Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTZ2PTCF5386WJDF5ZYXPH5

The green hum above the door washed the bar sign like a wet brushstroke, and the glass sent the colour crawling along the bottles. Maps yellowed with thumbprints climbed the walls. Photographs in black and white held faces stuck inside old winters. Rory leaned on the wood and watched her breath fog the rim of a chipped mug. Tea gone cool. Her wrist lay palm-up, scar a pale crescent against skin the colour of milk left in the sun too long. Silas worked the pump with a practised hand. The silver ring on his right knuckle knocked the tap head as if greeting it. He slid a pint along, no foam wasted, and nudged it to a man hunched near the end, then lifted his eyes. Hazel flicker. He didn’t need to speak to tell her he’d clocked the rain on her coat and the drag in her shoulders. He turned, knee stiff, to fetch ice with the same grace he used crossing the room when his leg hurt too much to pretend. The door gave. Cold air flared in like an argument. Rory didn’t look up straight away. She felt it—the prickle, the one where time folded and brought a smell with it. Damp wool and floral shampoo from a shared locker room. Laughter that used to bend the corridor walls at school like heat. Rory set the mug down. It clunked. Rory? The voice came from a throat that had learnt smoothness it didn’t used to want. Lux fabric, vowel edges ironed flat. She looked and found the owner of it holding the bar rail with careful fingers. Eva. A pause opened the length of a driveway between them, then snapped shut. Soho didn’t suit you on paper. I found a paper it suited. Her friend—old friend, former co-conspirator of stolen bus rides and swapped essays—wore a suit the colour of wet slate. The jacket held its line like it owned the air around it. Hair pulled back so tight her temples shone. No glitter at her eyelids anymore. No pierced hoop catching the pub lights. A thin band on one finger. Under the halide lamps in Rory’s memory, Eva had been tartan tights and smudged mascara. She’d had a laugh that threw coins at windows. You’re different. You too. Eva glanced at Silas, at the maps, at the photograph of Docklands cranes. She put her bag on the stool but didn’t sit. Is this… yours? I live upstairs. That’s not the same thing. It’s close enough on nights I need stairs. Silas set down the scoop and wiped his hands on a white cloth. He didn’t walk over right away. His eyes travelled once from Rory to Eva and back. The line of his mouth said he knew this wasn’t one of the easy ones. He leaned in when he did reach them, shoulders arranged to fill the space like a curtain. What are we having? Eva’s mouth opened, then closed. Water. Lemon. Rory touched her mug with two fingers. Another tea. Silas dipped his chin. He kept his ring finger away from the lemon wedge as if not to impart something from old silver to new citrus. He retreated with a murmur that dried at its own edges and left them alone. Eva’s eyelids flicked to Rory’s hair, black and straight against a grey jumper. You stopped with the streaks. Dye costs money. Delivery tips don’t argue. You’re still doing…? I make London smaller on a scooter for people who don’t want to leave their sofas. I pictured you in a gown. Wig. All of it. You pictured me in your dad’s chambers because we nicked his robes once and scared your cat. The laugh that came out of Eva had weight where air had been. It hit the wood and softened. We were idiots. Speak for yourself. A beat. Eva pulled a coaster closer and lined it against the edge of the bar, again and again, until it sat square. I came in by accident. I didn’t… I mean, I was cutting through. The sign—she nodded up at the green stamp over the door—dragged me. It does that. I didn’t know you were here. You didn’t look. Eva flinched, so small it could have been a breath. She kept her hands where Rory could see them. Manicure so neat it looked medical. Rory’s scar itched against her skin. How long? Three years in this flat. London since you rang. I rang once. It was a long ring. You never came to mine. I sent a map. Twice. You wrote your new postcode on the back of a receipt for cola and crisps. It bled in the rain. Eva folded, not a smile. You had yourself to stitch. Silas set the glass of water down before her like a treaty. He placed the tea in front of Rory, steam making the old mug’s glaze run silver for a second. His limp showed when he moved away. The weights of his past made their own percussion on the tiles. Eva touched the lemon and didn’t squeeze it. How’s your mum. She teaches Year Four. She knows nine ways to say “sit down” without using the words. And your dad? Lawyers don’t die. They just metabolise paper. I sent a card when your gran— I know. You didn’t reply. It didn’t have a return. I wrote my name. You changed it again. Names are coats. Pick one for the weather. Yours fits different these days. It’s the same name. You wear it different. Eva lifted the