I was sort of hovering in the kitchen, debating the relative merits of white wine vs slightly stale prawn crackers (part of a much wider debate currently raging between liquids and solids) when Stuart rang.
"How are you babe?"
"Having a dilemma. What do you think, white wine or prawn crackers?"
"Isn't it 10am with you? It's just a suggestion, but hold off the wine for another two hours at least."
"But, if you were to open a bottle of wine now as well, then that would have us drinking at the same time. Which would take some of the stigma of drinking at breakfast off me. Somewhat."
A pause in which I could tell he was trying not to roll his eyes.
"No. So what are you doing?"
"Trying to open this bottle. You have any idea how hard it is trying to use a corkscrew and hold a phone?"
"And carry out a conversation at the same time?"
"Don't be rude."
"Hang on, since when were there prawn crackers in my flat?"
"I'm not at yours, I'm at my mothers. It's great fun."
"Really?"
"No. I'm hungry. And I can't open this bottle."
"Why aren't you at the flat, eating real food?"
"Because I don't live in your flat."
"You were too living there until a few nights ago."
"Non, I was visiting until a few nights ago. As a guest. That's different from living; the first implies sex, the second committment and wardrobe space."
"I guess I can clear out a few shelves."
"Now why would you do that?"
"I'm not entirely sure; I think it has something to do with wanting sex five nights out of seven."

My boyfriend. What a charmer.

Bristol-Myers Sqibb is (are?) running a click-if-you-want-to-donate website promotion to fund AIDs research. $1 per click.

Here.

General distaste for all them giant evil phamaceutical companies aside for just a moment, you know what to do.

A handful of days before Stuart abandoned me in favour of Australia, I spent the afternoon with Alice, as she helped me keep away from Stuart's place, and, more importantly, guys day.
"Whats your plan for the day babe? A few of the guys are coming over later, if you fancy stopping in with us?"
"Guys day? I think I'll give it a miss. Thanks though."

Ten minutes later: "Alice! What're your plans for today? Nothing? Good. It's 'guys day', and I need someone to play with."
"What, you don't want to stay in with the guys?"
"Now why on earth would I want to do that?"
"However will they cope without someone's tag along girlfriend there to hand round the beer and order pizza?"

Nine hours later: "Thanks for rescuing me Alice. I'll see you Monday, yeah?"

Ten minutes later: "Hey! Hows it going?" *wades through discarded cans, bottles and cardboard pizza boxes to kiss Stuart hello*
"Oh, hey there missy."
"Imogen!"
"Yo, hows it hangin'?"
"Hey doll!"
"Alright Im?"
"Alright sunshine?"
"Hiya stranger!"

*Everyone turns back to the game, except Stuart*

"I like your hair babe... what colours have you had done?"
"Pink, blue, purple I think. He got a bit carried away. So it's a keeper?"
"Sure thing" *pauses* "Can you pass me a beer? Fridge, bottom corner." *passes beer wordlessly* "hey, does anyone else want another beer?" *noises of assent from all round*
"Babe? Could you get that?"

Going mad by inches

I'm staying at my mothers, and I'm in the house, on my own, for the third day in a row, and I'm experiencing the dramatic failure of my ability to keep myself entertained- I've watched all the current episodes of both Torchwood and The Office and am making a start on Doctor Who, from Cap'n Jack's entry onwards (John Barrowman, far far far too enthusiastic for me, but Captain Jack? Oh my good lord but he's hot).

I've also made a cake I have no intention of eating and am on my sixth cup of coffee.

Oh, and I woke up at half seven this morning. God's justice. It really is amazing what you can accomplish by getting up before mid-afternoon. Oh, if only there was anything to acomplish. Literally. Anything.

I'm so bored I can't stand myself.

If you'd like to tell me something good, something interesting, something fun or funny or even peculiar, I would be very grateful.

Failing that, I'll take up knitting. Or teach myself croquet.

EDIT: 13:03
Exactly how bored would one have to be to play croquet on ones own?

Last night I had what's possibly the outing of all outings- of outings up North, anyway; London outings have amongst them one of the S Club Juniors trying to pick me up; how can anything beat that?
(Incidentally, I was unbelievably upset when I found out who it was- he sent someone over "Excuse me, miss? I'm representing someone who'd really like to be introduced to you..." that sort of thing. So of course I went, thinking, Robbie Williams, Johnny Depp. Those sort of lines.)

