In July, August and September I have to write a lot to finish my course. Instead of writing new things for my blog I’m going to tart up some old things. An early version of this story appeared in Words With Jam magazine in 2011. Let me know what you think.

We’re Chained

The ice cubes in Ali’s glass made tiny twitches as the vodka melted them. ‘This means something,’ she said, her voice hoarse.

‘I’m sorry?’ I said. My chest ached with the sadness that bore down on my ribs. I wanted to drink, and talk, and not think about the way each second, or gesture or even thought, was a second, gesture and thought further from where you and I had been.

Ali shrugged. ‘It’s nothing.’ She unbound her hair from its bun. It slipped long and dark over her shoulder. She ran her fingers through it, shook worked-loose strands from her fingers, refixed it, sighed.

I fiddled with the napkin the bargirl had put under my glass. I put my finger against the edge of it to feel the sharpness of the lasercut paper under the finger nail. I thought about places overseas and backlit bars where we’d sit on shiny stools whose seats span around. Once, more than once, your sandals would fall off your feet as you span on a stool.

‘It’s something we used to say,’ Ali continued a conversation that I suppose we’d been having in her head. ‘Like a lame joke. From Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where Phillip Seymour Hoffman keeps making mounds of clay or something and he says, all intense, This means something.’ Ali drew out the e in ‘means’, pushing the word out, her eyes shining, looking inwards.

‘Richard Dreyfuss,’ I said.

‘So it became something we said, just at random, to make each other laugh.’ She laughed then herself, a joyless ha ha, at some slideshow playing in her mind.

This is no good, the two of us supposedly cheering one another up with a post-work drink, and instead taking solo trips inside our heads.

‘Do you still talk to her?’ I asked, thinking that if Ali wouldn’t (couldn’t) break into my little self-pity nest then I’d try to find a way into hers.

She drank what was left in her glass. She looked up to catch the bargirl’s eye, and huffed from deep in her throat. ‘We did try, but it was so hard, you know?’ The bargirl came over, Ali tapped her glass and pointed at mine. More drinks were served, we drank. I was finding it hard to ignore the sinkhole dropping within me.

Ali said, ‘I mean, the friends thing. We were never friends before we were lovers and then you’re supposed to try and switch tracks, just like that, when things end. You know like you were on the same train headed to happy ever after or some crap like that, then a switch is flipped, you’re on different tracks going different places. You want to be able to, you know, at least stay arms outstretched fingers touching but maybe it’s just better to wave and send each other postcards from where you end up. Just look forward to getting where you’re going and try to not to fuck everything up next time.’ Ali poked my hand . I had been focussing on the freckles on the back of it. Tracing them one to another with a finger from my other hand, like a dot to dot.

‘Is that what you think I should do then? Get on a train to I’mOkayThanksForTheLols land?’ I said, trying to sound light but I probably came over as sour.

Ali grabbed my wrists and held my arms over my head. Laughing dirtily she pumped them up and down saying, ‘Yes, fuck it! Choo choo! Next stop ThanksForTheLols land!’

‘Fuck off!’ I tried to take back my arms. I could see us in the eyes of the cute bargirl, ginger scruffy man in a crumpled cotton shirt with sweat patches under the arms, being manhandled by this wiry hippy girl in denim shorts and band tee shirt. Fucking ridiculous. I am what, 14 stone, and she’s still stronger than me. She knew I was hating this. She pumped my arms up and down again. I jumped off my stool, a douchebag move as the sudden weight shift pitched Ali forward and she lost her grip.

‘Well,’ she said, getting back on her stool and gesturing for more drinks with a short movement of her hand. She turned away from me, biting the skin at the side of her index finger, her hand curled around her face. I felt pressure dropping inside my ears. The sinkhole began pulling down my guts. I blinked. I followed along the round edge of the bar top with my thumb.

‘I mean, “lols”? Seriously.’ Ali said, still not looking at me.

‘Yeah? “Choo choo”? I’ll choo you,’ I said, the sinkhole paused.

Ali turned and looked right at me. ‘That’s what she said,’ she said.

I looked at my lovely friend with her eyebrow cocked and her mouth smiling on the other side. She stared back at me. The ‘that’s what she said’ lay like a dare between us. I didn’t take it: the laughter spouted up before I could. I gurgled it. It spewed out. Ali joined me and we shared it: real laughing. It hurt. I can still feel it now across my stomach.

‘I missed you,’ I told Ali.

‘Yeah,’ Ali said. She put her hand on my arm and squeezed. I felt her fingers warm with life and blood through my sleeve. The button on my rolled up shirt cuff dug into my skin, maybe it even cut me. I welcomed the small pain. It made this moment permanent. I’m always going to remember this, I thought to myself.

Our drinks arrived. We drank.

I wake up the next day swaddled in sweat and sheets that stick to me. Cold drool is dampening my right cheek because I’ve slept with my mouth open. My skin has linen folds creased into it where I’ve crushed my face against the pillow. I am profoundly uncomfortable and unlonely.