Read Act Two

At the top of the stairs, a snapshot of better times hangs at an angle. A framed photo of ten friends, Nat and I included, all with our arms draped over one another. Behind our huddle of scarfs, woolly beanies and bucket-sized mugs of hot chocolate, our smiles dazzle a brilliant white. It was taken at the Kingston Christmas Market, circa 2019. The last time all ten of us went out together. Within months, Covid 19 would make its way into our shores, locking us away behind our respective doors. My decision to turn the photo into a canvas was to remind Nat of better times. 

The remaining eight companions in the photo were old school friends of mine. We rekindled shortly after we’d all graduated. Seeing as Nat was falling into my life around that point, she fast found herself a part of the substitute family we were forming for ourselves. Though they may have been hesitant of her shy persona and dry demeanour at the outset, it did not take them long to warm to her.

Nat used to love hosting games nights with them all. Even one the weekends when I wasn’t quite feeling it, she’d convince me otherwise. A night of pizzas and Street Fighter IV. would perk me up, she’d insist.

“C’mon, don’t you wanna kick Rick’s butt this time?” she’d ask, eyes fluttering like you wouldn’t believe.

After starting up at the card company, Nat fast got into the habit of drafting up custom made designs for the gang. Oh how she adored drawing animal renditions of them all for birthday cards; taking varying items of clothing commonly associated with them, imposing them onto dogs, cats, squirrels and other fluffy animals. As her design skills sharpened, the custom cards soon turned into poster form. When our mate Ricky bought his pug, Jackson, Nat decided to draw a vector design of the phlegmy little fella. Rick’s admiration of her and her work skyrocketed upon receiving the gift. Even after all was said and done, the photo remains above the sofa in his lounge.

Not that it took gifts to charm my friends into loving Nat, of course. Her personality alone was enough to capture their hearts. She may have seemed a touch awkward and naïve on occasion, but that didn’t sour their outlook. Within a few months of moving to the Borough, she was well and truly one of the team.

And then lockdown happened.

For all Nat hated chaos and uncertainty, she took to the pandemic with surprising ease. At least that’s how it looked on the outset. She even insisted it was the best thing to have happened to her.  

“The world’s finally quiet. I can finally think.” 

I took a warmth to such optimism Finding positives in a vista of negatives isn’t the sort of behaviour I’m prone to turn my nose up at. I was certain the world was taking its final gasps during the last days of March 2020. All those supermarket cues, rationing of beans, rarity of loo roll, and the ever rising death toll felt like a looming apocalypse. To have Nat adopt a zen attitude at such a time of panic gave me the opportunity to ease on the brakes myself. 

I sensed something amiss within a matter of weeks, however. For all the optimism her comments carried, something was off.

She’d hide away in her room for great chunks of time. Some days I’d barely see her.

“You building a bomb in there?” I joked one evening.

“Much worse,” she joked.

The only time she’d come out to engage with me was when venting about a Teams meeting that had rubbed her up the wrong way.

“Can you believe. They’re asking me to start planning Christmas cards, in April!” She roared after one such meeting.

“They sure like to plan ahead,” I suggested.

“So tired of all their ‘gotta meet the quota’ nonsense. Office work sucks!”

I made some stupid comment about welcoming her to the world of work. I was just parroting what every fool and their dog at my workplace had said. In hindsight, it probably didn’t serve to calm her.

Her frustration at work frustrated me by osmosis. It also confused me. I thought she loved her job. The sudden hatred made little sense.

As restrictions eased in the summer of 2020, Ricky and the gang got to work planning a grand reunion. Considering the Kingstone Christmas market trip felt like it now belong to a parallel universe, he was keen to take advantage of restrictions lifting. He suggested throwing a socially distance BBQ for us in his backyard.

“Jackson’s getting mad excited to see y’all again. Come over and give the tubby pup a snack!” He insisted in the Gang Reunited chat.

Within days, the chat had become a hub of reunion ideas. Everyone chimed in, suggesting activities and games which would involve limited contact.  We watched the weather forecast like a hawk, hoping to schedule a day where we wouldn’t have to dash off home in the wake of an unexpected raincloud. Ricky even got a gazebo as precaution.

Nat was the only one who didn’t engage with the group. I asked her a couple of times if she was excited about the reunion. She made a non-committed muffles, explaining she was busy before retiring to her room. I reasoned work was stressing her out. Time and space was all that was needed.

“Nat doing alright?” Ricky asked during a private chat one evening.

“Work,” I informed, “I’ll share her BBQ ideas through the chat.”

As our scheduled reunion day grew closer, more friends got in touch to enquire about her. Was everything good on her end? Was she excited for the BBQ? Was she even coming?

“I really can’t,” came her response when I asked

“Why not?”

I’d caught her in the kitchen during dinner prep. With the event being mere days away, I felt I needed to push for an answer.

“I’m really busy,” she said, not looking me in the eye.

“C’mon, it’s just one evening. It’ll be fun!”

BBQ day came and went without Nat taking part. Ricky was understanding.

“It get it,” he reasoned, “virus is still out there, after all.

The months moved forward. In that time, the restrictions restrengthened, grew in complexity then inevitably fizzled into the ether. The world kept on changing, yet Nat’s reluctance engage with the world remained a fixed part of the world going forward. While she would visit supermarkets, attend dentist appointments and stop off at her local GP when required, any other non-essential activity was banned from her daily routine. She was plugged into her room, beavering away on her computer.