So last night we were curled up in a corner of one of my favourite places, the Mint Lounge (one time burlesque club, but that proved too risque for the Mancunians, so no longer).
I was sulking as a result of a foray into another club- "You look like you need a Screaming Orgasm!" the over friendly guy at the bar said, grinning manically. "Um, no. Thanks though." I turned away and asked, "Just how soul destroying do you imagine it must be to have to ask every girl who walks in here if she wants a hilariously named cocktail?"
"Cupcake. You are such a brat," he said, slipping an arm round my waist and kissing my cheek. Then he leant round me, "Actually, I think she'd be more than up for that Screaming Orgasm."
"No!" I interrupted before he got round to asking the guy if he was free. "White wine would be good though, thanks."

Then a guy came wandering over and, sitting by Joel, murmured something indistinct.

"What?" Joel yelled over the music.

"Uh, hi, I'm *insert name of choice here as I have forgotten it*."

"Hi, I'm Joel..."

"I just wanted to say mate, like, your really hot! Like, don't you worry mate, its safe cos I'm straight, but I'd so do you if I wasn't!"

I poked my head round Joel's shoulder and smiled- "Yes, that's fabulous mate, but is it safe for you?"

"Uh, what?"

Joel gave me a pissy glance, then ignored me. "Right. Thank you."

"Are you, like..."

I leaned over again, but before I could say anything, the stranger chimed in with- "I really wanna kiss you!"

I choked on my wine while trying not to laugh- smooth, very smooth. Both of us.

"Uh, no. No. Sorry, I have a girlfriend and I'm not gay..." Joel said, trying to throw his arm round me. I moved away; he can get himself out of his own corners.

The stranger twitched, visibly- "Mate I'm like, in a band? A big one?"

Impassive faces all round- well, actually, that's not true in the least; I sniggered and then bit my lip.

"Yeah, so am I," Joel said.

What a fibber that boy is. I leaned over to tell the stranger that, "I'm sure we could come to terms. Just how famous is this band of yours?"

And then I noticed his ear piercing.

Now, I'm no piercing snob- my ears and one nipple have born (it was a mistake. I was drunk, she was a) hot and b) a piercist in training and c) very persuasive about it) testimony to this, but... I have two pet hates- three, if I'm being unusually harsh. These are as follows; tongue piercings and those things, I'm not sure what the technical term is, but when people stretch the initial ear piercing?

*shudders*

Worse than fishnet, let me tell you.

My other pet hate, piercingwise, is bullrings. No no no. Just no. Never acceptable.

But, to get back on track, this guy had his left ear stretched to the point where I could quite easily see the other side of the room through it- well, if the room wasn't engulfed in a cloud of smoke, anyway.

The stranger smiled then. "Very"

"Oh?" I asked. Bored now the comedy value had worn off, I went back to exchanging smiles with one of the bouncers across the room; I have a short enough attention span when left to myself, but his piercing had done him no favours, at all- pity, cos it must have hurt lots.

Joel obviously decided then he hadn't had enough alcohol to deal with the whole shebang, filched my glass, downed its contents and then did what he assures me any normal person would do in the same situation- he glanced at his (watchless) wrist then slapped his head, like he'd forgotten an appointment. Then ran off and hid in the loos.

Yes, that's right. What sort of idiot has an appointment in the loos?

The stranger followed him, happily leaving me his drink- "Do you want this? I don't think I'm going to need it," he said.

It's that time of year again; the last of the yellowing leaves are clinging desperately to certain trees, giving a slightly shabby and decadent air to streets that, in every other season, would instead be described as respectable. I always associate this time of year with coal fires and steaming clothes hung before the fire to dry, and with toffee apples and chestnuts; despite not liking either one. Joel did, and so they're laced with my consciousness. This time of year also heralds the start of the Christmas rush; I'll be out in the street whether in Liverpool, Manchester or London and if I run into a crowd, I think "Oh, nearly Christmas. Better not leave present shopping til the last minute again!" in the sort of mock jovial tone I always use, unintentionally, when I talk about Christmas. When I think of winter I see drab, overcast weather, but when I think of Christmas? I see clear skies; I see walking through Piccadilly Gardens clad in silly hat, scarf and coat, mittened hand held tight by my companion, our breath rising in clouds before us.
Memory is instant coffee and smoke. He was there with me, Starbucks and cigarette clasped in the same bare hand, the other never letting go of mine for an instant, not even when he misjudged the coffee:tilt ratio, getting the drag on his cigarette but losing half his coffee to the street beneath our feet. On that night, we had the whole place almost to ourselves.
I was cold, hurt and lonely, not wanting to go home, so we spent those early hours of the morning outside, sitting by the fountain necking vodka and smoking excessively, talking, talking, talking. He invited me back to his, "Everybody's gone home for Christmas cupcake, we'll have the place to ourselves," and the usual connotations weren't there, everything we'd been torturing the other with for the last few weeks. I went, and eventually I fell asleep on his chest, the first time in days. I woke up on the sofa with his arms wrapped around me as he slept, his cheek pressed against mine, and everything made sense, because I wasn't cold or hurting or lonely.
I just lay there for a while, while he radiated warmth. He smelt of smoke, the kind of smoke you get from a wood fire, not tobacco, and, under that, expensive bubble bath. Everything I love. And I realised, that everything we'd said, everything we'd done didn't mean we didn't love one another, or that we wouldn't be there when the other was cold.

