Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTXMF1NRD5Q6AE6JG07HXV4

The green neon over the door bled across the rain-streaked window and laid a sickly stripe over the old maps. London curled there in yellowed lines and smudged ports. Black-and-white faces watched from frames whose glass had begun to fog. The jukebox in the corner had given up the fight years back and sulked under a beer-stained parlour lamp. At the bar, a hand with a silver signet ring circled a rag inside a glass, the rhythm exact, unfussed. Silas glanced up when the stairwell door clicked open and Rory slipped out from the narrow corridor that led to the flats. Shoulders angled, hair tucked behind one ear, a plastic bag looped around her fingers. The smell of fried garlic and star anise chased her in. Dumplings, Si. Yu-Fei overdid an order. He took the bag, that tiny hitch in his leg barely there when he shifted his weight. Bring her fortune back when you’re done playing Robin Hood. Long as it’s not the one that says ‘You will encounter a tall, dark stranger.’ You hate strangers. I hate tall. Her mouth flashed a quick grin, then vanished as the door banged again with a gust and a knot of bodies shouldered past the neon and into the dim. Laughter, the scratch of wet coats on bentwood chairs. A woman’s voice threaded through, cut with London polish, lacquered laughter cracking at the edges. Rory’s hands froze on the tissue-wrapped chopsticks poking out of the bag. Her bright blue eyes swung to the mirror behind the bar, then to the source. She tucked the bag on the bar top and didn’t reach for it. Rory? The name hung from a mouth painted the colour of cranberries. The woman stepped into the light pooling from the rack of bottles, and the maps and photographs behind her made a backdrop of old voyages. She had the same eyes Rory remembered, hazel tinted with amber when a joke landed, only now they glittered from under a fringe as sleek as a patent shoe. The rest of her belonged to a catalogue: tailored bottle-green coat, thin gold chain, a phone clamped like a second spine to her palm. Eva. The owner of the signet ring slid the dumplings down the bar and busied himself with a lemon. His eyes flicked once to Rory, then to the stranger who wasn’t a stranger, and something of both fact and fiction settled over his features. He did not limp when he crossed to the taps. He did not make noise. You cut it, Rory. People still use scissors, don’t they. You swore off black in Year Eleven. ‘Nothing good comes in black except coffee.’ And funeral dresses. Ping of a phone on the woman’s palm. She looked down, thumb hovering, then killed the screen with a shake. Her gaze flicked to Silas, a quick taking in of him, the maps, the bottles, the lack of cocktails with petals. We used to haunt the Red Dragon, remember, the dodgy one by the station, Eva’s voice lifted. We got chased by a bouncer with a neck like a tree trunk. The bouncer’s name was Gareth. He had a key for the storeroom where he slept when the trains stopped. You memorised his name? It’s in there with my dad’s case notes and all the bus routes from Cathays to Cardiff Bay. You were a nerd. I still am. Eva laughed, too loud for the bar’s hush. Heads turned, then returned to their drinks. The laughter tangled with old smoke in the rafters and seemed unsure where to go. You live up there? Eva nodded at the stairwell door, the one with scuffs from boots and boxes. For now. I wrote you. I mean—her fingers worried her gold chain—after. After what. The last night. The train. You running. Me with my head in your mum’s lap, making promises I didn’t know how to keep. Do you even remember the time. Half eleven. The last one to Paddington. Your bag had that stupid teddy peeking out, the one with one ear. You loved that thing. I threw it out somewhere in Reading. That killed me when I thought about it. You liked to mourn things that didn’t bleed. Silas placed two tumblers on the bar and poured out whisky that caught the map-light and the sticky green of the sign. No garnish, no fuss. He slid them between the women. On the counter, the bag of dumplings sagged and glistened with oil. On the house, he murmured with his eyes, not his mouth. His limp whispered when he moved away. You didn’t answer me. Eva drew a finger through the condensation beading on her glass. Do you live up there. Rory lifted her wrist to rub a smear from the lip of the glass. The crescent scar flashed pale then hid. I sleep there. That counts. I work for a restaurant around the corner. Deliveries. It’s honest. It’s not what you wanted. What I wanted at nineteen is not worth the price of a pint. You were going to be a barrister and wear robes and argue men like mountains into falling over. Your dad used to look at you like you’d hung the moon. He still stares at the sky, then. Good to know. Does your mum still talk to her roses. Every morning, rain or frost. She gives them grades. The yellow ones never pass. Eva tipped her head back and let out a noise that wasn’t laughter and wasn’t