Some nights, when I struggled to nod off, my mind’s eye pictured her typing away on Zoe’s Cottage, befriending some other trans girl living 40 miles down the road. Could she have found a substitute? Was she planning to jump ship in search of my replacement? The thought filled me with a sickness.

Avoidance of the world became more difficult as Nat was instructed by her management to the workplace. Talks of a post-pandemic pub lunch circulated the her new office space.

“You’re doubled vaccinated. Time to live a little,” chirped a colleague unable to take no for an answer.

Several weeks later, Nat handed in her notice.    

Friends continued to enquire about her. They’d ask if they could pop around to visit. On the basis she said she didn’t want to see anyone, I had to decline their offer.

“I think she needs space,” I would explain.

I used to worry they’d think I was holding her captive or something. Maybe they’d start a rumour that I’d bonked her on the head and buried her in the communal garden. I certainly hope they didn’t think such thoughts.

It felt only fair to respect her wishes, so I just explained how she was taking time out for herself. She was busy with personal matters. The truth was always on the tip of my tongue, of course.

“No, she’s not okay!” I wanted to scream. “She’s locked herself away, and I don’t know what to do!” 

On occasion, I broached the subject with her.

“How would you feel if I invited them over?” I wondered aloud one night.

“I’d rather they didn’t,” she answered.

“But they just want to see you,” I pleaded, “they just want to help.”

“I don’t need help!” she insisted.

I wonder, if I ignored her wishes and opened up sooner, would history have taken a different cause? Was I responsible for the fate of Nat’s place within our friend group?

I straighten the askew frame at the top of the stairs. Of all the smiles in the picture, Nat’s shines the brightest. Her content, rosy red face is barely visible behind the woolly beanie and tightly wrapped scarf.

The urge to crack the pane and climb into the photo takes hold of me. The world of 2019 seemed all the more simple than the world of 2024. How I would love to dial back the clocks and start things afresh. Perhaps I could have found a way. Perhaps we could have come out the other side with the gang in tact.

Perhaps I blew it.

* 

The faintest whiff of cherry-scented candle wax glides through my flat. A hint of damp lurks beneath the sweet aroma. My hallway creaks and groans under my weight as I move through darkened bowels of my faltering home. Some nights it feels like I’m walking through a crime scene in the making. I imagine a killer hiding in the shadows, waiting to pounce and change my world forever. Loneliness certainly likes to flare up the imagination. I’d never entertain such thoughts when I had a housemate. 

Fear doesn’t grasp me this evening. No flights of fancy about hidden killers jumping out of doorways. Just sadness. It’s dark and cold. The glacial slip of the declining weather outside reminds me of this. I can hear the melancholic groans of the wind, the sombre patters of rainfall rattling against the windowpanes. The night is cruel, and I am alone. Alone in an empty, damp, cold cosmos. 

How I miss arriving home to the orange glow of a landing light keeping the terror at bay. The sound of my kitchen fan rumbling through the framework would drown out any sadness. The smell of exotic aromas masking any damp wafting from the foundations of this home.

“I’m doing a thai green curry,” Nat would call down the hallway. 

“Isn’t that mad spicey?” I’d shout back, my many bags scrapping against the magnolia coated plaster.

Her love for cooking wasn’t a given from the word go. Back at her folks, her mum would always do the cooking. Dependency wasn’t something that came naturally to her. University wasn’t much help either. It didn’t take her long to master the ropes of self-reliance, mind you. Cooking was no different in that respect. All it took was a homemade spag bol from yours truly to kickstart her interest in rustling up a feast.

Discovering that it didn’t take a Gordon Ramsey or Heston Blumenthal to dish up a delicious delicacy, she dived in and taught herself the basics. A selection of cooking books and a handful of trips to the local market was all it took. All those spices, all those recipes. She toyed with temperatures, horsed around with with herbs, and experimented with exotic dishes. Patience and curiosity got the better of her.  An amateur chef was born.

“Why not apply to be a chef?” I wondered aloud one evening. 

At that point, a month had gone by since she’d walked away from the card company. I remain latched on to hope. Surely her retreat from the world wouldn’t continue. People aren’t towers. A personality may fall, but it doesn’t mean the motion is continuous. Souls aren’t shackled to the laws of gravity. Nat’s slide from grace may have been evident, that didn’t mean it was permanent. All it would take is to find the right hobby or career.

Hence why I suggested she apply to be a chef. 

“Not my thing,” she muttered, her eyes gazing at the fish she was frying up on the stove. 

“You’d be great at it!”  

“I don’t care…” her words sharpened, the shift in tone causing my heartrate to ramp up several notches. 

“At least consider it,” I snapped. 

“Or you could mind your own business.” 

My blood froze. I felt my pulse thudding through my ears. The shock murdered the conversation there and then. I stormed out, slamming the kitchen door as I went. 

I left it a couple of hours before knocking on her door.  

“What…” It was more an utter than a question.  

“Sorry about earlier,” was my sheepish response. I meant it, regardless of how frustrated I felt uttering it. 

“It’s fine.” She didn’t even bother look up from her laptop.  

“I just wanted to help.” 

“Ok…” still no eye contact.  

My pulse thickened. Frustration rippled its way through my nervous system like a neurological rash.  

“You’re falling apart. I’m here for you.” Puddles flooded the corners of my eyes. 

“I don’t need help.” This time she did look at me. Her eyes burned through me. The sympathy, the light, the passion I’d seen in those early days had dead an unceremonious death. 

And with that, the hurt and confusion left me as quickly as it had arrived. She didn’t want my help. She didn’t care how I felt. There remained no desire to connect or engage with me. That I saw.  