"Do you love me more than the wallpaper?" I asked, batting my eyelashes

A little while ago I posted a picture here of my good self, most notable for a) the blonde locks and b) the hideous hideous wall paper. Anyone remember?
Good, because this is, is fact, relevant.

I'm currently dossing at Stuart's flat- and he really is being remarkably good about both my current late night obsessions; volunteer work in Mexico and the whole novel writing frenzy. But really, either the wallpaper goes, or I do.
It's that simple. Not all of it, but some, is... check- "My mother chose it when I moved in," he said.

Bloody straight men. I might have to marry him just because thats the only way in hell I'll be allowed to redecorate. And keep a roof over my head. Otherwise, anyone want to offer me floor space?

What's happening in Mexico or Syria at the moment? Ideally I should be living like a monk and saving saving saving so I can go find out.

------------------------

And then I started playing with GoogleEarth. It's all very marvellous, isn't it? I mean, one needn't actually go to all the effort of travel when you can just sit at your desk and look at the pictures, read the footnotes.

And then I made the mistake of mentioning this to Stuart. "Isn't that roughly the same as expecting you to sit in with a photo of a bottle of vodka and some cute guys?" *pause* "I don't think it'll ever take off... this whole not taking off thing you're talking about."

A slightly raucous drinking session recently lead to the conclusion that I had the education of an early twentieth century public school boy, from the study of classics to the wearing of the grey stockings and the grey hat. That being so, and I can't deny it however much I may wish to, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to know that my homelife as a child wasn't exactly normal either. We had a cook, a cleaner, a live-in nanny and a gardener, who, like all gardeners of the time period that I've ever read about, had a shed at the bottom of the garden, in which There Be Dragons.
We were allowed in his shed by invitation only. I remember plotting a coup with my to older brothers; the plan was to barricade ourselves inside one afternoon- but we lost our nerve. If memory serves, we snuck down the far corner of the garden and, in deadly silence, each of us twitchy as three twitchy things, opened the shed door- at which point we lost our nerve and fled. He was off with us for days after; again, if memory serves, this event fell around the time of the village fete, where the Clarke family traditionally did Something. My oldest brother, James, entered a batch of brownies that never made it to the fete, being eaten/ fed to the ducks on the half hour walk there. Being the only girl and the cooks favourite, I entered a sponge cake, and won second prize for it- I took it home with me and delivered it to the shed, rosette and all, in what, if you take my age (five and a bit) into consideration, remains one of my most elaborate apologies to date.
Crossing him lead to dire fates, such as not being shown where the birds nests were, being told on if we went climbing the trees, and not being given the pick of the crop; you could measure how high up in his favour you were by whether it was you he gave the first few raspberries to or not. He'd give us cucumbers from the greenhouse, and egg shells. I never could tell duck eggs and those of birds apart once they were in the pieces a hatching will inevitably render a beautiful eggshell to (and here, for some reason, two things pop into my head. Firstly, Margaret Attwood's The Handmaid's Tale, "happiness is an egg", and also the phrase "you can't make an omelette without cracking eggs.")
If invited, one could go into his shed and keep him company while he worked. Sometimes we'd sit in silence and I'd watch him weaving twine together (for the life of me I can't remember what he was making or what he used it for), his hands, twisted with arthritis following the pattern easily, if not as deftly as he had done. He taught me how to whistle using two blades of grass, and he'd tell me stories about his childhood. He was a gruff character, easy to offend but quick to forgive, kind and more than kind to the children who pestered him, getting under his feet as he worked. I think he's one of the people who shaped me most as a child, this man who's temper would flash, sudden and unexpected as lightning, and over just as quickly.
He had a limp that we accepted, as children do, as just the way of things- it was only much later that I learned, from another source, that it was a remnant from the war. I simply can't understand this silence of old soldiers. In the way of spoiled children with over-active imaginations, we'd tell one another stories that featured him- in one he'd be a character not unlike the farmer in Peter Rabbit, in another he'd be the dashing war hero- and I think, looking back, that it was the dashing part of that that made us laugh the most.

