine, her expression turning shrewd. “What does Ally think?”
Roz’s stomach clenched. “He doesn’t know. He’s been away. I see him tomorrow.”
“You’re going to tell him, right?”
The image of Ally’s face, the easy charm hardening into something else, flashed in her mind. His world was one of clear penalties, of physical boundaries enforced without apology. She didn’t know what he would do. The uncertainty was a new, heavy stone in her pocket, right beside the blocked number. “I don’t know,” she said quietly.
The risotto began to let out a desperate hiss from the stove. Jenni swore and leapt up to rescue it. Roz stayed on the couch, the cat a warm weight on her chest, and stared at the faint, reflected glow of the city on her ceiling. Tomorrow waited, a conversation she could no longer outline in her mind. The rain-slicked confession in the Botanics felt like a lifetime ago. You don’t have to be bulletproof with me. But what if the threat wasn’t something you could stand and face? What if it was a smile, a text, a quiet erosion in a beige room?
Jenni presented a bowl of slightly gluey, but deliciously cheesy, risotto. “Eat,” she commanded. “Then decide.”
Roz took the bowl, the warmth seeping into her palms. For now, she ate. For now, she was just here, in the light, with a friend and a purring cat. The tomorrows—Ally’s questioning eyes, the shadow of Leo in the clinic corridor, the words she would or wouldn’t say—loomed just beyond the steamed-up windows, in the dark.
The tomorrows—Ally’s questioning eyes, the shadow of Leo in the clinic corridor, the words she would or wouldn’t say—loomed just beyond the steamed-up windows, in the dark.
Wednesday arrived, grey and persistent, a fine drizzle coating the city in a sheen that reflected the amber streetlights by late afternoon. Roz moved through her final clinic sessions at the Sandyford with mechanical precision, her smile a practised tool. She avoided the staff room entirely, taking her notes to a vacant consultation room to write them up. The silence there was a relief. At five o’clock, she packed her bag with a sense of escape.
In the cramped bathroom, she changed out of her sensible trousers and soft knit top. She put on a bright green jumper dress, thick tights, and chunky ankle boots. She fixed her big silver earring, brushing out her hair until it fell in a dark wave over her shoulders. A quick spray of perfume—something citrus and sharp—at her wrists and throat. She studied her reflection, the colour against her pale skin, and felt a flicker of the old excitement, a thread of anticipation cutting through the week’s unease. She left work excited to see Ally.
“You look nice,” a voice said from the shadowed alcove by the rear exit.
Roz looked round. Leo leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets, his smile bland and professional. The corridor was empty. The hum of the building felt very far away.
“Thanks,” she murmured, the word automatic and hollow. She didn’t stop. She walked off, her chunky boots echoing on the linoleum with a decisive rhythm she didn’t feel inside. She pushed the heavy door open, the damp evening air rushing in to meet her. She didn’t look back.
The cold was a shock, sharpening everything. She walked quickly, the city lights smearing on the wet pavement. The pub was his suggestion, a place near Murrayfield that was all worn wood and the deep, earthy scent of old beer and peat smoke. She spotted him immediately, a broad-shouldered silhouette leaning against the bar, laughing at something the bartender said. His face was still marked with the faint, yellowing bloom of a healing bruise along his jawline from the Italy match.
He turned, as if sensing her. His smile, when he saw her, wasn’t the camera-ready one. It was slower, more specific, just for her. It reached his eyes. “There you are,” he said, closing the distance in two strides. He didn’t kiss her hello. He just looked, his gaze taking in the green dress, her hair, her face. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. And other sore parts.”
“How’s the knee?” she asked, falling into the easy, medical shorthand.
“Aching gloriously. Means I played properly.” He handed her a glass of red wine. “You look… incredible. Seriously.”
“It’s just a dress,” she said, but she felt the warmth of his attention like a physical touch, thawing the chill Leo had left on her skin.
They found a corner table, its surface carved with generations of initials. He talked about the match, the controlled chaos of it, the specific thud of a perfect tackle. His words were vivid, physical. She listened, sipping her wine, watching his hands sculpt the air. This was his language. Straightforward. Earnest.
“So,” he said, leaning forward, his voice dropping into a more intimate register. The pub noise faded to a rumble around them. “How was your week? Really. You seemed a bit quiet over text.”
