I wanna talk tonight

I can't think of anything more tender than running cold water through my bathroom sink to get out the blood stains from my pyjamas. The song he made up about my morning breath that he told his sister about at the dinner table. I am flushing red now because I want her to love me, and I am behind myself on the edge of hysteria because I am laughing and because I am mortified. And then again later when he tells his mum I don’t like fish as she brings fish to the table. It is always summer, endlessly summer in that house and in the bottom of the garden and tiny china cups of tea.

Using a bar of soap - not shower gel - start there and then there is how long it takes to build a lather between my palms and there is covering the inside of my toes in it. There is one foot balanced on the edge of the bath and soap all the way up to my ankle now, the fizzing sound when a soapy leg goes back into hot water. This clean now. Standing on top of a hay bale in the middle of a field of them, late summer now, and it’s past 8pm and the sun is still gold in places. He’s there across the field on another. In the front seat of his blue car we are in a lay-by and everyone who passes must know we are having sex.

Quiet mutterings under my breath, everyone has been away for a few days and I say you’re doing such a good job, and there is no one to hear me except me. And I say out loud, have another cup of tea, have a lovely cup of tea. Pieces of straw and strands of grass are caught in my hair, I pull them out later and he says straggletag and he sings another song, my cheeks are soft and coloured by the sun. I leave my phone upstairs for an hour, try not to trip over my feet as I go to check it, still nothing, fling my phone across my bed, start again. 

I wake up in the middle of the night, it took so long to get to sleep for checking my phone for nothing and now it’s the middle of the night and he wrote something at 2am. I sleep now. This is the first time I have had balsamic vinegar, he’s covering a piece of bread with oil and vinegar, the house is ours forever because it is always the summer and they are always at work. It’s the middle of the day and we are in bed again. My mum and dad don’t ask when I am coming home. We’re on the boat now and my hair is tangled and salty and so is the kissing. He hasn’t seen the OC. I am living it.

I buy two apples and two oranges every other day. I can’t think of a place for bananas. It’s the middle of the night and I leave my house quietly, out of the side door and down the street until I am walking down his gravel driveway and I imagine mum and dad might even hear my footsteps from their bed, and if they don’t they will know where I am from my empty bed in the morning. And he’s waiting there at his side door. Exasperated, but why can’t you just sleep in your bed tonight Annie? Obviously reasons; it’s too urgent that I’m here. We know, we know.

The first and only mix-tape. Tiny handwriting that spells out The Cure and spells out Des'ree right next to that like they should always go next to each other. Shallots instead of onions cooked in butter instead of oil on the lowest heat. The central pathway of Regents Park and the tree and the most anticipated kiss of all time. Kings Cross station later green hotpants and a vest top, clean clothes, light coloured trousers, a pop-up rollerskating ring that will one day be my Waitrose. The first time Animal Collective play through all the rooms at exactly the time morning light dances on the floorboards and through curtains.

One grey tick on Whatsapp. Two grey ticks. Two blue ticks. Still nothing. Perfume on my wrists and against my neck and I can smell it all day and I do because it’s new and I’ve never known anything more obvious than this. A cotton pad runs something that stings across the bridge of my nose and then cream like butter that smells of citrus. Where are we now? Honey on toast in the morning, two pieces, he made it. Can I paint the kitchen yellow for you? Yes, but we are ahead of ourselves, we are trying to run three-legged you know. Spirited away comes on sometime around now and Wes Anderson too, can you hear him play The Kinks from the chair on the corner and you, I try not to cry.

Take me back to my bed so I can be alone and replay everything you said tonight and relive every way that you touched me. Will you let me have it for three more days? The light of only candles now, you asked. The colour of your skin under candles, lavender massage oil, that’s what I got this for. Can I get it to your forearms and run my thumbs closely to where all the muscles weave together and where you’ve never been loved before. Yes I’m using all four hobs and oven space for this meal. Yes I did all the washing up already.

Nutella on my toast and hot frothy milk and it was worth it so wash the mug I want for this. Taking off a bra and pulling on the second pair of socks, no pants either. A photograph of that paragraph. I’m underlining something now. Another first kiss and it’s The Cure again and your holding the end of my head scarf and time stopped. They didn’t see us. Shutting the door quietly now, let me live it again. It’s a full-moon and it’s just before you turn around one more time, hold my hands and say that thing.

An email on Monday morning, two ideas for this week, coming on too strong you write. I reply straight away, three things I could cook you, which one? Summer still and this is the first time I’ve been in the rose garden. Summer still and I still don’t like the taste of raw fish, but I like being here with you. A box of love letters at the bottom of your wardrobe. An envelope I know I shouldn’t open in your draw. Something over your shoulder I shouldn't see. A bottle of wine that I will drink the whole of between now and Wednesday depending how things go.

My body in the bath, it never used to be this lovely. Rinsing out the corners of the tub afterwards, using the spray on the mirrors. Holding the teabag against the edge of the mug for longer, squeeze it for longer. Saturday mornings and spic and span. The smell of bleach on my hands later. The downstairs of that cafe in Soho, the high table with tall wooden stools and your dangerous eyes the otherside. A bar in Dalston and my new dress and my new hair and your head turning towards me now. This album when we have sex, how did you know this album. Still not asleep, and the other side of my hip aches in this position, but you’re asleep and I won’t move. One side of my bed to fall asleep in, the other for the darkest hours of the night.

Half a packet of butter at least in the mash potato. Tears in your eyes across the coffee table the first time you ate it. Outside of the bar, a huge gap between the bottom of my T shirt and the top of my jeans, you’re not wearing a bra you say, I know, I say. You rewrote all the words of that song for me. Your warrior princess you said. The most precious thing you owned you said, mine now, from the rainforest you said. Regina Spektor, you said. And I love you, I said.