I heard today that he died last night, Charlie Hamilton.

I hate the memory of us giggling at him.

Get rid of an unwanted character by having him pressed ganged into the navy. Bonus points if the story is not set in southern England during the period between the Tudor era and Napoleonic War, said one of the forum threads.

And thats how I'm going to stop that bloody minor character from hijacking the plot. I don't, as such, have one yet, but I know what I want does not centre around someone who keeps arguing with me and won't do what they're told. But I can't see how he'll get out being press ganged, since I don't know anything like enough about the navy to get him out of trouble.

And yes, since you asked, my veneer of sanity is slipping.

Because I'm in such a good mood, I bring you-
Things I hate.

1. James Blunt.
2. Texas. Went there once. Someone bit me.
3. 'lol'. 'nuf said, I think.
4. The Palace theatre, Manchester. I don't know why, I just do.
5. Name games.
6. Apples with a deceivingly crisp outside and a fluffy centre.
7. The phrase 'significant other'.
8. Ditto 'other half'.
9. Significant others who buy me teddy bears. Just what, pray tell, am I expected to do with them?
10. Girls who describe themselves as 'sassy'. Put your waps away.
11. People who don't like the word cunt. Stop being such a girl about it.
12. Margaret Attwood. I made a complete twat out of myself in front of her recently, by dint of going with bog standard "I love your work!" that I use as opening lines when meeting famous people. Generally goes better- see Will Young, Stephen Fry, Brian Molko and... well, on with the list.
13. Artfully posed photos on MySpace. Look, we all know that just because tilting your face down and looking up at the camera makes you look cute in that picture, its a sure sign of a minger. Just accept it and stop plastering pictures of yourself all over t'interweb.
14. MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and all these other things people are obsessing about. With the exception of YouTube.
15. Looking in the mirror when drunk.
16. People who insist on taking photos of you when drunk/ hungover.
17. People who spell their names wrong. "Hi, I'm Christopher," he said, "with a y and two f's." Fuck off. It's not cool. Ditto 'Sophi' 'Tobie' and 'Linzi'. Just don't do it.
18. Miss Selfridge, New Look, Claire's Accessories and other cheap and nasty high street stores.
19. What's happening to Abergavenny at the moment. Bloody chain stores taking over.
20. Health warnings on cigarette packets. Yes, I know it's killing me. Something has to. Anyone else feel like they're being picked on by the government just a teensy bit?
21. Pensions forms from my bank. Three in as many weeks? Pack it the fuck in, or I'll move.
22. Wagner.
23. Being sneered at in Waterstones when I asked if they had a book in stock- so what if it was fantasy? Work on your attitude.
24. Pregnant women who smoke. And people who swear in front of the kiddies.
25. People who refer to girlkind as 'chicks'. Ditto 'bird'.
26. Men who call you the morning after- generally the ones you really really can't remember- and sing to your voicemail. Not cool.
27. Leaving voicemail messages. I go all old english- Alright chaps? Jolly good. I'm posh anyway, but... sheesh. Too much.
28. Being called 'posh totty'. And the assumption that because I went to a Catholic boarding school that means I'm up for anything.
29. The assumption that because I have biggish boobs and we're at a party I won't mind if you touch them. No.
30. Belly bars.
31. Girls who pretend to like football to get a guy to like them. Just wear a padded bra and be done with it. Men really aren't that complicated.
32. People who cry when they get drunk. Ditto people who wander around saying "God, I'm like, so drunk!"
33. Holding peoples hair out of the way while they throw up. Do it yourself.
34. Little chavs on street corners who demand sexual favours. Then throw milk at you. Has been known. The milk, I mean, not the actual happening of the sexual favours.
35. 'Significant others' asking how many people you've slept with. Do you want me to lie?


Fuck me, I hate a lot of things.

