Page 59 of Undefined Terms

Celyn built the wall and then knocked it down in the same night.

I lie there, the heating kicks on, the radiator ticks. The phone face down on the table and the message inside it and the key in Celyn’s pocket somewhere across Manchester and the crack in the ceiling and the anger going flat.

The anger isn’t the thing.

The thing is: I didn’t know someone could hurt me. I didn’t know I’d let someone close enough.

I don’t text back. The pour starts in a few hours. The alarm’s already set, the body’s already shifting into site mode, the arms, the back, the knees arranging themselves for concrete instead of this.

The grey light, the crack.

The phone goes, vibration on the bedside table by the lamp, then the ringtone, then MUM on the screen. The Christmas photo, three years old, the paper crown.

Don’t pick up. Can’t not pick up. Always pick up, that’s the rule: she’ll ring back, or Ewan’ll get a text and get involved, and I’m not having that today.

I clear my throat. Sit up. The crumbs go down the front of the t-shirt and onto the duvet. Don’t care.

‘Hiya, love.’

‘Morning, Mum.’

Kettle in the background.

‘You sound peaky. You been eating?’

‘Yeah, Mum. I’m eating toast.’

‘Toast ain’t eating, Ronan.’

‘It’s bread and butter and heat. That covers it.’

She does the noise, the half-laugh, half-sigh that means it’s going on the list.

‘How was the weekend, then? Ewan reckons you were out with the lads Friday.’

Ewan said.

Ewan didn’t say. Ewan was at home studying for an exam and didn’t text.

Mum’s fishing.

‘Yeah. Few pints with the lads.’

‘Which lads?’

‘Gaz, Dean. The crew. Same as always.’

The kettle clicks off. Spoon, mug, milk, the same six minutes she’s been doing since I was nine.

‘And last night?’

‘Quiet one, was in. Bit of football.’

The lie’s small. Three sentences, that’s it. Quiet one. The bar, the corner table, Celyn’s voice flat and sharp telling me my work doesn’t count, then the door, then the cold, then the bed in the jacket and the boots and the streetlight on the wall in strips.

Quiet, yeah. The phone face down on the duvet next to me with a message I haven’t answered to and the toast cold and Liverpool playing nowhere.

‘Who was on?’