Anna
I SIT MYSELF AT BETTY’S kitchen table. The smell of fresh bread fills the room, the warm sunlight coming in the window.
It’s like a dream. She is close to me. Right next to me.
So close that I am wetted by the condensation of her breathing.
So close that we are one fluid thing. At last, thinking one line of thought.
We touch, the velvet of her fingertip against mine.
Her hand against mine. Hip against hip. Rib against rib.
Bone against fat. Where we touch, we burn.
We become a star. Burning so brightly that we set the kitchen alight. At last, I am home.
Tom’s hand comes to my shoulder.
Oh. I’m at home. Not in Betty’s kitchen at all.
A daydream that got out of hand, again. How dour it all seems now, the pale light of a cold sun barely meeting my windows.
The smell of nothing. The feeling of nothing.
It’s unsettling how quickly it all changes.
It was all so vivid, perhaps too vivid; I should have known it wasn’t real.
These days, my thoughts are like rushing water.
They come and go so fast I can hardly even see them.
How am I to make sense of anything like that?
Tom tries again. There’s something short about the way he’s speaking. His voice cuts, like he doesn’t want to be talking to me at all. I smile, my eyes wet from the daydream.
‘Yes, sorry! Just thinking about the shopping. I’ve to get a few messages tomorrow.’
In truth, I don’t know what I’m doing with myself tomorrow. I have nothing to do and nowhere to go. Nobody to be with, now that Betty wants her space. I have to stop letting myself drown in deep thoughts. I have to stop talking about what I want, and get what I want.