“If you need anything, come chat,” I offered, before leaving her be. 

That was the first night Nat had gotten properly mad at me. At the time, I hoped it would be the last.  

If only. 

* 

A metropolis of boxes dominates the spare room. They are packed full with clothing and equipment; unloved and unwanted by their former owner. Hand-written notes hang from corkboards; reminders to get milk, contact the bank, and other routine tasks. The room is a memento of another world; a snapshot of a life now lived elsewhere. The thought of tampering with anything within it fills me with an unending dream I cannot quite explain. In its own, perverse way, it feels like a shrine to a lost loved one.

Each time I peer in, knots of guilt twist in my tummy. To refer to the room as a spare feels like an insult to its former owner. It doesn’t matter how further forward time marches, this is Nat’s space, her fortress of solitude. It started out as a place she merely slept in; a room that belong to the home she shared with me. Toward the end, it often felt like it was the only part of the house she felt comfortable being in. Gone were our late night living room chats, communal cooking sessions and routine decorating projects . The only communal activity we engaged in during those latter days were heavy-handed attempts at small talk.  

“You up to much today?” would become my catchphrase at the breakfast table. Oh how I prayed her answer would be different each time I asked it. Maybe her circumstances had improved during the hours in which I kipper. Perhaps a grand plan and swirled into being during those early hours of today. For all I knew, today would be the day when fortune took her by the hand and pulled her up into finery. 

“Not much,” she’d mutter, before rushing off back to her room with a bowl of Rice Krispies. 

We did have a few more wordy exchanges during this period. They were less savoury sort of exchanges, mind you. Such conflicts most often evolved around noise, and my animosity toward it during the earlier hours of each morning. 

It started when she decided she wanted to become a streamer. She wasn’t exactly great at video gaming. Her idea of heavy gaming was an hour in Pokémon Ruby on a quiet Saturday afternoon. She wasn’t exactly camping out on Fortnight or losing herself within World of Warcraft. None of that discussed her from splashing out on a rig, some lighting and a Blue Yeti. Considering our friendship had started growing sour, it’s fair to say Nat’s vision in our podcasting project had gone mouldy alongside it. Jobless and without a radio companion, she figured she’d still try to foster a living in content creation. 

Hence her decision to take up gaming and broadcast it over Twitch.  

All good stuff, except for when it is 3am and I’m trying to sleep. 

“Nat, it’s really,” I whispered as I tapped on her door. 

“I’m in the middle of a raid!” she hissed, disgusted at my intrusion. 

“And I need to sleep, please.” 

It often wasn’t until the following day when the confrontation reached it final form.  

“You’re just jealous!” she would hiss.  

“I’m not jealous, Nat. I need to be able to sleep in my own home.” 

“If you don’t like it, kick me out!” 

She was egging me on. Taunting me to go nuclear. Each time she did, I’d buckle. Tears would drown the words and confidence I’d entered the discussion with. Despite her refusal to hear my pleas and suggestions, the thought of losing her horrified me. She’d been part of my life for too long by that stage. I couldn’t lose her, and she knew it.  

There was also the convenience of having her around. Leaving the card company without a plan perched up her sleeve may have sounded like financial suicide, yet somehow, it wasn’t. If we apply the logic of today’s economy to the situation, Nat should have ran out of money. No job in West London isn’t something low income folk can just do when life gets them in the feels. Except Nat didn’t go bankrupt. She paid her rent on time, every month, without fail.  

From time-to-time, I would catch sight of the tatty pink note-pad, left in different spots around the flat. It grey fatter with each sighting. Post-it notes bulging from its sides. The pages were more curled and faded than they were before. The Marxism and Marvel title had faded a great deal since the day in which it was etched on. I always half expected for it to be scribbled out each time I saw it. Nevertheless, it remained the pad’s fixed identity.; one final link to our routine chats in Café Guru.

Maybe she fell out of love with the name. After all, it didn’t make sense. We never really did talk about Marxism when discussing the MCU, after all. Politics and ideology? Sure. But Marxism? I was too dense to thread that one into our discussions.   

Whatever was keeping Nat in capitalism’s good graces, I could not help but suspect that the tatty pink notebook held the answers. Her wordy late-night webcamming sessions suggested she was creating some rather wordy content. On occasion, I would pick up on various keywords as I pass her room. Terms such as Patreon and Nebula, would often be uttered. My heart would skip a beat every time I thought about it.  Had she found a way to make money outside the requirements of an office?

I continued to check in on Nat, hoping things would play out differently with each attempt. I’d enquire about hobbies, plans, and careers. It was around this time I’d encouraged her to try becoming a chef. That’s the point when her patient grew shorter with me. At first the outbursts were few and far between. Then they weren’t.  

Home life was grim. Nat was forever locked away in her room. She never wanted to talk to me, dedicating her entire time to streaming and typing. If it wasn’t muddled theories about trans readings of The Matrix or the fascistic undertones of The Dark Knight Rises, it was clickity clack every five seconds.  

I hated it. The loss, the confusion, the suddenness of it all. My beautiful Nat, whose inner soul was beginning to blossom, had unroofed herself from the soil beneath her feet. I’d lost her to that damn room.  She’d been swallowed up by it, imprisoned by YouTube and Twitch and whatever other platforms she broadcast her digital alias through.  

And just when I figured I couldn’t get any more unnerved, she went and met Jake.  

I first heard about Jake in Cafe Guru. In what I assumed to be a possible shift back to the normality I missed, Nat invited me for a cup of tea and a chat. Overwhelmed at her sudden return to the world of the living, I accepted without a moment’s hesitation.  

