Page 77 of Undefined Terms

The phone on the nightstand buzzes. Celyn doesn’t look. The buzz stops, starts, stops. The name’s up long enough for me to read it before the screen dies. Rhi. The one who reads the pages first, the one Celyn texts back inside a minute. Tonight it rings out. Three times. They’ve had it out about something, the two of them, and the something’s in the room with us now. In the wrist. In the crossed-out word.

After a while, no idea how long, Celyn says ‘Sorry.’ Quiet.

The word’s small. Smaller than it should be coming from a mouth that says everything else loud.

‘Don’t.’

‘I’m not, I’m not⁠—’

The sentence stops. Doesn’t reach for another one.

‘Don’t,’ I say. ‘You don’t need to.’

The face turns away. Towards the wall. The shoulders go up an inch, the way shoulders do when someone’s trying not to be seen.

I don’t reach. The hand wants to. I keep it on the mug.

Couple of minutes. Fridge clicks. The car on the wet road again, somebody driving circles for the parking maybe. Couldn’t be the same car. I want it to be the same car.

Celyn picks up the notebook. The pen.

The pen scratches. Three or four scratches, stops. The ink didn’t catch, or the word didn’t come, or the word came and Celyn didn’t want it. The pen lifts. The page gets crossed through. Once, twice harder, the leather bends from the pressure.

The notebook drops onto the duvet, pages open. Pen on top.

Celyn turns into the wall. The hoodie up over the ear. The breath starts to do the thing it does when somebody’s trying not to do the thing it does.

I don’t get up. I don’t reach.

The thing I want to do is fix it. Same way I want to breathe. The hands have a job and the job is to fix things and the hands don’t know where to go.

I keep the hands where they are.

My head says ask. My head says reach. My head says do something. My head’s been wrong about most things for twenty-seven years.

I put the mug on the floor.

Lie down on top of the duvet. Six inches between us, not touching. My back to Celyn’s back, the t-shirt soft, the joggers I don’t take off, just lie there, the lamp still on, the notebook between us with the page open.

The duvet’s the thick one Celyn brought from the old flat. Heavy, you can feel it pressing down even through the t-shirt. I don’t pull it over me. Lie on top, the way I’d lie on a mat between sets at the gym, like I’m not staying.

I look at the open page. Don’t read it. Look at the shape of the word Celyn was trying. Starts with a c. Three letters before the cross-through. Not English: the letters are too close together, the way Celyn writes the Welsh, the consonants you don’t have to soften.

I don’t read it. Eyes on the ceiling instead. Crack in the plaster, same crack.

After a while Celyn shifts. Half-turns. The back’s still turned but the hand comes back, finds the duvet, finds my hand on top of the duvet. Cold. The fingers cold and shaking still.

I don’t grip. Just leave the hand there.

The fingers grip mine.

We lie like that. The lamp on. The notebook open with the crossed-out word. The fridge clicks.

Eleven o’clock. I get up to wee, come back. The lamp’s still on. Celyn hasn’t moved. The grip released when I got up. Ready when I get back, the hand on the duvet, palm up.

I put my hand back. Lie down.

Three a.m.