what we did

There's nothing quite like telling your boyfriend what you did.

Come in, hug me, kiss me, sit with me. Back against my bedroom wall. Listen, all along your lips are moving, we're mouthing the lyrics to that last song we sang, the story of what you did. Tit for tat never felt so ugly.

And all the questions. You have less than I did: is she pretty, is she soft? How long for and where, who was on which side and where were your hands when she touched you? I wanted to know, to the inch; to the second.

You drive us to McDonalds, let me tell my own story. We were here, then we were there, and then we were somewhere else and then - somewhere else again.

I falter, let it hang in the air as the man leans in, takes the order. And then -

- and then I thought about everything we've ever said, when you asked if we went 24hour shopping when we ran out of things to say, if I still wanted you then, if I still want you now (which I do, of course I do but there's so much to say and we're just not -) or when we met the parents, when we drove to family dinners, when we sat by the stream, paddled and listened to Incubus - do you remember? When we had a midnight picnic, played 'Maybe I'm Amazed', when we were fighting and you spat on my hand for a laugh and it felt so disgusting I gagged, when I threw beercans at your window, when you covered my room in post-it notes, when you slept on the sofa at my house and I slept on the floor, when i fainted and you gave me your t-shirt, when we got drunk, got stoned, got happy, when we sat outside the club and I wanted to say it but you said it first, do you remember how we started (which I do, of course I do but there's so much to say and we're just not talking) -

- I ask for double cheese and tell you what you asked.

We live beyond our means, you and I, spend more than we can afford, drive further than we know how to get back, make promises we might well prove unable to keep. We walked for 7 months before we learned to talk; we forgot to trust each other.

*****

About our pasts, then. You walking for three hours to see your first girlfriend, me dating older guys, while you were a skater and I was a goth, while we attended playgroup and college and school together, while we worked together and clubbed together and never knew each other. When I got depressed and you first started smoking, the girls you've had, the boys I've wanted, the jobs you've worked, the A-levels I got. The different paths we took to end up there, my 19th birthday, and how by the time we got there, I was too drunk to even remember meeting you.

Apparently we spoke. I know you got my number because you called, but I didn't answer. So when I saw you down the line through sober eyes and realised how beautiful you were, it was only fitting that I be ignored.

Until I called you.

And you answered.

And then -

- no money, no jobs, no place to live, no car to keep, no prospects, no faith, no trust, no clue and very little chance. But cheer, and -