The change in her behaviour were as evident as an untampered pool. Nat was chatty. She asked how work was going for me, whether I’d seen any new films recently, and if any of our mutual friends. The latter point was the most positive surprise. After her post-pandemic withdrawal, I had become convinced she’d never express interest in the gang again. Was this the watershed moment I’d been hoping for? Was she re-entering the world?

“I’ve met someone,” came her sudden shift from enquiring about my daily life.  

“Oh?” l leaned in. My heart pounding. I hadn’t considered her to be the dating sort.

“He’s a film scholar. Doing a PhD at Cardiff university.”  

She told me all about Jake. How his parents worked at the BBC. How his brother has gone to film school with Rogue One’s Gareth Edwards.

My thoughts about Nat’s creative endeavours were true, it turned out. Throughout lockdown, she had built an alias and got to work building a video essay career. Behind the cloak of withdrawal, she had diverted her energies into content creation. Now she was a reasonably sized YouTuber with enough donations and followers to not need an office job.

Jake was apparently one of her earlier subscribers. He’d been there from day one, engaging in chitchat and throwing money at her Patreon. He apparently loved Nat’s perspective on film and television. He couldn’t believe it when she started discussing the philosophy of their favourite film characters. It was so rare to stumble across someone as insightful about pop culture as she was, according to Nat’s paraphrasing of Jake’s descriptions. Sure, his scholar buddies may have been willing to wax lyrical about all things Stanley Kubrick and Maya Deren, but they were far too “bookish” for his liking. Jake was much too rock and roll for them. He wanted to put the world to rights with someone who talked more like he did. Nat was just the girl, it would seem. Now he’d found her, he didn’t want to let her go.  

Her eyes glowed as she recounted the news to me. I hadn’t seen Nat this happy since the gig at the card company. She was alive again. Her future packed full of hope. 

I wish I could say that I was happy for her. The relief of discovering her withdrawal from the world had been replaced by an ambition and passion must have been like a song to my ears, right?

“You okay?” she asked, sensing the unease lurking behind my lack of a response. 

“Sure,” was all I could muster.  

The walk home was a blur. Nat kept on talking. What she was talking about, only she could answer. All I could do was fixate on the miniscule details of the world around me. The dead leaf tumbling across the road, the cat lounging beneath a parked car, the sound of kids playing in a nearby park. My thoughts were rife with selfish notions and toxic thoughts. She’d found a replacement. A younger, cooler, more resourceful version of me. A boy who loved academia and pop culture, yet had all the ambitions, resourcecs and confidence I lacked. After her momentary return to my world, I’d learned that Nat was making it.

She was going places.

She was leaving me behind.

I sobbed my eyes out that evening. At first I supressed my sniffles as best I could. As emotions ballooned, however, the sobs grew too loud to conceal behind my pillow.  

“Everything okay?” Nat asked as she tapped on my door. 

I wasn’t used to seeing her so attentive and caring, particularly considering how distant she had grown in recent years. Seeing her act this way only made the sadness worse. Knowing that the kind and caring girl stood at the end of my bed was sailing toward a life full of adventure, fulfilment and freedom snapped my heart in two.

I let out the truth like a ruptured dam. I confessed how I wished I was Jake. Why couldn’t she set up a podcast with someone less established and resourceful than Mr Perfect.  

“Why do you get to live out my fantasy while I slave away in a shitty office!” I wailed.   

Finally, the juggernaut of grief hurtling from me ran out of gas. The two of us sat in silence for a moment. A talon of guilt clutched at my throat. I understood that what I had said could no longer be unsaid. I was a jealous fool, that there was no denying. I could have kept it all tucked inside, toxic yet free from consequence. Instead I broadcast it to the woman who’d spent the latter days of her life hiding away in her room. Nat knew the truth. Where could the two of us go from here?  

After the moment passed,  Nat picked herself up from the edge of my bed, and said nothing as she exited the room.  

*  

A fist-sized crater sits beneath the light switch. It sticks out like a sore thumb amidst the Ikea bookshelf, dusty television, velvet sofa and ash grey rug making up my living room. The sight of it forever triggers a mental reminder to get some Polyfilla. My landlord has been insisting that I sort it for weeks now. Collin’s a nice chap, but the longer I leave it, the more I can see his patience getting away from him. 

The crater became a feature following an animated argument following a disagreement over late Twitch streams with her new best bud. Muffled giggles and indistinguishable waffle echoed through the walls as I tried to drift off. The conversations seemed to get louder and more obnoxious with each passing week. 

“Please, just try and keep it down,” I begged. 

“I’m working,” she insisted. 

“I can’t sleep when you’re yapping at 4am! Can’t you make content in the daytime?” 

“My career is important!” Her face was red. Her stare as sharp as a tended blade. 

“Chatting shit over a webcam is not a carer!” Regret and glee swilled through my stomach. I knew it was cruel. Heck, I don’t think I even meant it. Still, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit how electrifying it was to say. 

“You’re pathetic,” Tears streamed down her face as she spoke, “jealousy doesn’t give you a right to shit on my achievements.”

“Please,” I begged, “We’re friends!” The electrified glee had left my soul. 

“You’re anything but a friend.”  

Like a spark in a gas chamber, I blew. My fist thudded into the living room wall, right below the light switch.  

Nat jumped as she saw my knuckles soar through the plasterboard.

The rage vanished the moment my knuckle collided with the wall. All that remained was my shame.  

I’d never seen Nat look at me the way she did that evening.  

“I’m sorry.” I felt my eyes widen like a puppy’s.

