1. THE BUS - NOVEMBER

What a sad, cold, grey day it was to be stuck on a rail replacement bus, which in turn was stuck in traffic. Amy watched two little drops of rain having a flirt, dancing down the glass, criss crossing each other until they eventually became one. Oh, fuck off.

It’d been a long time since Amy had “danced with another rain drop” so to speak. Those drops were starting to look quite sexy. Was it possible to be attracted to a rain drop? She wondered. Maybe she was. Maybe she was just attracted to water in general, actually. What kind of water might be the sexiest? Tap water? Sea water? Mineral water? Definitely mineral. Maybe she’d enjoy a bit of kink too - Ice? Steam?

It was extremely fortunate that in that moment her train of thought was interrupted by her phone ringing (much to the disgust of the disgruntled woman in the seat opposite).

“Hello, Mother ”

“Hello, Daughter”

“You ok?”

“Yes, yes, I was just...” A dog started yapping in the background. It was Morris, her mums chihuahua. He was surprisingly noisy for a tiny dog. “Morris! Morris, shut up! Sorry, I was just... MORRIS, What is it? There’s nothing there! Bloody dog.”

This was how most conversations went between Amy and her mother.

“Sorry”. Her Mum was breathing heavily, and rasping. “I was just wondering..” More barking. “DAMMIT, MORRIS”. And then the coughing began. Deep, resonate coughing from the depths of her lungs. The type of cough you can feel when you hear someone else doing it.

Amy waited patiently for this to pass. She’d heard it for the last 8 years or so, and she hated it. Amy always felt this coughing very deeply. Something about that sound made her feel like she was one of the alveoli inside her mums lungs, drowning in the tar and fluid she had welcomed into her body through decades of heavy smoking.

Eventually, the cough subsided and she heard her Mum steady her breath - in through the nose, out through the mouth - and then she heard her grunting as she leant over to turn on her oxygen machine.

“You ok, Mum?”

“Yes, yes, that bloody dog just going mad at a leaf blowing past” she said this with a weak voice and through the shallow, rattling breaths that always gave Amy a mild stomach ache. “Now, I was just wondering when I might see you next, will you be able to come up before Christmas?”

“I don’t know really, Mum. Work’s been so full on and I’ve got so many things going on. I just don’t think I can. I’ll try”

“What kind of things?” She asked, sounding slightly crest fallen.

“Just life stuff, seeing people, working weekends, it’s just a lot and I’m not sure I’ll have time” Amy felt the familiar twinges of guilt that usually surrounded these conversations.

“Ok, well let me know if things change” her Mum pushed the point “Be nice to see you, and your brother is back for a few weeks too”.

“Ok, I will. Lots of love”

“Lots of love babe”. Amy hung up the phone and was sure she heard the woman opposite ‘tut’, ever so quietly.

2. THE BEDROOM - DECEMBER

Amy sat on the floor of her mums bedroom, alone, staring at a chair. It was ... morning? Maybe. The room was still and dark, with a dull grey early light seeping through the holes in the curtains that her mum had crocheted. She’d loved crochet. She’d actually crocheted every pair of curtains in the house. It was a modest sized room, with too much furniture to fit comfortably within it.

The bright, clashing colours of the walls and the mismatched furniture seemed duller this morning somehow. Every piece of furniture was piled up with some form of organised chaos. There were chests of drawers with smaller chests of drawers sitting on top, and on top of those, mini sets of drawers - the type you don’t really know what anyone could keep in them. A pink and brown desk was scattered with multiple remote controls and paper notes and the small drawer sitting beneath it had a chocolate wrapper poking out (The home of her mums not-so-secret chocolate stash). The old, dark brown, wooden filing cabinet was stacked high with empty box files and notebooks and a yellow leather handbag sat at the front, accessible enough to reach to pay the career, the cleaner, the handyman. Weird little nicknacks filled the gaps of the remaining surfaces. Homemade cards, little handmade ornaments, novelty mugs. Nothing made sense in this room, but everything meant something.

She was staring at the chair her mum had sat in, day in, day out. Pale brown with dark brown swirls and dark wooden legs. Very ugly, but presumably, very comfortable. It sat at the foot of her single bed, which as usual was showcasing an orange floral bedspread. Sometimes she’d slept in the chair, when her breathing was too bad to lie down. It was dented with her shape. Hanging on the bed post next to it were the wires and tubes that connected her to the large grey oxygen tank that she’d relied on 24 hours a day. Her daily pill pots, a box of tissues, and a bottle of half drunk Lucozade still sat on the small, green table next to the chair. The pill pots were those ones that are split into the days of the week. Each day a different colour, with labelled lids that pop open. One for the morning, one for the evening. They were popped open, but only up to Wednesday morning.

