The Drabble pile and the closed notebook

Rae not smiling should have told me something. I clocked it and then I didn't. Eight Drabbles and I thought I was winning and she was looking at me like I was something she needed to say something about and I stacked the pile twice as high instead of reading her face.

The train back I was replaying Monday. Beth from Bow was wrong about the rhythm, I am almost sure. Almost. She has this way of saying things that sounds like wisdom when it is just her being mean with good posture. 'The rhythm is wrong.' The rhythm is not wrong. The rhythm is the only thing that is right.

But I keep thinking about the kettle thing. Her hand on my sleeve. I said 'all right' twice and I want to put it in a box and send it to the sea. I am twenty-nine years old and I said 'all right' like a child at a school disco. A child who has not been to a school disco because he was too anxious to go. I have to see her again on Wednesday. I have to stand next to her and make her laugh and pretend I do not know I said it twice.

The notebook open on my chest and nothing comes. The Manchester bit. The bit about my dad. It was too much Monday and now it is nothing today and I am afraid it will always be nothing. I close it and lie there and the phone glows and I scroll without seeing and nothing is fine but nothing is bad and I think that is the whole point.