The Flatshare: A Novel

Her breathing slows. Risk a sideways glance at her; can just make out the soft fluttering of her eyelids as she dreams. She’s asleep, then. I breathe out slowly, trying to relax.

Really, really hope I have not messed this up.

It was very out of character for me, picking her up like that, lying her down on the bed. It just seemed like . . . I don’t know. Tiffy is so impulsive it’s contagious. But then, of course, am still me, so impulsiveness ran out at potentially crucial moment, to be replaced by familiar, panicked indecision. She’s drunk and injured – you don’t kiss drunk injured women. Do you? Maybe you do. Maybe she wanted that?

Richie gets the reputation for being the romantic, but it’s always been me. He used to call me a pussy when we were teenagers, him chasing anything that’d give him so much as a look, me pining after the girl I’d fancied since primary school and been too scared to talk to. I’ve always been the one who thinks before they fall – though both of us fall just as hard.

I swallow. Think of the feeling of Tiffy’s arm pressed against mine, how the hairs on my forearm stood on end at the merest brush of her skin. Stare at the ceiling. Realise belatedly that curtains are still open, streetlight streaming in to light our room in ribbons.

As I lie there, thinking, watching the light move across the floor, it comes to me slowly that I haven’t been in love with Kay for a very long time. Loved her, felt close to her, liked her being part of my life. That was safe and easy. But I had forgotten the blazing can’t-think-of-anything-else madness of these early days of meeting someone. There wasn’t even a spark of that left with Kay for the last . . . year, maybe, even?

I look across at Tiffy again, her eyelashes casting shadows on her cheeks, and think back to what she’s told me about Justin. Notes made me feel he wasn’t especially good to her – why did she have to pay back that money all of a sudden? But nothing as alarming as what she’d said on the train. But then, as much as they were significant to me, they were just notes. Easier to lie to yourself in writing and for nobody to spot it.

Head is too full of panic, regret and whisky buzz for me to sleep. Stare up at the ceiling. Listen to Tiffy’s breath. Play out all the ways it could have gone: if we’d kissed and she’d stopped me, if we’d kissed and she hadn’t . . .

Best not to pursue that one. Thoughts becoming inappropriate.

Tiffy turns over, dragging the duvet with her. Half of my body is now exposed to night-time air. Can’t really begrudge her, though. Important that she gets warm after near-drowning.

She turns over again. More duvet. Now only my right arm has coverage. Absolutely cannot sleep like this.

I’ll have to just pull it back. Try it gently at first, but it’s like playing tug-of-war. The woman has the duvet in a vice-like grip. How can she be this strong when unconscious?

Going to have to opt for an assertive yank. Maybe she won’t wake up. Maybe she’ll just—

Tiffy: Oww!

She came with the duvet, rolling over, and I seem to have migrated towards the middle too, and now we’re face to face in the darkness, tantalisingly close.

My breath quickens. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes heavy with sleep.

I belatedly clock that she just said oww. The movement must have jerked her ankle.

Me: Sorry! Sorry!

Tiffy, confused: Did you try and pull the duvet off me?

Me: No! I was trying to get it back.

Tiffy blinks. I really want to kiss her. Could I kiss her now? She’s probably sobered up? But then she winces at the pain in her ankle and I feel like the world’s worst human being.

Tiffy: Get it back from where?

Me: Well, you sort of . . . stole it all.

Tiffy: Oh! Sorry. Next time, just wake me up and tell me. I’ll go right back to sleep.

Me: Oh, OK. Sure. Sorry.

Tiffy shoots me a half-amused, half-asleep look as she rolls back over, pulling the duvet up to her chin. I turn my head into the pillow. Don’t want her to see that I’m smiling like a love-struck teenager because she just said ‘next time’.