Page 88 of Proof By Contradiction
The tram, the window, the dark.
Ten thirty and the carriage is half-empty—a woman with Tesco bags. Two lads in puffers are comparing memes on a phone screen, laughing too loudly for the hour. The automated voice announcing stops I know by heart now. Chorlton, Firswood, Stretford. The geography of a city that, somewhere in the last four months, stopped being hostile and started being legible.
My reflection in the glass. Lips swollen. Stubble rash on my neck that’ll be gone by morning, but right now, it maps exactly where he kissed me. I look exactly like what I am: an eighteen-year-old leaving his lecturer’s flat on a Tuesday night.
He saidshow me what you likeand my first thought was:you. My second thought was:shut up.
I like his voice explaining theorems at midnight because I asked, and he lit up. I like how he drinks his coffee black, scalding, no milk, no sugar, the discipline of it, like the rest of the country is incorrect and he alone knows better. I like the dent in the sofa cushion where I sit, and he sits, and we don’t touch, but the gap between us is small enough to breathe across.
I like mornings. I like how the flat smells like coffee, old paper, and him. I like falling asleep with the lamp on because he’s reading, and the light doesn’t bother me anymore. I like the after, the terrible, unscripted after I used to run from and now stay for.
The tram stops, doors open. Nobody gets on, doors close.
I wanted toys, I got toys. He said yes.
I pull my hood up. The reflection stares back. A boy who asked for the wrong thing because the right word has no frame for carrying it.
The tram rocks, Chorlton to Fallowfield. His world to mine.
My phone buzzes. Laurence.Get home safe.
My thumb on the screen.
Mum rings forty minutes later.
Back in the halls, boots off. Still in the coat. The phone is on the duvet face up withMumon the screen and the little green circle. She doesn’t ring this late. She texts. The screen itself is a small alarm going off.
‘Alright, love.’
She says it like a check-in from someone raised to be polite to her own kid.
‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright. Why.’
‘No why. Was just up.’ Kettle in the background. Half ten and Mum’s making tea. Another hour before she sleeps. Means something today didn’t sit right. ‘Ron said you sounded tired.’
‘Ron always says I sound tired.’
‘Mm.’
She doesn’t ask where I’ve been. Doesn’t ask who I was with. Just sits on the other end of the line with her kettle coming up to the boil and lets me breathe.
‘Mum.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I know you are, darling.’ The kettle clicks off. Domestic full-stop. ‘Wasn’t ringing ’cause I thought you wasn’t.’
The why stays unspoken. At some point today, at the sink, rinsing a mug, she got the feeling. One of her boys is carrying weight he hasn’t named. She waited till half ten and rang. A hand on the phone instead of on me, because I’m in Manchester and her hands only reach so far.
‘Your dad’s asleep,’ she says. Neutral, information. ‘In the armchair. Put a blanket on him about nine.’
‘Right.’
‘He asked after you this morning.’
‘Did he.’