Amy’s eyes followed the dents in the chair down towards the green table and landed on the unopened Wednesday evening pill pot. She felt a wave of grief, the heavy kind that sits deep within you, start to rise up from her guts. As it passed her stomach she thought she might vomit, but it continued to rise and instead got stuck in her throat. She thought she might be suffocating. She couldn’t breathe. Her eyes started to stream. Guilt and sorrow and panic and a tinge of indifference took over her mind and her body and she began to shake. The room fell away and she was somewhere else now, being swept away, drowning in water shaped emotion and pain, her ears were filled with the sound of wild water rushing and wailing. She let this feeling take over every part of her body and mind, and accepted that she would sink forever in this state of pain and cold and darkness until she was rudely interrupted by an “Ahem”.

Oh, She was back in the room. It was still and dark and grey again, no water to be seen. She turned her head to see a tall, broad, familiar man who was head to toe in camouflage clothing, standing in the doorway.

“Tea?” He asked.

She stared at him blankly, her mind trying to catch up with reality again.

“Nice cup of tea?” He asked again, looking down at his feet and shuffling awkwardly. “You look like you might need one”

She realised she had somehow gotten herself into the foetal position in the last few minutes and felt a little daft. She also felt guilty, for forgetting about him, her Brother, Paul. “How are you doing? Are you ok this morning?” She managed to ask.

“As well as can be expected, thank you. Considering Mums just died” he replied, in his usual matter of fact tone.

“Well, that’s.. good?” She was struggling to find the words to be a good and supportive sister.

“They say a cup of tea can help with any situation, good or bad, so.. Tea?” He asked again, expression unchanged and still largely focusing on his feet.

“That would be nice. Thank you” They shared a rare moment of connection. A small glance, a moment of eye contact, which was quickly disrupted by another rude interruption.

“AAAMMMMYYYYYY” It was her Aunt Ruby, who lived down the road. She was downstairs, and most likely in the kitchen judging by the direction of the bellowing. She must’ve let herself in. Amy shouted back.

“YEEESSS?”

“TTTTTTEEEEAAAA?” Ruby hollered.

Amy looked at Paul, aware Aunt Ruby was taking away one of the only practical things Paul felt he could contribute to the situation.

He joined in with the the shouting, and his shout was as loud as you’d expect a 6’4, size XXL mans to be.

“I’M MAKING IT”.

Aunt Ruby’s voice echoed up the stairs.

“WHAT??”

Paul replied “I SAID I’M MAKING IT.” The noise levels were making Amy wince.

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE SAYING!” She hollered again, and she muttered to someone else in the kitchen “I dunno what he’s saying” again, up the stairs she yelled “I DUNNO WHAT YOU SAID BUT I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU BOTH ONE ANYWAY.”

As Amy began to try and scrape herself of the floor, the siblings heard the excited scrabble of tiny paws heading up the wooden stairs. Ruby had left the kitchen door open.

“Oh god” Amy and Paul and said in unison. A split second later the tiny teacup Chihuahua, Morris, practically flew threw the open door and through Pauls legs, landing on Amy and knocking her onto her back. He frantically started licking up the dried up tears on her face, and before she knew it she was laughing, and so was Paul.

3. THE KITCHEN - DECEMBER

Amy and Paul made their way down to the kitchen, with Morris excitedly skipping about their feet making them have to focus much harder on the descent than normal for fear of tripping over, or stepping on the tiny dog.

Aunt Ruby, Granda Flo and Cousin Clare were all sitting round the kitchen table. They all looked a bit grey and they all looked up at Amy and Paul as they came in the room, and they all did exactly the same, slightly unsettling, sympathetic smile at them. They were all clasping cups of tea, seemingly for their lives, and the air was thick with grief and a lack of knowing what to say. Ruby, silently and sombrely handed them both cups of tea - also slightly grey. Pauls face spoke the words Amy couldn’t say out loud “what the fuck..” and this very surreal and silent exchange felt like it was lasting for much, much to long until, out of know where, Morris erupted with high pitched, and very loud yapping.

