Willow messages me. We haven’t spoken since she left my house that night. Something going. Something off. Again. Doesn’t matter. Didn’t matter, then, when we broke up before. She’s been calculating. I imagine. Needs to decide whether I’m a good idea. I don’t think so. Doesn’t matter still. She messages in the morning, wants to meet for coffee. Sounds awfully familiar. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ I say, packing bag. Locking up. Takes a lot to drop the last washing up in the bowl. Peanut butter spoon, though, is all. I’ve been subsisting. Now everything’s empty. ‘I’m going to see Stephanie,’ I text her, stepping out of the door with my sister on the floor, in a bag. ‘You can meet me before I go.’
Willow, with a coffee. Willow, toffee hair and early-morning-just-brushed-teeth breath but things are yellow. Stained iodine. Things have never not been tainted. Willow with the dread of caffeine-pissing. We’re in Liverpool Street Station and Willow says, ‘This coffee’s terrible. Why couldn’t we meet somewhere else?’
‘I’ve got to catch a train.’
‘We could’ve met sooner.’
‘You’re the one who disappeared,’ I say. ‘You’ve not spoken to me for days, so why does it matter?’
She says, ‘I’m sorry.’
She says, ‘You’re not well.’
‘Do you think you took advantage of me?’ I ask.
Willow looks at me. Willow’s angry. Willow says, ‘Don’t you dare.’
I say, ‘Sorry. That was stupid.’ Pause. ‘You’re not missing out, anyway,’ I tell her. ‘How’s your boyfriend?’
‘He’s not my boyfriend.’
‘What happened?’
‘Nothing.’
‘It’s just that you’ve dyed your hair again.’
For a moment she’s quiet, then says, ‘I need the toilet.’
‘They’re pretty clean here, this early.’ Looking towards the bar. Fake wooden casks panel-pinned to the wall. ‘You don’t even have to buy anything.’
Willow leaves.
Willow comes back.
Willow says, ‘Why are you going to see Stephanie?’
‘The same reason you came here for this bad coffee,’ I say. ‘To apologise.’
I smile.
‘Is it really that easy for you?’ she says. ‘To clench your jaw and be a dick and act like you’re fine, when everything must be tearing you up inside?’
‘You didn’t seem to mind last week. Or the week before that.’
‘It wasn’t right,’ she says. ‘I thought I was helping. No, I don’t mean it like that.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Stop saying that.’
‘You’ve got a boyfriend.’
‘Is that what you want? To be with me again?’
‘I want to forget.’
There’s a pause. Spoons clatter somewhere behind. Commuter overflow. Somewhere, an announcement caught in the throes of goodbye.
‘I spoke to your mother the other day,’ says Willow.
I say, ‘I know.’
‘You need to go see her.’
She touches my knee.
‘Wouldn’t it be better,’ says Willow, ‘rather than seeing your sister-in-law, to get some therapy? Get your head in the right place? You haven’t seen Stephanie since–’
‘I’m going to see my father, too.’
‘How long will you be?’
I don’t answer.
‘That’s good,’ says Willow. ‘But wouldn’t it make more sense to see your mother and Stephanie at the same time, since they both live near each other?’
‘I don’t know, Willow,’ I say angrily, scooping milk froth out of a tiny enamel jug on the table. ‘This is just how I’ve planned it. And anyway, why does it matter?’
Willow opens her bag. Takes out a small case. Opens that. Takes out a packet. Puts a pill in her mouth and swallows. ‘Want me to get you a glass of water?’ I ask.
She says, ‘I’m fine.’
My bag on the floor starts to shake. It’s almost time. Struggling to look her in the eye. Now who’s guilty? ‘You’ve got to stop saying that,’ I say. Willow smiles. I feel relaxed. It doesn’t–
Willow shouts. ‘Don’t you think you’d be coping better if you’d just fucking SCREAM? If you’d let yourself CRY?’
The bag on the floor is unzipping itself.
‘You’re infuriating,’ she says. ‘And I don’t know what to do.’
‘There’s no use in worrying,’ I tell her.
Something dark, twisted. Something bitter slides out. A shadow. I don’t follow it. I can see the clock in the foyer. I can see my sister standing under it.
‘What would you have done if you had been pregnant?’ I say.
‘I would have got an abortion.’
‘Exactly.’
I zip the bag back up.
‘And if your brother died,’ I ask, ‘then what?’
‘Well I wouldn’t go around fucking apologising for it,’ says Willow.
I stand. Shift the brown polyester chair to the side.
‘Actually,’ I say, shouldering my bag, ‘you’d wait. Then, eventually, you’d follow him.’