water and sipped. A line tugged at her cheek. I stopped drinking. I can see. Two years. Congratulations. Don’t sound like that. Like what. Like you’re watching me cross a room with glass on the floor. Rory blew on her tea. The steam kissed her. She swallowed once. The maps on the wall ran streets across her eyes and they went somewhere she hadn’t. I thought you moved. I did. Cardiff? Then Bristol. Then back. I work in Canary Wharf now. Money. Paper. Eva’s mouth tipped. Risk. HR on paper. It all bleeds. You cut the rings out then. No more Camden on a Friday. No… any of it. You used to say you’d die if you couldn’t dance. Turns out you can stop doing lots of things and remain stubbornly alive. Rory rubbed her wrist. You left without telling me. That night. You told me to go. I told you to call me from the train. The phone broke when it hit the floor. I bought a cheap one in Paddington the next day. New number. New everything. You didn’t send it to me. I didn’t send it to me. Eva breathed, deeper now. You think I abandoned you. You turned off. I was twenty-two and thought I knew how to pull people out of fires. Turns out you can stand too close and catch. Rory lifted her face and ran her gaze over Eva’s eyes for the pupil that used to widen when she lied. It wasn’t there. He came to my flat, Rory. The words fell between them like a coin that refused to settle. He came to my flat the week after you went. He asked if I’d seen you. He stood in the hallway like a coat rack. He looked like a boy at the end of a match. Spent. He smelt of metal. And you. I told him I’d call the police. I meant it. I held the phone and felt like an extra in a terrible drama. You didn’t ring. I did. I rang after he left. I filed something. They asked if you were in immediate danger and I said I didn’t think so because I had no proof of where you were. I hung up and shook for an hour. Then I stopped shaking and poured Baileys into my tea until it tasted like a night bus. Silas’s ring knocked a glass somewhere and they both looked and then looked away. A pair of men shoved through the bookshelf in the back and a section of it yawed open. A thin, unlit room winked at them like a missing tooth. It closed again. Rory watched Eva pretend not to see that either. You could have told me this. You could have asked. We were girls who finished each other’s sentences. I didn’t think I had to. Eva put her fingertips on the wood. She pressed down just enough for the blood to slip out of the pads. When I got sober I made a list. Your name was in ink that bled into my duvet when I fell asleep with the pen uncapped. Step this, step that. Apologise. Make amends. Everything tidy like an instruction leaflet. I hate lists. You used to love them. You used to list what to pack for the beach and we’d never pack half of it. Not the same. I chickened out. You think amends is a thing you can fit in a lunch break. You think punishment makes a good pet. Rory’s lips thinned. She looked toward the door and it glowed green like a bruise. He hit me once in the kitchen. The bowl broke and I stood in bare feet. I remember thinking I could stand completely still and the shards wouldn’t climb into me. That’s not how it works. I know. Do you. He hit me too. Rory’s eyes flicked up. The room held its breath. Eva lifted the hem of her sleeve and a pale mark banded her arm near the wrist where you might wear a festival band. It wasn’t a line a razor would make. It was the ghost of fingers. He came back when I wouldn’t answer the door. He put his hand there. Not a punch. Squeeze. The sound my bones made still rides buses with me. Rory reached for her tea but didn’t drink. She placed her palm over the scar on her own wrist as if covering a window. I didn’t know. I didn’t tell you because if I had, I’d have had to admit that I invited him up once. That first week you left. He knocked and I didn’t know how to not open. I told myself I’d keep him in the hall but guilt drags chairs out like it owns the room. You want me to forgive you. I want you to know that I know I messed up the order of things. Order. Leave, then block. Comfort the person who needs it most. Call the right number. Say the words. All of it in a line. I did it like a drunk trying to thread a needle on a bus. I jabbed the fabric and made holes. Rory breathed out, slow. She looked at Silas again and he pretended not to see. His hand moved over the till. He closed the drawer with the heel of his palm. Money clicked like teeth. You could have rung me last month. You saw my mother in town. She told you I lived here. She told me afterwards, with that face she makes when she’s proud and worried like a badly tuned piano. I walked past this street twice before coming in. You chose tonight. I’ve got a review in the morning. I needed to not sit in my flat and slide down my own walls. You could lie better once. I got out of practice. The bar door creaked again and then stopped. Someone left and the green washed their back. The