Chapter 72
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
MURPHY
Moving day.
Otherwise known as the worst cardio session I’ve ever signed up for voluntarily.
The sky’s doing its best impression of my soul; grey, heavy, threatening to break at any moment. Dylan’s already here, holding two coffees and a box of what I assume is fragile kitchen crap.
“You sure this is the place?” he asks, eyeing the block of modern flats with suspicion. “Looks like the kind of building where the thermostat judges you.”
“It does,” I say, pocketing the keys. “The elevator even talks back.”
Dylan grunts. “Figures.”
We don’t say it, but we both know what today was supposed to be. The fact that he still showed up, and brought caffeine, says more than words could.
Jacko and Ollie roll in ten minutes later, wearing matching backwards caps and enough energy to make me want to fake a back injury on sight.
“Alright, lads!” Ollie claps his hands like he’s about to lead a workout class. “Let’s get this heartbreak express on the road!”
Jacko looks at him, deadpan. “You realise this isn’t a road trip, right?”
“Every journey is a road trip if you believe hard enough,” Ollie replies, full of that terrifying optimism that comes with zero planning skills.
I point to the van. “Boxes in the back. Furniture too. Try not to dent anything. Especially my will to live.”
The four of us get to work, and it is chaos from the jump.
“Why do you have so many throw pillows?” Jacko grunts as he hefts a box labelled bedroom non-essentials.
“They’re Sophie’s,” I mutter.
“She moving in later?” Ollie asks innocently.
I glance away. “Not yet.”
Dylan, thankfully, doesn’t say a word. Just shoulders another box and heads upstairs.
The flat’s modern, open-plan, painfully clean. A little too clean.
“This couch cost more than my first car,” Jacko mutters as we wedge it through the doorframe like a couple of cavemen discovering geometry for the first time.
“Don’t scratch it,” I warn. “She picked it.”
Jacko snorts but listens. For all his bark, the guy’s got a soft spot under all that sarcasm.
We get the big stuff in by midday, couch, bed, the TV I definitely don’t need to be that big but bought anyway because I was imagining Sophie curled up beside me for movie nights.
Now it’s just me, an empty flat, and the ghost of a plan that didn’t quite happen.
Lunch break is a pizza box on the kitchen island and Ollie trying to “test the acoustics” by yelling random phrases into the high ceilings.
“Oi! Echo! Murphy’s in love!”
“Echo!”
I throw a crust at his head. “Say that again and I’ll make you carry the wardrobe by yourself.”
“You’re just mad I said it first,” he sing-songs.
He’s not wrong.
Jacko’s scrolling through his phone. “Mate, you’ve got twelve new fan pages. One of them is called SophieAndMurphy4Ever.”
I groan. “Kill me.”
“Some of them think the ice tackle was staged,” Dylan adds. “One girl said she’d body check her own grandma for a love story like that.”
“That’s sweet,” I mutter. “And deeply disturbing.”
I keep laughing with them, but my eyes keep flicking to the empty hallway. To the bathroom stocked with Sophie’s shampoo, even though she isn’t moving in. To the little ceramic mug, she left on the counter after we toured the place, already claiming a shelf like she belonged here.
She still hasn’t said if she’ll move in. She hasn’t said no, either.
After the boys leave, I finish unpacking what I can. Mostly clothes. A few photos. My lucky hoodie she always stole.
I hang her key by the front door. Not as a guilt trip. Just in case.
The silence creeps in around six. I try music. I try TV. I even open the fridge five separate times like food might magically appear or offer sage emotional advice.
But mostly I sit on the couch we picked together, staring at the spot where she joked about putting a bookshelf, wondering if she ever will.
My phone buzzes.
Sophie: Hope the couch made it in one piece. Also hope Jacko didn’t try to assemble anything. That man once glued a spatula to a frying pan.
I smile before I can stop myself.
Me: Jacko’s banned from tools. Ollie tried to “feng shui” the cutlery drawer.
I now own five forks and a knife named Brenda.
Sophie: Tell Brenda I said hello. And that I miss her. (The knife. Not you. Obviously.)
Me: Obviously. Miss you too, Hart.
There’s a pause. Three dots appear. Vanish. Appear again.
Sophie: You’ll make it feel like home. I know you will. I’m just not ready yet.
My chest tightens, but not in that gut-punch way it used to. More like a quiet ache. The kind that means something’s healing.
Me: I’ll be here. No rush. No pressure. Just a spare key and too many throw pillows.
She doesn’t reply straight away, and I don’t expect her to. That’s not how this works anymore. It’s not about fast fixes or grand speeches. It’s the day-to-day. The little things. The fact that she texted at all.
I get up, wander to the bedroom. The walls are still bare, but the duvet smells like her shampoo.
I left it that way on purpose. I crawl into bed alone, let the weight of the day settle in.
This place should’ve been filled with her laughter today.
With boxes of her books, her shoes scattered by the door, her complaints about how I fold towels wrong.
Instead, it’s just me. But the towels are still folded her way. And that has to count for something.