Tom Cohen

PART 1

What I want out of being with you.

“I just don’t think I’m getting what I want out of being with you,” she sighed finally. I paused, contemplated, and then before I was ready, spoke.

“I guess I’ve known that for some time, I just thought we might be able to work it out.”

“This is exactly what I mean, you are utterly incapable of that and what I want is for you to recognise your flaws.”

···

As I walked to the bus stop from her flat, I tried my best to observe the flaws in my stride. It was not a powerful walk, but I thought – given the predicament that I had just found myself in – I wasn’t doing too bad. Head a little low, pace a little fast perhaps, but I was making good time for the number 15 into Edgbaston. The gymnastic introduction to “These Days” by Nico flared up in my earphones before her breathy confessions cut through the plucked strings. I thought about Nico. How could someone so torn apart by hatred produce music that seemed so naive?

The backseat of the bus was dry and cold. At the front, two students giggled together in an excited yet quiet drunkenness that was more conspicuous than they had thought. Row after row of heads attached to jackets were ordered behind them. The jackets blended together and then with the night sky out the window to create an almost oppressive dark mass. The two students at the front being the only respite from this ominous cloud of that backs faced towards me. Two girls, maybe first years, both in glittery tops of slightly different shades of turquoise. Both took aisle seats behind the windscreen of the top decker, turned in their seats so to face each other.

I wondered what she had meant by “utterly incapable,” and why she had seen it and not I. Moreover, I wondered why she had summoned me to her flat on this day. When I had arrived, in hindsight it was easy to see that this was her only intention. She was more to the point than usual, we went straight to her room without “how was your day?” or “can I get you a drink?” yet, I didn’t see it coming until it did.

“Sophie, I -” she had a beautiful glare of determination that promised me safety. I always trusted her when she was concentrating.

“Can I speak candidly?”

“Of course.”

“Sophie -” fuck I hated that name. Only Jas and a handful of exes and course-mates ever called me Sophie. It was at least better than Sophia, only my GP called me that. I glanced around her room, trying not to get caught up in her pensive stare. Her bed was unmade at 6pm. It was early spring. Her window ajar, it let in no light and a cutting draft. Her bed was always made and her room was always freezing. What had she been doing before my arrival?

“Didn’t make your bed this morning?”

“Look, this is important. I need you to focus.” she was clearly focussing, hard. How was the best way to say this? Jas froze and then made up her mind.

“I just don’t think I’m getting what I want out of being with you.”

···

I stepped off the bus just as “Non, je ne regrette rien” had started. The fanfare crescendoed like entrance music, although Michael and June hadn’t seen me yet. I took out my headphones before Edith Piaf began to sing the titular verse, though it lingered in my head. No, I have no regrets.

Michael and June were loitering outside The Olive Brine, a ridiculous name for a pub. The owner had fancied it as a fancy-come-dingy jazz bar that sold dirty martinis and scotch on the rocks. In fact, the clientele mainly consisted of students that thought themselves too old for Wetherspoon’s and ruddy, middle-aged locals. Michael was slumped beside a chalk board that read “Pub Quiz Saturdays! This week’s theme: Dizzy Gillespie.” Michael’s glazed yet focussed expression was illuminated turquoise by his phone screen. He was handsome, but not gorgeous. His hair was dark, long, and slicked back, and he wore his oversized dusty beige coat that reeked of smoke in the rain. June was petite and annoyingly pretty. She sat on the bench next to Michael, staring vaguely through her peppermint eyes. She was the first to notice me arrive.

“Awh sweetie, how you feeling?” June leapt toward me, arms wide. I let her hug me.

“High time for a drink, I think!” It was hard for Michael’s black country accent to be anything less than jolly, even when he didn’t want it to be.

“I’m okay. Properly shocked, but okay.” I struggled to find the energy to put my thoughts into words.

We shuffled through the air-lock doors of The Olive Brine and scanned the parlour for three empty seats. Two girls in sparkly turquoise tops sat in the far left corner of the room, making a party of nine vibrantly dressed young people. Their deminer was now more boisterous than on the bus, I wondered where they had been since leaving the bus a few stops before me. Maybe to pick up a friend on their way? Why not meet at The Olive Brine?

“Soph! This will do right?” Michael called over the chatter, now standing beside an empty table on the other side of the room. June took my hand and pulled me over to our table:

“It’s okay Soph,” she said smiling.

“Do you know those girls over there in blue?” I replied, now walking and talking.

“Huh?” she didn’t hear me.

“Nevermind.”

···

At about half past nine, I began to feel drunk.

“She’s heartless, Soph. Heartless.” Michael slurred.

“Cold. Cold.” June agreed.

Although, they seemed far more drunk than me. How many had I had? Like, three or four?

“I mean, to just come out like that… Out of the blue? Invite you over and…”

Michael flailed his arm, almost hitting June.

“Wham!… sorry June.”

June didn’t seem to be paying attention.

“Cold, cold.”

“Wham.” I sighed, without flailing. “I think I need to recharge.”

“Too right you do, we’re going to Snobs after this. Cheeky bit of impromptu clubbing, Soph? How does rebounding sound?” Michael gave a comically evil smile.

“Mike, fuck off!” June sprang to attention, “She does not want a rebound, and certainly not at fucking Snobs!”

I smirked, June understood me. She had a habit of saying what I was thinking, but in a more confident way than I could ever put it. Michael turned away looking almost offended, looked again at me, and then joined in my smirk.

“There’s that smile!” returning to his malevolent grin. June pretended to gag.

“Who am I? Your three-year-old daughter?” I said as my smirk grew thicker.

June joined in the shared laughter, and then actually gagged.

···

Snobs, being slightly more tolerable than the Broad Street clubs in Birmingham, was embarrassingly empty at ten thirty on a Tuesday. June was radiant, now recovered and ready for round two, swatting boys away like flies on the dance-floor. Despite her protest, she secretly loved mid-2000s indie. Michael never made any attempt to hide his Arctic Monkeys obsession, “First album I ever got was AM,” he would brag, thinking it made him look cooler than he was. Mike’s first album was actually “The Essential ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic” – a piece of Michael Simons lore that he would take to his, mine, and June’s grave.

“Got you a vodka cran,” he said thrusting the scarlet liquid into my hand. It looked like fake blood from a crappy 80s horror film, only with ice and lime.