She sensed the pendulum swing back into her court. No longer was I some tired fool trying to negotiate with a noisy housemate. I was ego-sore housemate who broke holes into walls at the slightest of insults. 

“Don’t even bother,” she grinned. 

As she stormed down the creaking hallway, knocking the framed photo of better times as she stormed past it, I followed behind, uttering every variation of “sorry” my mind could muster. I trailed behind her as she descended the stairway. Her hand reached out to twist the Yale lock. I overtook her, positioning her between me and the jet-black doorway.  

“Nat, please.” 

“Get out of my way.” Her voice was composed.  

“Let’s just talk, yea,” Though I knew I was unable to turn back the dials, perhaps there was a chance to piece together the final remnants of our shattered friendship. 

“Let me past.”  

Emotion flooded my soul. I struggled to catch my breath. Desperation and adrenaline poisoned every vein packed into my body. 

“I’m a fool. I know. Let’s just go upstairs and talk through this, yea?” I fell to the floor, surprised to be begging with such animated frenzy. 

“Move, or I’m calling the police.”  

My mind instantly cast itself back to the time Paul and Nicky from over the way had that domestic blowout. Nat and I watched on as plates smashed, f-bombs flew, and screams soared for all to hear. Crowds formed in the street. Before long, a police van and car rocked up. We watched in horrified delight as our neighbouring couple made spectacles out of their dirty laundry. How humiliating it must have been for them, to have all their pains and problems transformed into public drama quite by accident.  

Not wanting to be the next Paul and Nicky on the block, I moved aside.   

Breaching my own moral code of privacy, I peeked into her handbag. As feared, her phone and car gawped up at me. She had stormed off into the early morning London Streets. She could cross paths with all sorts of nasty folks at this hour. All it took was the wrong group to clock her clumsy body language. Next thing you know, they’d be all up in her personal space like a pack of hyenas.  

After twenty minutes had passed, I went out looking myself. I scoured the barely lit alleys, vacant parks and vacant roadsides. I hoped to find her leaning against a wall or slumped on a bench, sobbing but safe. No such luck .  

In my head, the world was ending. After years of decline, our decade-long friendship had arrived at its grim conclusion. After all the pseudo intellectual chats, weeknight trips to the pictures, Monday night spin sessions and Ad hoc holidays away, the sun on our story was finally setting. How did it come to this? From laughing about secret agent pigeons to thumping walls in fits of rage. The cruel and unpredictable transition of friendship shifted into focus. How love can turn to hate in the convoluted soup of human emotion.

I returned home, only to find her stood outside our doorway. Her tall, lanky frame hunched toward the ground. Her hands hugged her goosebump-coated arms, trembling in the icy chill of the night. 

“I knocked several times,” she muttered, sheepish and shy.  

* 

The storm outside has settled somewhat. The howls of the wind have been replaced by the quiet of the night. Muffles of traffic can be heard from the hustle and bustle of the M25. I sit alone, suffocating in the silence of my living room. An orange hue beams in from the streetlight positioned across the road. It feels warm and welcoming, despite the emptiness of this space. It’s cold and damp. It used to be so warm and loving.  

Behind the sofa hangs a rectangular mirror with a mahogany frame. Visiting acquaintances forever marvel at how costly it must have been. Barely a dime was spent on it. Nat found it on the Facebook marketplace. Always hungry for a bargain, she never failed to find valuable items that were on the cheap. The two of us took a road trip to Brighton to collect it. A soft-faced middle aged woman with a gentle voice answered the door when we arrived at her tatty terraced abode. The place had belonged to her mother, who recently passed away. After some hesitance of discarding the items she knew her mum cherished so dearly, she’d started to clear out her childhood home, preparing it for the market. 

“It’s free of charge, my darlings,” she purred, “I trust you’ll give it a loving home.”  

Nat handed her twenty pounds and a hug, nonetheless. She couldn’t bring herself to take such a gorgeous bit of furniture for nothing, especially from woman grieving her daughter.  

“I know what it’s like, sort of,” she reflected on the trip back home.  

I’d expected Nat to take the mirror with her. When I realised our days were numbered, I started saving to replace the items I was certain she would want to accompany her to the next chapter. Fate would allow me to keep most her things, after all. Despite the driving and the twenty pound note and the hug, she never got to keep it. 

Hanging from the bottom left hand corner is a crumpled post-it note. I found it in a drawer whilst having a clear out several weeks prior. The arrangement of words written on the note carried intent, once upon a time. Today, the mind that assembled them holds a different thought towards the recipient.  

Any therapist worth their salary would encourage me to throw such a note in the bin. I’d give similar advance to any friend or fool I knew in similar circumstances. As is tradition for most humans, however, common sense and sound advice flutters high above my skull when applied to my own wellbeing.  

Instead of burning it to a crisp, or hurling it into my paper bin, I hang it up; a memento of a lost era. Each time I read the seven neat words scribbled upon that tatty yellow square, a melancholic punch thuds into my intestines.  

I love how you make me feel. 

People would always ask  whether Nat and I were a couple. Any social gathering or house party we rocked up at would often have fresh faces enquiring about our relationship status. 

“I’m working on it,” she would joke. 

Nat had been clear that she wanted our friendship to evolve into something romantic for as long as we’d known one anther. As far back as that first meeting in Café Guru ten years prior, she’d made up her mind on that matter. The very post-it note dangling from my mirror was left as early as that first trip down to London. 

“I hope my note didn’t make you uncomfortable. I just feel we were made for one another,” she remarked over text the after she’d left it.

