She said stop narrating

She came to the flat. Not the corridor. Jeans. My Pleasance hoodie from July. I keep starting there because that's the part I can't get past tonight.

She stood in the doorway and said "you came in late." I said "yeah." She came in. I could feel the hour in her eyes before she said anything. An hour of waiting and not ringing.

I tried to make the shove into a Manchester research trip. She said stop narrating. She knows what I do — the turning-everything-into-material thing so I don't have to sit in it.

She ran me through the new middle in the kitchen. Between the slow cooker and the cereal bowls. Pause was buying time, not earning it. I fixed it on the spot. She nodded. The flat smelled of toast and I was standing in my own kitchen being told what to do by someone who's better at it than me.

The working-class kid being corrected by the clever girl and I'm supposed to mind and I don't and that's the worse thing. I don't know what it is about her nodding — it makes me want to be better and worse at the same time.

The chest didn't do anything tonight. First midnight in a week. I don't trust quiet. I keep checking, like a bruise I prod to make sure it still hurts, and it just didn't.

Tomorrow I go in alone. New pause. Text her after. Don't know if that's brave or if I'm proving I can do it without her watching. Probably both. Probably I'm scared of her seeing it land and then knowing I need her there to land it.

Soho thing still in my mouth. Unchanged. She's going to ask one day and I'll either tell her or make a joke out of it and I don't know which is worse. Probably the joke.

Rank: up.