One of my minor characters is trying to take my plot hostage.

In other news, I can't decide whether to make my main character a member of boykind or girlkind. Girlkind will stop me from subconsciously hijacking a character from one of my favourite novels of all time, but boykind will set things up for a series of exchanges that I really, really want to put in.
But, if I make Nevin a her, I can describe pretty clothes and girly colours. It's a tough call, although I guess I could make him pretty lavender, which would solve the clothing problem...

Number of cigarettes smoked: 36
Number of said smokes shared: 28
Number of cakes baked: 4
Number of times I've checked in here: far too many to count.

Packs smoked: 1
Hours been awake: 2
Hours spent procrastinating: 2
Minutes spent panicking: 4
Amount of times I've read the words "to be on target I must have written 9,000 words by Friday evening": 7
Number of minutes before Stuart gets fed up of me whining and kicks me out on my ear: I have my bets on ten.

It's looking increasingly likely I'll have to start posting my pathetic scraps of novel just to keep on track- so, this evening I plan to post a goodly chunk.

To be on target by the end of today I must have written eleven thousand words.

Fuck that.

Dating Mick Jagger

She came up to me in the bar and caught me staring after him as he left. "Like, omigod, he is so cute!"
I remembered to close my mouth, and giggled. I fell into a nasty giggling habit during high school and have spent the last few years trying to work it out of my system- six months ago I'd have said, I'm Not a Giggler (not to be confused with me saying I'm Not a Smoker, which is an entirely different kettle of fish) but times change.
"I know."
"Have you... I mean, have you got a photo?" I nodded, blushing slightly- blushing at the drop of a hat came part and parcel with the whole giggling thing. "Um," she went on, "do you think I could have it?"
"I beg your pardon?" I spluttered, spraying a mouthful of Cosmopolitan across the bar.
"And could he... Well, would you get him to sign it for me?"
"Forgive me if I'm right, but you want a signed photo of my boyfriend?"

I told Stuart later. "Well, can you blame her?" he asked, stretching lazily on the couch, black shirt unbuttoned. "I mean, I am quite attractive."
He caught me staring and I felt myself turn pink. "Do you want a drink sweetie?" I asked, fleeing to the relative safety of the kitchen area."
He waited for me to come back, before "You know, I quite like this blushing thing you've got going on these days."

Self punishment comes in many different forms, and this month I've decided to do it on a whole new format- by participating in National Novel Writing Month.

50, 000 words by midnight on the 31st.

Brace yourselves, I'm going to be a bitch for the next month.


EDIT: It's now twenty to one in the morning, and I have changed my mind about my novel. I had characters, backgrounds, motivation and context for them, not to mention sort of a plot floating about in my head, but I've decided to cast that all to one side in favour of...
precisely no storyline, no background for my characters, no context or motivation for them- not that that matters since I have no plot, absolutely fuck all for them to be doing. I have, however, drunk exactly seven mugs of coffee. I have eaten three Ferrero Roches, and I've reached the stage where I no longer care that the chances of me spelling that wrong are high. I have had one heated debate with Stuart about whether they're posh or not- a debate that collapsed around my ears when I realised we were both batting for the same team. As it were.
Oh please, they're not posh.

In terms of the novel that I now have twenty-seven days left to write, I have one A4 page. That I intend to post. Maybe. I'm also seeing an overwhelming lack of a social life looming due to my masochistic insistence that I will do this, and do it well, god dammit, a probable diet consisting of coffee and chocolate, and an excessive amount of blog posts.

I have a series of increasingly hopeless addictions, but none moreso than my addiction to a certain Chinese soap opera. This is something I do remarkably often, admittedly in different forms- I'll obsess about the guy I saw on the train (in this example it's Stuart, but generally they remain strangers) with the braces (as in clothes, not teeth) who pulled a decidedly battered £5 note out of his left shoe to pay for his train ticket, or the paintings of the fat women in the Whitworth art gallery (but their virtues have been extolled in this book, so I'll pause my obsessive admiration there).
So, this soap. It follows a similar trend to all my other obsessions; I've only seen it once, it pops into my mind at odd moments, I have absolutely no idea what its called and I would do an awful lot to be able to see/ get hold of it again.
Basic storyline of the episode I caught; boy and girl are dating, boy has a valve in his heart that he allows to take over his life. Boy is slightly uptight. Girl is flighty and odd, a good contrast, and she draws him out of his shell a little. Boy doesn't tell her about heart problem. Girl finds out from boys ex-wife and episode ends.
Whereas the current storyline in Eastenders is what?