“Oh fucking hell!/Jesus!/Morris!/ Frightened the bloody life out of me!” The silent family instantly became a loud one and quite a blasphemous one too. That felt more normal. The door bell rang. Grandma Flo was completely oblivious to all this, being quite deaf, and was trying to work out the dramatic shift in atmosphere.

“What’s wrong with all of you?” She asked.

“The dog just exploded” Aunt Ruby answered, regaining composure as she got up to answer the door.

“Well I told you that chicken didn’t smell right, said you shouldn’t have given it to him” Grandma Flo muttered, largely to herself although Amy and Cousin Claire both caught it and exchanged a knowing smile.

“Oh, it’s the postman!” Ruby said peering through the door “Someone hold the dog”.

“Oh god” Claire said, under her breath.

Paul picked up Colin who was yelping and wiggling with excitement at the door, and, not being quite sure how to handle this small, slightly demonic creature, held him out in front of him like a rugby ball. Meanwhile Ruby arranged herself for the “quite dishy” postman. She hoiked her boobs up a little giving herself a bit more bounce in her low cut top, and she quickly checked her face in the hall mirror. As usual her mascara had already migrated off of her eyelashes and onto the skin above and below them “oh bugger” she whispered to herself as she licked her finger and tried to rub it off while she checked her teeth and puckered he lips a little.

Morris was getting very frustrated now and very, very wiggly. Being a short haired Chihuahua he was very silky and in turn, very slippery and Paul thought he was going to lose him soon. “Um, Ruby?” He prompted.

“Oh, ha! Sorry” with a small, very mildly embarrassed apology she turned and answered the door with an alluring smile. “Morning Darren”.Darren the Postie went all kinds of red. “Oh morning, Ruby.”

“Nice hat” she said. Darren was wearing a cheap Santa hat.

“They make us wear them over Christmas now.”

“Suits you” she purred.

“Oh, thanks” he was beetroot now. “Didn’t expect to see you here”

“We’re here with my niece and nephew. Their mothers just died you see” she did a little pout and a very controlled forlorn look came across her face. Amy had seen Aunt Ruby flirt many times, but never using her mothers death as the subject matter.

“Oh. I’m errr.. sorry to hear that” Darren the postie didn’t know where to look “I suppose that explains all this?” He was holding several cards and some flowers.

“Oh yes! Probably” she did a little, tinkly giggle. Cousin Claire clasped her head in her hands while doing a low, pained groan and caught Amy’s eye across the kitchen “sorry about Mum” she whispered.

An “Ahem” came from Paul, who was also turning quite red as he was still straining to hold on to the untiring Chihuahua for dear life.

Ruby took the hint and took the cards and the flowers from Darren the Posties hands, being sure to brush them with her own as she did so. She turned and closed the door with her hip, giving Darren the postie one final wink. Poor, bright red, poor mans Father Christmas.

She carelessly dumped the flowers and the cards onto the kitchen table as Paul tried to carefully place the still desperately wiggling dog back onto the floor. Morris immediately ran to the front door and sniffed manically, wondering what he’d missed out on and occasionally glancing back at the family looking a bit pissed off.

Claire picked up the flowers with a very subtle eye roll pointed at her mother. She pulled the card out and placed it in front of Amy with a kind smile, and set about putting them in water.

Grandma Flo started reaching for the cards “Oh it’s my birthday!” She said with glee.

“No it bloody isn’t, Mum!” Ruby replied, shifting the cards further from Grandma Flo’s reach and closer to Amy.

Ruby picked up the card that was with the flowers and gestured to Paul to open it. With a quick shake of the head he made it clear he was not interested and instead strode to the back door to escape to the garden for a vape.

She knew whatever the card said would make her feel sick so was hesitant to open it, but open it she did.

“Dear Amy, Paul and Morris.

Wishing you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

So sorry to hear about the passing of your Mum, hope you still manage to pull a cracker or two.

Love from The Millers

Ps - love to the rest of the family”

Yup, she felt sick. ‘Might as well get through the rest of them’ she thought to herself, so she picked up another from the pile. This one read.

“Dear Sharon,

Happy Christmas

From all of us at CBG Motors”

And then she was gone again, out of the room and back into the deep water. Her guts had risen up to choke her again, and the wild water was rushing around her ears. Far in the distance, above the deep, dark water she could hear someone saying her name “Amy!” “Amy, we’re here” “Amy we’ve got you” it sounded weird and distorted like the words were rippling.