My feelings for Nat were beyond anything I’d felt for any one else in my life. I loved being around her. The excitement which formed in my tummy as I waited for her to drive over was electric to say the least. The days she wasn’t present made me sad. The days she was turned the dials of life right up to eleven. Her humour and kindness delighted me. Whether such feelings were romantic or otherwise, I could never quite figure out. She didn’t get the pulse pumping in quite the manner I’d associated with lust. From an emotional perspective, she was my world. From a sexual one, I wasn’t quite sold . 

Figuring out the hows and whys behind my feelings appeared to be a mystery I struggled to unearth. There was evidently some unfinished business between me and the ex who betrayed me during my university days. She was a distraction that popped up every time I attempted to think about myself declaring my love for another.  Sure, Nat might have loved me and wanted to be able to call me her girlfriend, but how long until she changed  her mind? How long until a drunken smooch or a charming stranger whisks her off her feat? People might find me beautiful and intelligent and worthy of their time at one point, but sooner or later, they all change their mind. The cracks in my persona reveal themselves with time. Love has an expiry date, that much I knew.  

I should have been honest with Nat from day one. I should have told her I couldn’t be with her because I didn’t know what I wanted. She deserved the truth. She deserved to not lose herself in the hope of having me as her girlfriend for all those years . Instead of doing the right thing, I maintained a dance of ambiguity. I told her I wasn’t ready, all while flirting with the idea that time may well alter such circumstance. She nodded, a mixture of sadness and excitement glowing from her eyes. Every now and then, when confidence and learning prickled at her soul, she’d asked whether I’d put anymore thought into the matter.  

“I’m still trying to work out what I want,” I’d tell her.  

I sprinkled trails of potential for her to chase after, It was trail I knew was unlikely to lead her anywhere pleasant.  

Though our relationship status remained in a state of limbo for the decade we lived together, I still saw her as something of a girlfriend. I included her in all my holiday plans, invited her to my family’s home for Christmas dinner each year, and got into the habit of cooking for the two of us most nights. On the surface, we were your nuts-and-bolts lesbian household. I’d even joked that the neighbours probably saw as “that gay couple at number 11. From the outside, we were girlfriend and girlfriend. Inside, we were anything but. One was a dreamer, the other a coward. 

As mad as it may sound, I saw no harm in my behaviour. Not at the time, at least. I figured it perfectly reasonable to keep her on hold, in case my thoughts an the matter rearranged themselves. In some respects, I even saw myself as charitable; as though giving hope to the hopeless was somehow an act of kindness. How I twisted the narrative to make myself a hero is as cruel as it is delusional. Peering back through a lens of hindsight makes me realise the callousness of my actions. I lied to her, pretending there was light at the end of an endless tunnel.  

The thought of losing Nat scared me. There was a comfort in her continued presence. There always had been. From the days in which we hashed out messages to one another from our respective university dorms, to the moment in which she was dishing up cuisines from my flat’s kitchen, Nat was a constant in my post-transition world. The first person to see the me for the woman I was.

I once read somewhere that friendships generally tend to have a sell by date. Seven years is the standard, according to the article in question. Reading it made me scoff at the time. Now I wonder if it was a message from the cosmos. Time rotted our friendship. I should have let her go long before the smell started teasing my nostrils. Perhaps she could have spent her twenties meeting strangers, dating fools, and getting to figure out whatever the hell it was she wanted from this world. Instead, she sat in my living room, scribbling notes in her tatty pink pad, hoping the woman sat next to her would ask her out.  

I suppose a sick, childish part of me saw Nat as my own. I wanted her all to myself; a loyal companion who talked about film and kept me company on sad Saturday afternoons. When Jake came along, jealousy grabbed the wheel and stirred me down a road I didn’t want to go down. I kicked and I screamed.

Instead of kicking up a stink, I should have thrown a party for Jake’s arrival into her life. She was moving forward and finding someone who could offer her more than a diet of false hope.

I pull the crumpled post-it away from the mirror, cradling it in my hand like a wounded cub found in the woodlands. I hold it close to my chest, pretending there’s a potency to this miniscule slice of dead tree which will heal my aching heart. I think of its author, the adoration broadcasting from her mind when she wrote it. The hope that fizzled through her soul like a kid writing to Santa at Christmas. I wonder if she still remembers writing it. Do memories remain as potent when a love turns sour? Does she lie awake at night, thinking about the anxiety and excitement she felt when she snuck it onto my bedside table? Something tells me she doesn’t. All that care and desire is gone now. Her mind is no longer the same mind it was when it slept under the same roof as my own.  

The shift from sadness to devastation catches me by surprise. Tears cascade down my cheeks like liquid firing from a burst pipe. A supernova of sadness roars out from the remnants of my shattered heart. Every memory of Nat and I flashes before me as I weep. The fun times, the sad times, the neutral times and the mad times. The good and the bad meld together. She was woven deep into the foundations of my life for the longest of times. Her removal from it has caused every ounce of me to topple inward. I miss her so much. I miss the kindness, the callousness, the attentiveness and the stubbornness. If I had one chance to go back in time, I’d use it to see her again. I’d sit with her, talk about movies, muse over dream jobs, discuss child-like, and invite her to tell me more about Jake.  

How did our story take such a turn? Two best friends, besotted by one another. Gym buddies, coffee shop comrades, flat-mates, and partners in crime. How the flaws and slip-ups eroded our love might never make sense to me. Neither of us were perfect, but to let that get in the way of friendship makes a tragedy out of joy. 