This has deeper undercurrents than it might seem, and I'm going to write everything I've wanted to write for the last ten days and hope and pray he doesn't find my blog- on that note, anyone think I should change my name- or at least his (don't suggest Tick, that would be tasteless and I've already considered and rejected it. For him, that is) and go for a pseudonym? Suggestions welcome.

In terms of real life rather than a single episode of a soap opera that's currently haunting me, Stuart was born with a heart problem, all very long and complicated, and undoubtedly something I'd have focused on if he'd been the one telling me, but his mother, adore her as I sort of grudgingly do, just can't cut it in the attention keeping stakes. I think the story was an attempt to warn me off, as well. The long and short of it was that he's had numerous operations on his heart. She didn't mention, and I'm not sure if she knows, that he's working himself up into a knot about it; a knot that means he pushes me out of an embrace within the space of a heartbeat, that means we don't curl up on the couch together, that means he didn't fucking tell me.

In Ellen Kushner's latest offering one of the more multi-dimensional characters simply adores being touched; he revels with contact and attention, sort of relies on it to maintain himself. (I think; I could have described that better, but I haven't read it in a while due to the book being awful as a whole, so take that with a pinch of salt. You get the gist, and I might change it later if I can be doing with going back to my source material.) At the risk of sounding hideously Anita Blakeish, in the context of our relationship this would be me. I adore being touched, just as a general thing; it makes me feel confident and attractive; all it takes to make me happy. Although I hadn't really thought about it until fairly recently. But yes, I am quite a touchy feely person.
Being quite as misguided and rubbish as I am, I just assumed from the start that he didn't like being touched and figured he'd work through it- you hit twenty three and people are going to assume you've let someone touch you at some point since your late teens. That can't just be me? I booked him a massage for his birthday- and he hit the fucking roof.

But the problem's more recent than that. Somewhere inbetween his very public tantrum and my next oh-so-ingenious idea, I met his mother, sort of by accident on his side. He promptly abandoned me with her, "Ah. Mum. Imogen, this is my mother, mum, this is my girlfriend and oh dear is that the time?" which lead to an awkward pause as we both gaped after him as he strode off down the street, and then, "Now you simply must come for coffee, I don't often get to meet Stuart's beaus." She shuffled me off to Cafe Nero and told me about his heart, its issues with him and his most recent op, about a year ago and let me know she thought I was a bad match because "Dearie, I don't want to be rude, I'm sure you're a lovely girl, but someone like my son, well, I don't really think you have the strength of character needed to handle something like this".

This boy doesn't really let anyone in, and I had a bit of a hissy fit about that and decided that I want him to let me in. So I called him about a week after we'd managed to get over his reaction to the massage and told him we were having a pyjama party at the end of the week, "Keep Friday night free, we're having a girlie night in. You rent the movies, I'll bring the ice-cream and nail polish". He laughed, played along with me while I was planning, adding to it like people do when spinning fantasies of their future together.

For the first time in my life I arrived on time, laden down with three different flavours of ice-cream and compulsory sleepover kit; makeup, hair straightners, cute pyjamas. I leant on the door, cursing my new career as pack horse and sort of knocked with my elbow. Then gave up, dropped everything at my feet and let myself in, weaving my way through the dusky half-light in the flat, guided by the light snores coming from the bedroom. I found him in his work clothes; jeans and black shirt, curled on his side with the covers on the floor; surrounded, as I found to my peril, with cast aside shoes and a hairbrush. He'd unbuttoned his shirt before falling asleep, and my eyes had adjusted to the dark, just enough that I could see the scar running down his chest; I guess the reason why he's constantly playing with his collar, always louche with the top one, two buttons undone, but never showing.

If his mother hadn't told me I think I'd have passed out there and then in shock. But she had, and I was beginning to understand a lot. I curled up next to him on the bed, hands clasped together under my cheek as I just lay looking at him.
I woke up to full darkness in the flat and his arms around me. We just lay together for a while in silence, listening to the ticking sound emanating from his chest, and I realised why he kept pushing me away, locking me out.

We got up and had our sleepover, from the ice-cream to the movies to the sharing of secrets in the dark, admittedly in the wrong order.

And now all I'm left with is a nagging listlessness when it comes to english TV- you don't get stuff like this in Coronation St or even in Neighbours, world tour or no bloody world tour.