And then she felt a warmth on her shoulders, and it made her rise. It lifted her up through the cold heavy water and... She was back in the room. Ruby and Claire were either side of her, embracing her fully and she found herself shaking, sobbing, face wet with tears and snot. Morris was at her feet, looking concerned and also a little hungry to lick the tears away again.

“deep breaths” Ruby was guiding her. “In for four, out for four”. She felt herself find her way back to her centre again and land. She looked up to see a tall, broad, familiar man who was head to toe in camouflage clothing, standing in the doorway.

“Tea?” He asked.

4. THE WAKE - DECEMBER

The funeral went as expected. A slightly crusty and awkward male vicar tried to deliver the details and kind words Amy and the rest of the family had put together to celebrate her mums life. He used a sincere and knowing tone, but he clearly hadn’t done his prep work and kept tripping over his lines. He called Morris “Maurice” and at one point referred to her father, David, as her ex husband (who was actually called Pete) and that added a few more uncomfortable layers to proceedings. They had tried to make it a bit quirky in honour of her mums tastes, by asking everyone to wear a novelty jumper of some kind. That was something Sharon had done year round. Easter jumpers at Christmas, Christmas jumpers in summer, she made her own rules. Despite the, quite impressive, array of knitwear, it still had the distinct depressing and stilted quality of your average funeral. Amy had felt largely numb throughout and had spent most of the time thinking how much her mum would have hated this. She’d spent most of the time feeling ashamed of herself for not coming up with something more fun, more fitting.

When the curtains finally swept around the coffin, and Sharons body was rolled away to be cremated, Paul had said “well, at least she liked smoking” and that had made Amy laugh quite loudly, and that had been something no-one in the crematorium had really known how to respond to.

Amy sat in the pub function room, a cheap and not very cheerful place. Everything was a different shade of brown, the furniture scratched and the table clothes stained. She watched three loud and irritating young boys pick up cocktail sausages from the cheap buffet. They screeched with laughter as they tried to stuff them up each other’s noses. Their mother, Laura, shouted at them across the room. “BOYS! STOP THAT” and with that they each chucked the sausages back onto the platter and ran in her direction. Laura was another of Ruby’s daughters, so another of Amy’s cousins, and was possibly the most anxious woman Amy had ever known.

Amy watched as Laura was desperately trying to tell her giggling boys the dangers of stuffing processed meat up their noses when a man stepped into her line of view.

It was Pete, her Dad. He looked every inch the artist and the amateur dramatics enthusiast, wearing a floral shirt, velvet jacket and a trilby hat. “Hello Darling”.

“Dad!” Amy jumped up and hugged him tight. It wasn’t something they would normally do, but she was broken and he was her dad. She tried to swallow down the lump that was rising in her throat.

“So sorry we didn’t make it to the service. We had a few problems en-route”

He gestured with his eyes to his partner, Alison, who was standing in the doorway. Alison was a tasteful woman. She was spiritual, and homeopathic, and wore a lot of beads and linen. She also had quite a terrifying inner beast that Amy had seen surface a couple of times over the last 10 years, and Amy could tell from her strained smile that she trying to stop the beast popping out then and there.

She was holding tightly to the shoulders of their latest foster child, Jasmine. Jasmine was about nine years old, with the face of a cherub. She had golden, curly, and slightly unruly hair, soft round cheeks scattered with light coloured freckles, and was head to toe in unicorn themed clothing, including a pink puffa coat with a sequinned unicorn on the back of it. She looked like butter wouldn’t melt, but she was eyeballing Amy, hard. Jasmine clearly did not want to go inside, and had made herself stiff and difficult to manoeuvre, so Alison was having to shuffle her into the room, one tiny step at a time. Alison risked breaking one hand free to do a fast, tiny wave to Amy before re-securing her firm grip.

Amy tried to pacify her fathers guilt. “Oh don’t worry. When you’ve been to one funeral, you’ve done them all, eh? Just imagine Grandads, but replace the words “War veteran” and “Engineer” with “Chain smoker” and “Craft obsessive”.

Pete smiled, sadly and warmly “How are you doing?”

Amy replied for the first time, quite honestly. “I am doing… I am just doing. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m doing it.”

“Ok well, that’s a start?

“Yes” Amy felt the deep wave surging. She closed her eyes. She breathed slowly. In for four, out for four, and got herself as far into one corner of the room as possible.

Pete followed her “Amy?”.