I think of the girl in the video I stumbled across earlier today. The panic and anger in her eyes. I saw the same confused dread in Nat’s eyes when I finally asked her to leave. By that point, I had confessed to my wider social circle as to what was going on. They knew something wasn’t right. When they asked me during those final months, I folder like a house of cards in a hurricane. I confessed about the absence of communication, the late-night arguments, the sudden outbursts, and the academic stranger she’d befriended on the internet. 

“If she’s making you this unhappy, ask her to leave,” they suggested in unison.  

“But where would she go?” I begged . 

“That isn’t your responsibility,” they pointed out.  

Days turned to weeks, then months. Things failed to improve. The late night streaming got louder, the arguments more frequent, and the communication void grew deeper. She wouldn’t even answer me when I asked how her day had been anymore. Some days I’d get a grunt and a “fine”, though they were few and far between. The confrontation that put a dent in my living room killed our already terminal relationship once and for all. We were just two humans, co-existing under the same roof because it kept us out of the cold.  

Part of me marched on in hope that the direction of flow would reverse. All Nat needed was time and space. Sooner or later, matters would take a U-turn and our withered friendship would blossom once again. 

Except it didn’t. The direction of flow continued in the same direction.

“I know things haven’t been great between us recently, which sucks.” I gazed at my hand as I spoke, rubbing my thumb against my palm; something I’ve always done whenever nerves get the better of me. 

It had taken time to get her into the living room for a chat. I’d been texting for days, telling her we needed a chat. When she ignored the texts or kept to her room, I failed to act, using her ignorance as an excuse not to act.

Then, one night, I caught her in the kitchen and decided it was now or never. I almost didn’t. Seeing her gazing down at the pasta bubbling on the stove, her clumsy stirring causing the water to spill onto the hob made me want to give her the biggest of cuddles. How could I drop a bombshell on such cuteness? Nevertheless, I did. I asked her to pop into the living room for a chat. She turned down the stove and followed me in.  

I confessed how difficult I’d found the living situation in recent months. How lonely, frustrated, and lost it had made me feel. How painful the frequent arguing had become. I told her this in every variation my mind could muster, like a broken record looping the same verse over and over, ad nauseam.  

“I have loved living with you,” my voice trembled under the emotion of my honesty, “but this needs to end.” 

“You’re kicking me out?” Her eyes glazed over. 

I nodded, not giving myself enough time to reconsider. I able to face the confusion and anger painted over her face, I gazed out at the orange street light glaring from over the road. My brain tried to climb from within, unable and unwilling to remain a part of this conversation.  

“Where will I go?” she asked. 

“I don’t know,” was all I mustered. 

I gave her three months to make her plans. She tapped on my bedroom door six days before the deadline’s expiry. She informed she’d found a place. A house share she’d arranged in Croydon. I pressed for details, eager to find out more. Who was she sharing with? Had she met them? Had they drafted out a contract? What would happen if they had a falling out? Would she be booted on the dot?  Try as I did, she wasn’t willing to go into detail.

“You sure you’re gonna be alright?” I asked, finding myself hoping she’d say no. Praying she’d ask to stay a few more years until things had settled.  

“I will,” she promised. 

I invited to take her for a meal the night before she was set to leave. I suggested it as a celebration of new chapters, more so than a goodbye. In my mind, I had visions of a simple yet flawless night, one where we were friends again. We could chat film and daydream about our futures. It would have been like the Christmas truce of 1914. For one evening only, time and consequence could stand still. The damage and pain of prior years could be put to one side, as two souls shared a final moment together.  

“I’d prefer it if we didn’t. I hope that’s okay,” came her response.

“Understood,” I nodded, hoping she hadn’t detected the stab of rejection I’d felt in the moment. 

“What shall I do if any post comes for you?” I asked the night before, hoping she’d offer up an address. 

“Nothing.”  

“But what it’s important?”  

“Don’t worry, it won’t be,” she assured me. 

The following day, I arrived home to find the flat more or less as it was when I left it that morning. Nat’s breakfast dishes were still in the sink, her mahogany mirror still hung from the wall, and her room remained fully furnished. The only things missing were the clothes in her wardrobe, the blue ford focus she owned, and the tatty pink notepad she was forever scribbling notes into.   

Next to the kettle, a folded post-it, a similar shade to the one she left me all those years ago, awaited me. 

I’m going now.  

Feel free to keep anything I’ve left. 

Nat x 

Sadness flooded me the moment I read her words. I fell to the kitchen floor, broken by the realisation that there was no going back. Ten years after our conversation about M1 traffic and secret agent pigeons, Nat had become a memory. She was gone from my world. Everything we had shared and built together was no more. The friendship ceased to be. No amount of hope could undo the course of our story.  

I wanted to smile over what we had. I yearned to bathe in the memories of cute japes and pseudo-intellectual chats about cinema. In the shadow of that note, however, I could do anything but. I cried for what I had lost. I mourned her as though she was no longer of this earth. The next six hours were spent curled up on that kitchen floor. My face swollen and my eyes red, I cried my heart out as I relived every moment we had shared together.

Back in the hear and now, echoes of the same heartbreak return to torment my soul. Recalling the tears of my past as I shed more in the present, burns the candle at both ends, so to speak. I’ve exhausted the pain, leaving a cathartic relief in its wake. I wipe my eyes and place the post-it back in its place on the mirror, wishing Nat a goodnight, and good life. 

* 

There’s barely a soul in the library today. Just me, dear Mrs Hodges behind the counter, and a friendly looking elder losing himself in a Sherlock Holmes yarn. For the first time in forever, I’m here on a weekday. I quit my job at the accounting firm last week. A decade of dissatisfied frustration finally tipped me over into drafting out my notice.  

