“How was the flight?” Why did Beet ask these sort of questions - he couldn’t seem to choose from a different category than interrogation or generic. Maybe she was just too young to not get bored, but sweet Jesus-

“You know they say if a pilot lands well that’s how you know he’s good at what he does.” Sushie piped in. I didn’t like her. Controlling and thin eyed - I’d have preferred if there wasn’t one of them in every friend group, though maybe that said something about people.

“It would be such a pity if he crashed mid-air, you wouldn’t get to tell if he was a decent pilot then.” I said as neutrally as possible, and she gave a decent little laugh. I looked her way while Sushie just stayed quiet.

The problem, I’d discovered, wasn’t that people were evil or boring, that wasn’t why social time was so shite for me. It was because I had been angry. Fiercely independent yet unable to hold my own. I’d skipped past it a little bit, I could back people down and I didn’t feel as much of a need to, and moments like this, moments where she smiled, were worth it.

We were at the club later. Beet had gone from flirting with her to dancing with me. He and I kept on swapping positions next to her. She seemed to hate all of this - I’d find out later that she just wasn’t a nightclub person - isn’t it weird how 20 year olds assume that they should be? I never gelled at the club even though I was good at it - it sort of felt like I was disseminating, and I preferred to assemble.

I found at 25 that I was too focused on assembly, that I pushed myself all in together, obsessively.

“Do you like beer?”

“No.” she said and laughed.

“Fair, it tastes like piss.”

“Why do you drink it then?”

“If I like it and it tastes like piss, can you guess my relationship to piss?”

She scrunched her nose and smiled and began to move a little more easily.

We moved bars - to one where I could actually sing along to the songs.

Our bodies bent forward and we basically screamed into each other’s faces - but it was cute. Legs do this thing with someone you’re attracted to where they cross over into the lines of the body, and hands gently lean on chests, all while we pretend to whisper into each other’s ears.

Her hair is long. It touches my cheek. I remember that I have a cheeky smile. I remember what it feels like just to be happy.

Her shoelace is untied. In a million people, I get on one knee and tie it for her.

I’ve been a little reckless.

I consider myself a bit of a prankster, and I always push it as far as I can. Normally it’s about control - I like to make fun of those who think they have it, and it’s fun because it gives me autonomy, at least in a dynamic, though I know, ultimately, none of this is up to me.

And yet so much of it is determined by the direction I choose, even that truck that will take me out one day. And that’s where I’m starting to feel like I’ve gone wrong. I shouldn’t have directed myself towards that Franklin house, as inviting as it seemed.

Did you ever see The Haunting? The original one. 1960. It had all of those camera effects, and that long, droning narration. The Hill House mansion. And that statue. That’s how I feel.

Constantly observed. I shouldn’t have gone over. I knew that she was controlling, I knew I’d give up my dignity for a bit of pleasure. Now I can’t get her off me.

Amelia. Nicole. Whatever. I don’t know where she exists in reality, because a large part of my decisions surrounding her come from the chapter in my life after I thought she had left. I suppose that’s what I’m trying to say. Nothing gets killed unless you leave it behind.

She was so tender. She recognised something I did, a little shaking in my hands, my car always stalling, and she took over. And in the moments afterwards, like when I found out about her Russian grandfather or when I learnt that she loved her family, I could see it all - Amelia, my flower.

But she’s Nicole, and she was confused why I saw her differently - maybe she was too young to define herself. I swept past it, I fell past it, because I needed someone. Fatal flaws. A jaguar xjr crashing down a hill that I wrote about when I was a teenager, before I had my license. I wasn’t happy.

Her lips? She didn’t blend into the background. She seemed uncomfortable waiting. She seemed smarter than the goody girls who flopped their hair with their hips, but she was like anyone else - she wanted something too. Cold ceramic that goes warm as I cradle it, like a chew toy, I deserved that because I always grew violent, and by means of a reticent affection I got it.

She called it off, I went to my next journey. The Franklin house became my haunt, I’d look up at the balconies and dream of us booking a room. I sat at the pool and read.

I ended up there one evening with someone else. I don’t know how deliberate it was - though I do - and I sat at her side until she grew frustrated with me and left.

I found a can of spray-paint in my car. I drew arrows leading away from its mahogany door, and I fell asleep till someone found me where I had pointed. I had written “shame” above me.

“You should write a comedy. It should be about your different relationships with girls.”

“There’s nothing funny about the relationships I have with girls.”

Frankie, who was sitting mournfully at the window, away from us, passive aggressively threw her bouncy ball at the wall. Thud-thud.

“Girls seem to find you humorous.”

“They find me charming. Remember Kirst?”

“We didn’t like Kirst.”

“Irregardless; do you remember my level of composure?”

