As I mentioned earlier, there’s a version of you out there somewhere, drunkenly playing an imaginary piano. You couldn’t even play sober, so I dread to think what it might’ve sounded like if the plinky-plonky sounds were real. The two of us were sat at a table in some posh, French restaurant awaiting our food drinking a skinful. The culinary delight that awaited us for our starters was pea soup. I’m not too fond of peas, so I got you to pick them out for me. Annoyed by my childish antics, you took two and stuffed them up your nostrils before snorting them in my face. You laughed so much you almost fell off your chair. Grabbing hold of your arm to stop you, I gingerly pulled you up, but you didn’t say thank you, you just laughed until the tears in your eyes rolled down your cheeks like balls of snow tumbling down a desolate hillside in the dead of winter. It was cold. Your nose was pink. Your ears, too, although the circles beneath your eyes were the tastiest shade of toffee. When we were getting ready to go out, I observed you putting on two pairs of socks so your toes wouldn’t get cold, but all through the night, you kept tapping your feet regardless. I’m not sure why you started playing the piano. Perhaps a piece of music had stirred a memory in you of your childhood, or maybe you just couldn’t help being weird. With the curls of your hair dancing upon your shoulders, you shook your head and gurned like a loon, and as your fingers tapped the table like sausages, I couldn’t help but feel smug at being seen on the arm of someone so beautiful and strange.

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US