Page 25 of Undefined Terms

‘You do. You look at my hands. Then my mouth. Then away. Then back to my hands. It’s a circuit.’ The mug tilts. ‘I quite like it.’

Celyn drinks, the tea hitting the ceramic. Three days of watching. Three days of coming back to this table like it’s the only place that makes sense anymore.

The site is the site. Here is Celyn, with the mouth-lift that’s edging towards the full smile today.

‘You could just ask,’ Celyn says. Still not looking up from the mug. ‘If you want to look. I don’t mind.’

‘Not the same.’

‘Why not.’

I don’t have an answer. The looking is different when you don’t ask for permission. The looking is private.

‘You’re thinking something,’ Celyn says. Now the eyes come up. The line of the liner under them. The grey and the green mixed together in the bar light. ‘What.’

‘Nothing.’

‘You’re a shit liar. Your whole face moves when you try. The cheekbone does this thing.’

My hand goes to my face. Stupid. I put it down.

‘I’m thinking,’ I say, ‘about what the difference is.’

‘Between.’

‘The person at the table with the dress. And the person at the table in the hoodie. If it’s the same person how come.’

I stop, this is stupid. This is the thing you don’t ask.

‘How come you wanted to kiss me in the dress and got scared when you wanted to kiss me in the hoodie,’ Celyn says, and the bar noise is around us but the space is between us.

‘Yeah.’

Celyn puts the mug down. Leans forward just enough.

‘Because I was still me,’ Celyn says. ‘And you were trying to make the wanting change when the clothes did.’

‘But it didn’t.’

I look at the mug. At the table. At Celyn’s hand around the handle, the chipped nails, the ring.

‘No,’ I say.

‘You wanted me both times.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You just didn’t know what that meant.’

‘No.’

Celyn’s eyes stay on mine.

‘It doesn’t have to mean anything neat.’

The bar noise comes back slowly. Glasses, chairs, someone laughing too loud near the door.

‘It just means you wanted me.’