The waves were still creeping up, small, sharp ones, up and up her body they went, until they started stabbing her stomach and then at her throat and then began seeping from her eyes

“God, Dad. I do not know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to do… this? How do people do this?Everyone does this but how can something so normal feel so abnormal?”

Her dad put an arm around her shoulders

“I know, sweetheart. I know. Remember you’re not on your own. Your old Dad’s still around eh?”

“I know” Amy agreed through the tight, painful tears. It hurt more trying to keep it small than when she let it flood her, she had found.

“How is Paul taking it?” Pete asked.

“You haven’t seen him yet?” Amy replied, trying to wipe away the tears that just kept leaking out.

“No. Jasmine spent the entire 4 hour journey trying to get out of the car, but when we got here we practically had to drag her out of the damn thing. She’s a sweet little thing but she does get herself in a state sometimes. I’m sure Alison has calmed her down a bit now.”

Amy started to look around the room for Paul, glad of the focus and distraction from the waves within. She spotted Alison holding Jasmine’s empty coat, she must’ve slipped out of it. Alison was desperately trying to find the missing child, whispering “sorry for your loss” to people as she squeezed between them and looked under tables, in cupboards and behind curtains. Amy’s dad was completely unaware of this. When she’d looked back at him he was texting someone painfully slowly with one finger.

“He hasn’t really spoken much. He’s cracked a few inappropriate jokes but I think he’s pretty shaken up. I’m not sure he has any idea how to handle these emotions.” Amy continued.

“Who?” Her dad replied, distractedly.

“Paul!” Amy was getting tired of this conversation already.

“Oh, Paul! Haha. Sorry Darling.” Her dad laughed with an irritating insincerity. “Just got a message from the Valley players - they want me to play the lead in their Easter production!”

“That’s... great” Hmm, great. Amy thought.

“So you haven’t spoken to him about… his future?” Pete asked

Amy was getting very annoyed now.

“No, Dad. What with trying to deal with this agonising grief that I myself cannot begin to make sense of and it being, you know, Christmas, I haven’t gotten round to trying to sort out my older brothers future just yet.”

“Sorry, Darling. It’s just a worry, you know. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.” Pete looked hurt. Amy didn’t have the space to deal with it.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry” She tried to be reasonable “You should find Paul. I’m going to, you know… mingle.”

She went to the buffet, at least she could pretend to be doing something there. She found Grandma Flo picking up one of the discarded mini sausages and stuffing it in her mouth.

4. THE BAR - FEBRUARY

Amy sat in a bar in east London with 3 of her closest friends. It was the sort of bar that played music just a bit too loudly for comfortable conversation. She’d gone back to London the day after the funeral. She didn’t want to be in that house anymore, surrounded by her mums day to day world. It was suffocating. Paul and Morris had gone to stay with Ruby, Claire and grandma Flo, and the house now sat empty, aside from the many, many possessions left behind. The thought of sorting through it all was just too time consuming and she had too much to do for work. Amy was an illustrator. She did pictures and paintings of peoples pets mainly, but had recently secured a contract with the greetings card manufacturer ‘DreamThemes’, and was churning out illustrations for them. She wasn’t used to working for a big company and was finding their deadlines quite stressful. Coming home and diving straight back into it had made the whole ‘Mum dying’ situation feel like a distant dream. A few weeks had passed. She’d spent Christmas Day alone feeling largely numb, filling her mind with shit films and padding her thoughts with, maybe, too much red wine. New Year’s Eve had passed in much of the same sort of blur. She felt detached from it all now, and that was a much simpler place to be.

Her three friends were deep in conversation about... something. Amy realised she had completely tuned out and was deep in thought about how she would go about drawing a cartoon version of an antelope - a request from the company. Sarah, one of the more observant of the group clocked onto this. “Amy, you ok?”.

“Yes! Absolutely! Sorry my mind just wandered there for a second”

Sarah was the kind of friend who knew and remembered every detail of someone’s life. This was like magic to Amy who forgot most things about anyone within 20 minutes of hearing it. She always remembered the basic gist, but never the real tiny details like Sarah the magician. Sarah was petite, but strong in body and in mind. She had graduated with a law degree but instead had gone to work for a high profile online retailer. The money was great and the perks even better. She had a baby girl with Mark, another of their old friends, and he had eagerly become a stay at home dad and was loving every second of it. Sarah was the kind of friend you know would kill for you, but who could also kill you with her words.

“You don’t need to pretend.” She pressed, shooting an extremely swift and concerned look to the others.