I know everyone says you don’t need to enjoy your job, but the mundanity was killing me. It doesn’t matter if jumping ship makes paying the bills rough, I needed to prioritise risk over certainty, particularly if it helped me feel alive again. Time was only moving forward, after all. I figured why not break free from the humdrum and try out an adventure. 

Dad is biting my head off about it, as I expected the old chap would.  

“Why the hell you throwing security in the bin at such an unstable time?” he bellowed down the phone. 

He’ll get over it. I mean it’s not like I’m unemployed or anything. There’s a job lined up. Fine, so working as a research in an up-and-coming independent radio studio isn’t exactly a six-figure salary, but it beats drafting out disciplinaries and inducting disinterested post-grads.  

Humble Sounds is the studio’s. It’s ran by a disgruntled Radio Five presenter, hoping to engineer a station built on decades worth of Beeb experience. So long as that doesn’t equate to the usual “we aren’t gonna go woke” nonsense infecting the modern media landscape, I’m all for it. I’ve even taken one hell of a pay cut to embark on this adventure. It’s why dad is getting all up in arms about it, but I figured it worth the sacrifice, particularly if leads to something more fulfilling later down the line . Who knows, maybe I’ll have my own show in a couple of years.  

To manage the salary slice, I’ve moved place . A cosy, one bedroom house awaits my arrival on the outskirts of Hounslow. It may be a dash too cramped for mum and dad’s approval, but I have no intention in co-habiting any time soon. Plus I mustered up the courage to throw all my unwanted tat in the skip. Once all the excess boxes and unwanted gadgetry was shipped off to the local charity shops, it transpired I didn’t need all that much of a footprint to live comfortably within.

I’m here on a weekday to meet Ricky for our weekly catch-up in Café Guru. I’ve left my phone at home today, and there’s twenty minutes to spare. I’d hoped the remaining 50 pages of my latest read would be enough to pass the time. It turns out when I haven’t got a phone to drain my focus into, I’m a pretty hasty reader. I finished the darn book an hour ago.  

In a bid to find my mind something to latch onto, I’m browsing the Film and TV section. It’s been a while since I checked out their range. What’s more is I’ve developed this wild ambition to pitch a movie review show to my new boss at Humble Sounds. I’ve not even started and I’m already getting ahead of myself. I know it will likely amount to nothing, but who knows. They may say yes. Life is a maze of mystery and opportunity, after all. I may as well brush up on my cine-literacy, in case madam fortune does decide to answer when I knock. What harm can come from reacclimatising myself to the world of film theory, even if it is to entertain a pipe dream. 

As my line of sight peruses the  packed shelves of Ebert, Kermode and co, a loud, proud, bright-pink spine with yellow text captures my attention.  A fuse pinks to life in the network of my memory banks, reminding me of a particular tatty notebook that once took up residency in my former flat. I pull the book from the shelf, a wave of familiarity crashing down on me as I read it’s title. 

Marxism and Marvel by Ali Munro, it reads. 

Shock thumps the air right out of my lungs. I feel my heartbeat thumping through my ears. I turn the book around, my hands trembling as I proceed to read it’s blurb. According to the details on offer, this is the first volume in a planned series of books, chronicling the political, philosophical, and cultural themes found throughout the body of Marvel movies produced by Disney.  

The About the Author page is about as detailed as a limerick. Ali is apparently an author who lives with her husband as three dogs in Scotland. She loves movies, politics and all things philosophical. Goes without saying, what with the content of this book. As for any other details, I’d be better off requesting to use one of the library computers, or consulting the phone I’ve left at home.  

* 

Aromas of fresh pork and spices waft through the high street, delighting my nostrils in a manner they haven’t been in quite some time. The dull concrete looks prettier all of a sudden, as if the cosmos has given the outskirts of this grubby metropolis a much needed makeover. The nerves and bewilderment I felt minutes prior have since passed. My body is now a delightful cocktail of adrenaline and joy. Thoughts of Ali Monroe dance through my mind. Whether the authors book is a mad coincidence is yet to be determined. I’ll give her a good when I get home to find out the answer, yet for now, the woman who penned the book is without a doubt the woman I once shared a home with.  

Nat went by many names prior to settling on the one she attached to her Deed poll. Out of the many she tried on for size, Ali was the one that came second in the grand choosing. Considering there were times in which she regretted not choosing it, surely using it as a pen name would be a fine way for one to have their cake and eat it. While there may well be a chance this was all a mad red herring on the universe’s behalf, the more I thought about it, the more I realised how unlikely that would be.  

It’s been almost two years since I last thought about her. Odd recollection aside, I’d learnt the art of not fixating upon old ghosts. The night in I sobbed on the sofa over a faded post-it note served as my turning point. I was living in the past, that much I had realised. The next morning, I decided to discard the old piece of paper, and got to work on moving forward. Since then, I got on with my life, trusting that Nat’s life would get on course, one way your another. She would find her way, somehow. Today proved my subconscious right. Nat was okay. She was safe, she was happy, she was free. 

I welcome the hustle and bustle of Café Nero. A huddle of life and friendship. Ricky is sat in the corner, engrossed in his kindle and sipping away at his green tea. He catches a glance of me from the corner of his kindle. He plonks the electronic reader in his rucksack and stands to give me a hug. 

“How’s it going, kid?” he asks, flashing his trademark wink. 

I wrap my arms around him, snuggling into his familiar scent.  

“Better than ever,” I beam.