rain had slowed and made the pavement shine so it looked like water and photos had been glued to it. I went to your graduation, you know. I didn’t have one. The college did. They read your name with no one standing up to take it. Your dad sat so still I thought he was made of stone. Your mum waved at a girl who couldn’t see her. I went because I thought maybe you’d do the big reveal at the last minute. Movie logic. I wore your favourite dress under my coat. I stood at the back and cheered inside my throat when they said Carter and no one asked me to be quiet. Then I went home and drank until the dress zipped itself. Why tell me that. Because it feels important to say I didn’t vanish because I didn’t care. I vanished because I was a coward, and then I grew a spine and didn’t know where to bend it first. Rory let the tea sit on her tongue and it tasted oversteeped, tannin making her mouth feel like felt. You look like someone’s boss. I look like a kid playing dress-up when I catch myself in the lift mirror. You used to draw on your hands in biro. Hearts and arrows. You’d go home with blue smudges and your mum would sigh. You’d say skin’s a notepad. I carry a notebook now. Of course you do. I kept one page for you. I wrote: go to Rory and say sorry without asking for anything. Don’t say sorry like a key. Don’t slide it under a door and expect the lock to change. Rory slid her thumb along the bar and it came away wet from spilled lemon water. She rubbed it down her jeans. Say it then. I’m sorry. For. For vanishing when you were a moving target. For picking up when I shouldn’t have. For not coming round with a bag the first night and holding the door and not leaving it until you slept and woke up still knowing you were brave. You don’t get to write me brave. I know. You did that yourself. You always did. Even before. Rory looked at the photograph of the cranes. They reached like the necks of metal birds, mouths open, no sound. She put her hand over her wrist again like she was pressing the past into silence. Are you happy. That’s not fair. Is it ever. Some days I think I’m a structure that could take weight. Some days I feel like the scaffolding around it instead. And me. You’ve always been a room. Warm. Light under the door. I went to knock and I stood there with my hand in the air until my arm ached. Neither of them moved. A group near the back laughed too loud at a joke about maps being wrong and a woman’s voice slipped under it like thread. The lemon in Eva’s glass floated up and up and never sank. Do you have to go. I’ve got an early train of people to fire. You’ve changed. I know. We used to steal traffic cones and give them names. We used to smoke behind the bike sheds and put the butts in our socks. We used to write lists of boys we’d never ever date and we were right about most of them. You used to stay. You used to let me. Silas appeared again with the bill for a table that hadn’t asked for it yet. He paused and his eyes coasted past them like a cautious boat past a sandbar. He moved on. The ring flashed and dulled. One more thing. No. Please. Rory’s hand clenched. He asked after you last year. In town. He looks old. So do we. Not like that. He looked… like a photo left in a window. I told him I didn’t know where you were. I meant it that time. I don’t want him within a mile of where you sleep. Good. I will go now. You always were dramatic. I rehearsed being calm in the queue. Don’t rehearse with me. I don’t remember how. You can learn. Eva got her bag. The navy jacket shifted with her and fell back into a crisp line as if nursed by an invisible hand. Can I leave a number. You can leave. Numbers multiply without you. I deserve that. Deserve’s a funny word. It is. She placed a card on the bar anyway. White. Her name, the one she still wore, in black letters that looked like they’d push back if you smudged them. A line of digits. No job title. The lemon seed drifted past the glass rim and clung to its own reflection. I come here most nights. I don’t drink. We have water. We do. The door took her like a mouth takes breath. The green painted her shoulders then let her go. The street made its wet sounds. Rory watched the space she had held and then watched her tea make a brown crater in its own surface. Silas eased close and stood on the good leg. He kept his gaze on the shelf, on a map with a smudge where the River bends. You keeping that. He nodded at the card without touching it. No. Rory pulled it into her palm and felt the print press into her skin. I’ll bin it. He grunted, the way he did when you missed a punchline. That kettle needs a boil. It does. You want anything hot that isn’t memory. That would be greedy. He left her standing there with the old photographs on all sides and the green leaking through the door’s glass, and the card grew warm where her fingers held it, like paper could remember the hand that wrote on it. The lemon bobbed. The maps kept their secrets. The bar breathed and went on.