anything else. Her fringe shadowed her eyes and turned them to flint for a breath. When she brought her head down, she looked small inside her coat. They had bleached your hair that summer with that peroxide from Boots. We decided we were blondes. You went orange. You cried into my cereal. Brits love a drama. You love the wrong things. Rory’s eyes didn't leave Eva’s. What did you write. I left a key under the mat. I wrote your name on it in nail polish. I thought—Eva swallowed—you were outside my flat by three. I fell asleep at two-forty. When I woke up, the key was cold. I was at the river. I missed the bus, remember. I had two pounds and a pocket full of nothing. Your building looked like the picture on the postcard your aunt sent me. The mat had no key. I must have—maybe someone— Her nails scratched her knuckles like she wanted to tear a date out of them. I bought you sake cups in Chinatown. You wanted them for iced coffee because you thought it looked cool. I kept them by the sink for a year. I drank iced coffee out of a jam jar. It worked. Where did you go. Here. Here? I came in for a pint because my feet ached and because the neon looked like something out of a film where the girl gets a break. The man with the ring poured me water without asking. Eva’s eyes went to Silas. Thanks, then. You didn’t thank me when I told you to come. You just hung up. My phone died. Liar. Fine. I turned it off. The train carriage smelled like fried onions and stale fear and I wanted to be no one for an hour. Eva’s jaw tightened like she might spit and then didn’t. He still—Eva stopped. She touched her temple. You kept your hair long for him. He liked it, remember. She touched the air where Rory’s hair hit her shoulders now. You cut it yourself, didn’t you. It’s not salon. I used kitchen scissors and a bread knife and a mirror that lies. He hit you when you laughed too hard. He hit me when the wind changed. I never liked him, you knew that. Eva’s voice flattened. I told you to leave him before your birthday. You stayed. I stayed until the bruise matched my coat and then I put my keys in the freezer and took them out cold so my hands could move. The glass clinked when she set it down. She watched the ripple run across the whisky. Eva watched the scar show, then hide. I would have gone with you. I mean I would have—she faltered—I don’t know what I would have done. I said things like people in films. “We’ll run. We’ll make toast at midnight. We’ll be those girls who fix broken earring backs with chewing gum and don’t care.” I didn’t know what a landlord looked like when you were late. I didn’t know what a bruise looked like when it’s three weeks old. You knew enough. Not enough to open the door. Rory licked the salt of a dumpling from her thumb. You changed. We both changed. You’re wearing a coat like your mum would pick. My mum picks floral nightmares. This is mine. It was bloody expensive. Good. Buy yourself armour. It doesn’t work like that. I can tell. Eva’s gaze drifted to the wall behind Rory’s shoulder where a photograph of three young men in tin hats waited on a trench lip. All their faces had that look—brave or stupid, who could say. I moved. Twice. New job. I do due diligence. I read files and tell people where the bodies might be without using that word. I drink too much coffee and listen to podcasts about murder. I thought about you every time I came out of Tottenham Court Road and smelled the fryers. You could have come here. I didn’t know where here was. The Raven’s Nest. It’s on the window. I never looked up. Rory leaned forward and gathered the chopsticks in one fist. Her eyes cut to the exit, then back. You want one. I’m not hungry. You used to eat six before I’d uncurl one hand. I used to want to impress you with how much I could hold. We were fifteen. We stole six KitKats from Spar and left a quid on the counter and the man with the grease-etched fingernails looked at us like saints. Saints of sugar. You called me Saint Eva for a week. I thought everyone could hear you through your braces and I blushed until I burned my cheeks. You look pale now. I work in a basement. Light is for children and cats. Silas stacked glasses under the bar and watched their reflection in the mirror. The ring on his hand struck the tap and made a bright metallic kiss. He limped to the other end and fixed a drink for a man who spoke in exclamation points to no one in particular. He didn’t look their way again, and in that not-looking, he arranged a circle around them that strangers could not enter. Do you forgive me. Eva didn’t dress it with a smile or a joke. For missing a bus. For not opening a door. Rory looked into Eva’s face and searched for the girl in the train window—nose pressed to the cold, mascara smudged, hope like a rash—and found a shape that felt familiar only when it tilted and caught light. You don’t ask the person still bracing the door if the check-out was friendly. I wasn’t friendly. You weren’t there. So no. So we’re here. Here. Eva picked up her whisky and swallowed half, then made a face she used to make when she drank cheap vodka in the park by the skate bowl. You still mix orange juice with lager and call it a morning. Only on Sundays. It’s Friday. So I’m safe. They both laughed then, short, sharp, like barking dogs. It fell into the noise of the bar and didn’t bounce. Do you go by Rory now. Eva’s finger traced the rim of her glass. At work I’m Aurora. Up there, I’m whoever yells first. I never liked ‘Aurora.’ It made you sound like a Disney kid with a woodland choir. I picked it because it sounded nothing like me. You picked it because you like the way it feels in your mouth. You always did this. Pick. Know things I don’t say. That’s because you talk with your hands. They stared at her hands. The scar showed again under the bar light. Eva reached a finger and stopped. That crescent had once landed in Rory’s palm after a fall from the rope swing by the river. Eva had run for plasters with cartoon whales on them and pressed them across the cut like tiles, proud as a doctor. He did that. I did that. The swing was your idea. You always loved a drop. I still do. You scare me. I’m five foot six and I deliver noodles. You scare me because you stand like you could leave in the middle of a sentence. Like you’ve already done it in your head six times. Rory took a dumpling. Nice coat. You said that already. I meant it. Eva touched her fringe again. I have to be somewhere. She held up her phone like proof. They think I came out for one drink and a story about the price of cauliflower. It’s obscene. Don’t start. I won’t. I’m engaged. The word ambushed itself from her mouth like a small animal. She looked mortified the instant it landed. It’s new. I’m not good at— She stopped and looked at the gold flashing under the bar’s light. There was the band, thin as a whisper. He nice. He’s kind. That’s not the same. It’s something. Eva’s eyes watered. She blinked hard. I wanted—I wanted you to see it. Not on a screen. Not from a caption. I wanted you to roll your eyes and tell me it’s the wrong size and make me return it, and then come with me for chips and eat them walking. I don’t eat walking. My mum says your stomach knows. Your mum also thinks cabbage is a treat. She’s wrong on that. Rory slid her glass aside. I can’t go to your wedding. I didn’t ask. You were going to. I was. Eva looked at her hands. My mum said to send you an invite anyway. ‘For closure,’ she said. I told her to mind her own houseplants. I’ll send a toaster. Second hand. Send those sake cups. You still have them? I let them go. Somewhere between the second move and the basement job. You never keep anything that holds heat. I keep this. She tapped her chest. It sounded hollow in the noise of the bar. Keep it, then. Silas reappeared like fog, set down a small bowl of salted peanuts, nudged it close. The ring on his hand winked and then dulled. Need anything else. We’re fine, thanks. Eva flinched at the voice. It was quieter than she expected. She covered it by pushing the peanuts toward Rory. Do you ever go back. To Cardiff. To anything. No. I go back when I can. My dad’s new shed is a temple to useless nails. He keeps the old ones in jars. He won’t throw them out. He says you never know. You never know. Do you think we would have been like that, if— She stopped. The if floated, ugly and half-shaped. We aren’t them. We’re this. What is this. This is Friday in Soho and your coat creaks when you move and I smell like garlic and wet wool, and the man with the ring pretends we’re invisible. I thought it would hurt less. It doesn’t. Eva drew a breath so deep it changed the outline of her. Her shoulders dropped. She dug in her bag and pulled out a battered card. She scribbled with a free pen that had a pharmaceutical logo. Come if you want. Or don’t. I live here now. Bottom buzzer is broken, hit the top and swear. Still the same building etiquette. Still the same words. Rory took the card with two fingers and didn’t look at it. Her thumb rubbed the edge once. She slipped it into a pocket with the practiced fingers of someone who had carried too many small, important rectangles. I’m going to miss the bus. You have a car on an app. I pretend we’re still girls on platforms with coins and hopes smaller than fists. We’re not. I know. Eva stood. The coat creaked again. She hovered a breath too long. Her hand jerked like she might reach and then fell. I’m glad you didn’t drown. I learned to float. Silas leaned over the bar and removed the empty tumblers in one smooth sweep. Outside, the neon flickered and stayed stubbornly lit. The old men in the photographs kept their secrets. Rory lifted another dumpling, bit in, and chewed until her jaw eased. Her pocket felt heavier than paper ought to weigh. The door sighed open and closed. The stool Eva had pulled out remained skewed at an angle, one leg not quite even on the boards. The scratch it made had already gone quiet. The maps on the walls did not move. The rain hit the glass and washed new lines down neon and memory both.