Page 84 of Proof By Contradiction
I kiss him, a kiss that takes. My teeth on his lower lip, fingers fisting his shirt, shoving him back against the bed. He grabs my wrists not to stop me but to redirect. My body rejects the course correction.
He stops it. Flips me, pins my wrists.
He lets go, sits back. The distance between our bodies is sudden and cold.
‘Don’t lie to me. Don’t bring your shit here.’
‘Where the fuck am I supposed to bring it?’ The words rip out of me. Louder than I meant. Louder than either of us expected. ‘This isn’t just MY shit, Laurence. My brother just called me. Three times. Asking where I am every evening. And I sat there and lied to his face because I CAN’T tell him I’m getting fucked by my lecturer four nights a week, can I?’
His jaw muscle is working.
‘So don’t tell me not to bring my shit here. This is the only place it exists. You made sure of that.’
Silence. Long.
‘You think I don’t know that?’ His voice is compressed. Not calm; a held thing. ‘You think I don’t know what this is?’
‘Then stop acting like it’s just mine to carry.’
He doesn’t answer. Sits on the bed, and looks at the floor
I grab my shirt.
‘Ewan. Wait.’
The door, the hallway, the stairwell.
I walk. Don’t wait for the tram. Walk through Chorlton in the rain with a bite mark on my lip that’s bleeding slightly, and the taste of the fight and the water soaking through my jacket and me.
The anger goes first, quickly. Underneath: the cold of leaving the only warm place I’ve found.
The rain on my face. My feet are on the pavement. The tram stop appeared through the dark.
Somewhere in Chorlton, my hoodie is still on its hook.
I’ll want it back. That’s the worst part, not the fight. The certainty that I’ll come back for it.
Two days.
Forty-seven hours, if I’m being exact.
Forty-seven hours of no text, no call, no key turning in a lock. Forty-seven hours of the phone face down on the desk, and me not looking at it, and looking at it.
I last this long, then I go.
The tram to Chorlton, the stairwell. The door. My key in the lock. The click.
He’s in the hallway like he heard me coming.
We look at each other.
Sorry hangs between us. Or: the door slamming shouldn’t have happened. Or: my brother called, and I panicked, and I brought it here because there’s nowhere else, and you told me not to, and you were right, but also fuck you for being right, because where does that leave me?
None of it leaves my mouth.
He takes a step, I take a step. The distance collapses like a proof closing.
His mouth, my mouth. His hands in my hair and my back against the wall and the radiator pressing into my spine.
