I’m typing this from a burgundy hoodie on a leather couch in D’s apartment. Our apartment, technically. I moved in. Let me tell you how it ended. Or started. Depending on how you’re reading this. After the girls I stopped answering D’s messages. Not because I’d decided against him. Because I was busy deciding. There’s…
I texted Adam at 9:47am. So sorry – fell asleep with my phone on silent. Can’t today, girls thing. Tomorrow? Sent it. Put the phone face down. Stood in my kitchen for a moment. Then I called Sara. Not because I had a plan. Because I needed to be somewhere that wasn’t my flat with…
He made coffee. I came out of the bathroom and D was in my kitchen making coffee like he knew where everything was. He does. He handed me a mug without turning around. I took it. We stood there for a moment. Then: “I should’ve said something sooner,” he said. “D -“ “I kept telling…
The first thing I saw was my phone. Face down on the bedside table. The second thing was the time. The third thing was the problem. I picked up the phone. Adam. One missed call. Three messages. The missed call first. Then: Probably asleep. Then ten minutes later: Goodnight x I stared at the screen….
I got him out of the jacket first. Practical. That’s what I told myself. Purely practical – the man was soaked and cold and standing in my hallway making a puddle and the practical thing was the jacket, then the shoes, then figure out the rest. He let me. Stood there and let me peel…
I hadn’t seen D in six weeks. Not properly. Not accidentally. Not through a window or an Instagram story or a family photo caption that caused several operational difficulties. Six weeks. Which sounds like a reasonable amount of time when you say it quickly. Adam dropped me home. It was raining. Not normal rain. The…
Noah came for drinks. Just drinks – a bar near his office, low lighting, good cocktails, enough noise that you don’t have to be serious about anything. Adam came too. Which I hadn’t fully thought through until they were both standing at the bar and I was watching Noah be Noah – fast, loud, already…
Zoya had a birthday thing. Small. Her flat. The kind of party that starts as ten people and becomes twenty-five because Zoya doesn’t know how to invite some people and not others and also she’d told the musician and the musician told people. I brought Adam. First time. I told him in the Uber. Not…
So. Saturday was a bookshop. Adam’s idea. The kind of place with a cat by the door and shelves that don’t make sense and someone at the desk with opinions about everything. We’d been there maybe twenty minutes. Adam was in fiction. I was holding a book I wasn’t reading. Then I looked up. Richard…
I walked into Sara’s kitchen and three faces turned toward me and I knew immediately that I wasn’t going to get to decide how this conversation started. “Well,” Zoya said. “Don’t,” I said. “You look different,” Sara said. “I don’t look different.” “You’re walking different,” Zoya said. I sat down. “I’m not walking different.” “You…