“I’m not! honestly, I’m absolutely great. I was just thinking about Antelopes actually” and she let out a slightly to loud laugh. Another glance between them.

Caroline stepped in now. “Babe, you know you can talk to us don’t you? Anytime, that’s what we’re here for” Caroline was the sort of person who made you feel extremely safe. She was direct and bold but also extremely caring and tactful. The sort of person you’d want around if you were giving birth or if your arm was hanging off or if your mum had just died.

“I know, thanks! But honestly I am good!” Why was it that the more you try to convince someone you were fine, the less fine you sounded.

Sarah and Carolines eyes fell on the third friend, Amanda, now it was her turn to try. She was busy typing on her phone and was not remotely engaging in anything that was going on. Amy wanted to hug her.

“Ow, fuck!” Amanda shouted. Sarah had kicked her under the table. “What?!”

“We were just saying to Amy that we’re ALL here for her. Isn’t that right Amanda?”

“Jesus, yes” Amanda said, rubbing her ankle. “I think she’s aware of that though” and she flicked them both the V and went back to her phone.

“Have you heard anything from your family?” Caroline tried to push the conversation along.

“No, not really” Amy lied. She’d had at least two missed called from either Ruby or Claire every day for the last few weeks, and a barrage of messages. Paul had even reached out a couple of times, and had sent some texts on behalf of Morris “Hello Amy, Woof. Miss you. Luv Morris p.s - Woof”.

She kept letting the missed calls and the messages disappear and drown in the everyday activity of her phone. She kept kicking the letters from the solicitors underneath the cupboard by the door. She didn’t need any of that. She’d made the decision to move forward with her life and she was fine. Good even. And all of this contact just felt like cold fingers grasping at her skin and trying to pull her back underwater.

“So, who’s that you’re talking to Amanda? Got your claws into someone have you?” Amy shouted this loudly across the table and leant forward to disrupt the cave of understanding her other two friends had created either side of her.

“Ha, Just someone from an app. She’s only in town for a few weeks but she is also very, very hot so current lustful Amanda is ignoring future heart broken Amanda.”

“Good for you! You might as well, you could be dead by next week after all!” Amy joked.

Amanda laughed. Caroline and Sarah exchanged slightly panicked looks.

“Good god, how many ways can I tell you I’m fine. I could have said that 2 months ago and you wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. I’m getting more drinks”.

When she’d returned with another bottle her friends had clearly decided to change tact.

“It’s so good to have you out again. We’ve missed you!” Caroline held her glass up to Amy.

“Cheers to that” Sarah chimed in, raising her glass.

“Bottoms up!” Amanda said chugging down the last of her glass and the other three joined in.

Another bottle of wine became another bottle of wine. That became spirits and mixers and shots, and as the night wore on and the music got even louder, Sarah peeled away to get back to the family and Caroline made her excuses and escaped, but not before throwing one last concerned look at Amy and Amanda throwing tequila down their throats.

There was only one feeling that Amy had enjoyed more than numbness recently, and that was drunkenness. She had to get just beyond the point of intoxication where the emotions started to rise out of her. Just after that, everything in her head started to soften and lull. Then, she’d eventually sleep, and nothing could hurt her when she was asleep. Sleep equalled bliss. That night in that bar she felt like a giant human cushion, tactile and warm and very kind to strangers. She loved the way the booze brought out the best of her. She knew she the type of person most other people wanted to be. Funny, confident, free.

Amanda and Amy were dancing, she couldn’t remember when they’d started, or how long they had been dancing for, but she felt so good. she felt so alive. She was sure this was the meaning of life, this, right here. This euphoria, the blurred edges of kissing a stranger, the lights with colours that seeped in and out of each other, the hands grabbing at her arms and her backside, her hands reaching and grabbing at - who knows what. The swimming floor, the swimming ceiling. The swirling and jumping and, oh maybe too much swirling and jumping. She didn’t feel right. There was too much spinning. Nausea came. It came too quickly. The man with the blurred edges was leaning in to her, he was too close. She was trying to push him away, or maybe she was holding on to him to stay upright. “Are you ok?” She heard him say from what seemed like a distant galaxy. “Fuck offffff. Will everyone stop asking me that” she replied, from what seemed like another universe. She started jumping again to prove that she was fine. Bounce, bounce, bounce, vomit. She looked up, and caught a glimpse of blurred edge mans disgusted face, and caught a glimpse of Amandas concerned face, and then she passed out.