Free It Had to Be You by Ellie Adams

nearly missed her stop. She stopped off at her local Tesco Express: tomato soup was about the only thing she could face for dinner.
    ‘Your card’s been declined,’ the man on the checkout said.
    ‘I don’t know why that is,’ Lizzy said. ‘Can you try again?’
    The same thing happened. Lizzy paid for her shopping with her Visa card and left the shop with a very bad feeling. The ATM outside wouldn’t let her withdraw cash either, so she immediately called up her bank. ‘You’re eight hundred pounds over your overdraft limit, Miss Spellman,’ the woman told her.
    Lizzy went cold. ‘There has to be some mistake.’
    ‘Let me just check … There was a cash withdrawal of five hundred pounds at 2.03 a.m. this morning.’
    ‘Five …
hundred
?’ Lizzy croaked.
    ‘Were you out last night, Miss Spellman?’
    ‘Yes, but … Oh my God! I must have only meant to draw out fifty pounds!’
    ‘And you don’t know where the money is now, Miss Spellman?’ the bank woman asked.
    Lizzy started to frantically search her bag in the middle of the street. All she found was a twenty-pence piece and one of those green charity tokens from Waitrose.
    ‘It must be here somewhere …’
    ‘Miss Spellman, I’m sure you’re aware there’s a twenty-five pound charge for every day you go over your overdraft limit?’
    ‘Can’t you move some money round from my other accounts?’ Lizzy asked desperately.
    ‘Let’s have a quick look.’ There was a short pause. ‘You haven’t got any money in your other accounts, Miss Spellman, and I see you’ve also reached the limit on your Visa card. Was there anything else I can help you with today?’
    A frantic search at home didn’t produce the missing money either. Lizzy sat down on the sofa and wanted to cry. Either someone had mugged her in Soho last night, or there was a cabbie driving round London right now with a very big smile on their face.
    Even worse, she didn’t get paid for another week, by which time her bank charges would probably have amounted to more than her pay packet. She groaned softly. This is what her parents had meant when they’d always banged on about saving for emergencies. She tried Nic’s phone, but it went straight to voicemail. Poppet wasn’t answering her phone either, and she’d just been moaning the other day how skint she was. Lizzy wanted to cry again. She was never, ever drinking again.
    There was only one option left. Lizzy would have rather crawled on her hands and knees over hot coals than ask this person for money, but right now she didn’t have much choice.
    She dialled her sister’s number. After what seemed like three terminally long rings, Lauren picked up. ‘Can’t talk, I’m at work.’
    ‘I won’t keep you. Er, can I borrow some money off you until next week?’
    ‘How much?’
    Lizzy swallowed. ‘Five hundred pounds.’
    ‘That’s a lot. What do you need it for?’
    ‘Um, I can’t really tell you.’ Lauren was incapable of keeping a secret. Before Lizzy knew it their mother would be on the phone giving her what for.
    Lauren sighed heavily. ‘Do you need money to go on holiday with Nic and Poppet again?’
    ‘I only borrowed money for the flight to Costa Rica because Antonia was late paying my wages!’ Lizzy took a deep breath. ‘Trust me, it’s not a high point in my life having to ask my little sister to bail me out.’
    Lauren was silent for a moment. ‘This is like the scene in
Dirty Dancing
where Baby borrows money off her dad to pay for Penny’s abortion, isn’t it?’
    ‘I’m not having an abortion! You have to have sex to get pregnant for a start. I promise you, it’s nothing like that.’
    ‘You know
Dirty Dancing
is my favourite film,’ Lauren said eventually.
    ‘Yes, yes I do.’ Lizzy picked a bit of dried ketchup off the arm of the sofa. How had it got there?
    ‘You and I always used to watch it together,’ Lauren told her. ‘Do you remember when we recreated the lift scene in the paddling