The directness was a gentle trap. She traced the rim of her glass. “It was… odd.”
“Odd how?”
She took a breath. The words felt lodged behind her ribs. “One of the therapists at the placement. He kissed me. Last Friday. When I was leaving.”
Ally went very still. The easy light in his eyes solidified into something focused and hard. “He what?”
“Just on the cheek. But it was out of nowhere. And when I confronted him about it Monday, he acted like I was being dramatic. Said he thought I was ‘someone who understood casual affection.’” She couldn’t keep the scorn from her voice.
Ally’s jaw tightened. The bruise stood out more. “His name?”
“Leo. It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters,” he said, the words flat. “What else?”
She hesitated. The text felt like an admission of something deeper, more insidious. “He texted me later that day. I never gave him my number. I blocked it.”
Ally pushed his pint glass away a fraction, a controlled, precise movement. The air around their table changed, charged with a different energy. This wasn’t the pitch. This was something murkier, and she saw the frustration of it in his eyes—the lack of a clear line to run, a tackle to make. “Did you report him?”
“No. I just want it to stop.”
“It might not,” Ally said, echoing Jenni with a grim practicality. “People like that… they test boundaries. They see quietness as an invitation.” He reached across the table, his hand covering hers. His palm was warm, rough. “You shouldn’t have to deal with that. It’s not part of your job.”
His protectiveness was a solid wall, and for a second, she wanted to lean against it entirely. But a sliver of resistance flared. “I can deal with it. I am dealing with it. I just… wanted you to know.”
He studied her face, his thumb stroking the back of her hand. The anger in his expression softened into a pained concern. “I’m glad you told me.” He paused. “That comment he made. About ‘casual affection.’ That’s what got you, wasn’t it?”
She nodded, unable to speak past the sudden tightness in her throat. He saw it. He understood the precise shape of the insult.
“Right,” he said softly. He released her hand, sat back, and ran a hand through his hair. The physicality of his frustration was palpable. “So I can’t go down there and explain the concept of consent to him with a brick wall.”
A startled laugh escaped her. It was harsh and relieved. “No. You definitely can’t.”
“Pity.” A faint, dangerous smile touched his lips, then vanished. “Listen. You’re the smartest person I know. You’ll handle this. But you don’t handle it alone, yeah? You tell your supervisor. And you tell me. Every time.”
It wasn’t a command. It was a request. An offer of a shared load. You don’t have to be bulletproof with me.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Okay.” He picked up his glass, took a long drink. The tension in his shoulders eased slightly, compartmentalised. “Now, for the love of God, let’s talk about something else. Distract me. Tell me a gross medical fact. I need to think about anything else for five minutes.”
She felt the weight lift, just a little. The conversation turned, the current shifting away from the dark pull of the last week. He asked about Marmalade, and she told him about the cat’s attempts to bathe his own missing ear. Ally described his teammate’s disastrous attempt to make a romantic dinner, which ended with the fire brigade involved. They laughed, the sound weaving into the pub’s atmosphere.
Later, walking her back to her flat through the misty streets, he laced his fingers through hers. Their footsteps fell in sync. “I meant what I said,” he stated, his voice low. “About you not being alone in it.”
“I know.”
He stopped under a tree, its bare branches etching patterns against the night sky. He turned her to face him, his hands on her shoulders. “What he did wasn’t casual. It was a calculation. Don’t let his garbage make you question your own instincts.” He searched her face. “Your engine is fine, Roz. It’s the world that’s spitting out bad fuel sometimes.”
Tears pricked her eyes, not from sadness, but from the sheer relief of being understood so completely. He leaned in and kissed her, properly this time, a slow, deliberate communication that erased the phantom smudge from her cheek. It was the opposite of casual. It was a full stop.
From her windowsill, Marmalade watched them approach the close mouth, a tiny, one-eared sentinel. Inside, Jenni had left a lamp on. Upstairs, her notes were waiting, her stethoscope coiled on the desk. The week’s unease was not gone, but it had been contained, named. She had told someone. She had said the words aloud, and the world had not cracked open.
As she fumbled for her keys, Ally’s arm around her waist, she realised the momentum had shifted. It was no longer about what had been done to her. It was about what she would do next. The decision, now, was entirely hers.