The chest didn't do the thing

The mum bit held. I need to say that first because it's the only sentence I've been able to write since I walked out of the venue. Not hit — held. There's a difference and I'm going to sit with it. Pryce is ten years dead and I'm alone in the Marchmont flat at quarter to midnight pretending I can hear the difference.

Tom Hardman from halls. Five years. He stood up in the courtyard with a pint and shouted Ollie Brennan, Manchester Uni, halls block, 2014, you beauty across the whole closing-night room and I felt, for one horrible second, like I was seventeen and someone had found me out. Then he said the flyer thing. Your mum gave me the flyer. She's been telling people. She's been proud in the way she does it, loud, in Tescos, to my uni mates she still has on Facebook.

I wanted to be sick. I wanted to laugh. I did the second one.

The closing landed on the question. I won't write it down because if I write it down it becomes a bit and the bit is the only thing I've got that she doesn't get to read. The room answered it the way I wanted. The chest didn't do the thing. That's all I know.

Kate texted back and? like she always does. One word, no exclamation mark. I said and she didn't push and she left it on read, which is her version of a hug.