“She slapped you in the club on the dance floor because you refused to tell her that she was the prettiest girl you had been with.”

“Larney, that’s my point.”

“And my point too. We didn’t like her.”

“But you would have loved her if I’d told her at the clubs on the dance floor that she was the prettiest girl I’d been with. You would have said ‘Oh Steve and Kirsty are just great.’ But I didn’t. Because I don’t create interesting stories with girls.” The ball flew straight into my head and bounced onto the wooden floors, until it rattled down into the corner of our giant sunny flat.

“Good shot Frankie.”

“Steve go fuck yourself.”

“Well.” I sucked on my lower lip. “Why?”

She watched me for a little while, waiting for me to get it, then got up, and came closer to where we were surrounded by a whole bunch of loose papers.

“You remember Sandy?”

“Yes.”

“Great girl Steve.”

“She was Larney. And do you remember what you did Steve?”

They both stared at me.

“The problem, Steve. You make it so all of these girls are the joke. That’s why you think it’s so fucking boring.”

There was a seething and swarming in the ground, the soil kiltered and the fresh wet depth churned while the grassroots broke -

We sat nose to nose and giggled, but we both couldn’t find the moment. Empty mansions up along the road and we hid between the trees -

DARLING I can feel you in the country again. Everyone from my past seems to be circling so tightly around me - is this some pressure? Am I finally about to burst? Or am I too hopeful?

There’s no way to tell if you’ve done enough until you fail. And doing too much threatens erasure - though I have to question what erasure I’m so afraid of that I’ve barely tried my entire life.

This morning I thought that I always burnt myself out, and this afternoon I thought that being completely dedicated was the only way through.

Bumpy gravel walls my love, this place has enough space so that you don’t feel pressure on your ears but I’ve been in a room without a suspended ceiling - the structural climbs meshed without noise, grandlessly slatted, pins in their rightful place, no one is hurt.

No-one. Is she going to call? I‘ve melted a little, with you I could stand for honour, but since had to leave and I was too scared to join you - why did I make it okay? Why didn’t I set a standard for my life where you stood highest - because I knew you were. Then I let everything else affect me.

Why’s that my curse? To want and to strive and to not just look around a little?

One of the nights that Nicole came over, she dropped her bracelet in my swimming pool. She liked to go to these vintage stores - she found this really precious one tucked in between a pit stop village, on the way back from a family trip. Her grandma and her parents went to get some fast food while she traced its narrow corridors, set by giant, heavy shelves, filled with forgotten types of ornaments - matches, gilded horseshoes, old buttons. Things that people had forgot to keep collecting. She found this little case. Inside was a little golden bracelet with green jewels.

When she asked the lady sitting in the front about it, she had frowned and given it a long once over - “I’ve never seen that before.” and Nicole guessed that it was valuable. “How much for it?” she asked as honestly as possible, and the lady gave her a long once over too before smiling a little and telling her to try it on. Nicole extended her wrist and the lady clipped it, and Nicole took a step back.

She insisted on giving the lady what she had (though she had more), and she only used it again 3 or four times, just when it caught her eye, for her brothers wedding, for another trip, this one to Australia, and then to see me. I had people over when my parents were away, never with active intention, I just liked having them over, friends who were good company, who liked my pool out in the back.

It was a bit special all on its own. Surrounded by red brick that got hot so you could lay wet on it, lights embedded in its side, green and blue, so it felt like an anointing pool for a sci fi religion. Normally, I’d have 3 or 4 people over at a time and we’d hang out there until we had to fight the cold.

I asked her over on her own because having other people around would have been distracting. I think we both got a feeling of isolation, and sometimes when we talked at school or when we were on the phone it was hard for us to hold it together, or go back to normal.

We put our feet in the water and almost ignored each other for a little while, just watched our skin scrunch up and felt the sun get weak. Then we lay on our backs.

There was a space between light that’s deafening and dark and as small as it is cruel. And it coats the chamber where my emotions sit. When I get excited that I’ve done something well, it ruptures one of ribs back in so that I can think about the next step. When I’m sad, when I’m really overwhelmed by the pile-on of spiteful things done to me by life for no reason, it unfurls in my gut like a flower, absorbing me. When I’m angry, it splinters so briefly to show me my own guilt - and when I’m tired, Nicole sits with me.

When it was just about the sun at the ground, we grabbed each other and fell in, kissing at first, so wildly, ignoring the water sliding into our eyes and down our throats, and then just floating to the far end, holding eachother’s faces, screaming, tortured screaming, then quieting. I found a ledge for us to cling on to. The lights came on and the water cast those magnificent lines across and over her face. She pushed my head down. I enjoyed the feeling for as long as I could, until instinct kicked in and I grabbed her wrist, forcing her to let me up.