Unpublished novel: One

They don’t visit you when you have a near-death experience.

I know you’ve thought about it; if I get hit by a car, like, not breaking my bones but a bit life-threateningly, will he visit with flowers? Will I wake up to his tired eyes and anxiety-worn clothes?

No. No babes, you won’t. Even a text? Not even that.

Actually, no one does. Your family, of course, should they be so inclined, but ultimately - no one else knows. They aren’t telepathic. If they don’t call every day, you’ll probably be in that hospital gown and cotton undies for a few days at least before someone clocks your absence.

Staring at the blue curtains dividing you from the sick, crazy, or vengefully inclined (that’s the nurses), you start going a little mad. Wondering, well, why? How do they not just know? How do I let them know without just saying, “hey, in hospital, now accepting flowers” or sending a photo of you all wired up? For the first few days, you won’t. You think yourself above it. And then you hear people throw up a few times, set the fire alarm off to smoke in the fire escape despite being riddled with disease, or, worse, get discharged, and you fancy some company. You reach out. Your friends are great, beyond so — they’re so supportive. You get the flowers and the cards and it’s a balm for the pain. They do care. You are loved.

Still, you have time to think. Lot’s of time. Time is what you obsessed over, and now it was your prison guard. And the prison. And the crazy cell-mate. You were completely confined by Time, despite having tried to control it. And so, you think. Remember.

He walked down the street that day in October like he was in the opening sequence of his own film. He wasn’t born to be different, but carved himself to look that way. Every action was a consideration. The lit cigarette in his hand that he took to his mouth like a lover he really, really missed kissing. The walkman he had stolen from his mums dust-ridden cupboard at sixteen, to give himself just a bit more edge. The leather jacket, of course, was new, but shrugged on over unbothered-clothes to tarnish its unblemished shine. The orange and black leaves seemed to dance around him, almost intentionally not touching him in the hope he might reach and see them…

I know I sound obsessed. I do obsess. Over-indulgence is in my nature, how do you think I ended up in hospital in the first place? Once I focus on something, I cannot free myself. I realise now, though, that I cannot remember what kind of shoes Chelsea Boy wore. I suppose I was never looking down — always painfully looking up at his high stature, like lily might to the sun. It’s poetic because he made me this way.

He dragged the cigarette with an audible pop as it released from his lips. Great lips. If statues came to life, he’d walked straight out of the British Museum (where he was, unsurprisingly, stolen from Greece). “Hello.”

It’s just one word, but as a man of language he injected it with such a ringing baritone that it was all I needed to hear.

“Hello, you.” I said. I still feel my ribs shaking from his voice. I wanted to hear it again. I want to hear it now.

He tipped his black sunglasses down with the cigarette still dangling from two fingers. It’s clearly a perfected move from the way both his lips and eyes seem to smirk, and how the curly hair over his eyes didn’t singe. I told him I loved the shades, and he told me he stole them. At the time it made him feel like me, like we were carved from the same marble. (Or, for me, maybe slate). Now that I know how easily he could afford any pair of sunglasses he took a liking to, his stealing habits had a less-fun light.

But this, this was our first date. This was Chelsea Boy’s moment. He shined in that lighting, reflecting on me everything I hoped to find in a man.

“I read a new book today,” I began to tell him. I worked in the bookshop that sold his debut, it was how we’d met. It felt like safe ground for small talk.

“When?”

I frown. The light around him dims a bit. Was he thick?

“Today. It was about—”

He cuts me off. “No, when did I ask.”

Thinking back now, his quips drive me to lust. Bloodlust, that is. The slick wetness of my hospital bed reflects how thick my blood has boiled, remembering how rude he always was. Jokes aren’t funny if no one laughs.

But then, then he was golden. I laughed, enchanted, and we walked on to the little flower riddled pub called The Chelsea Potter that would latter form his nickname. It was so much more valuable than his actual name, because despite his indiscretions and stupid jokes and heartlessness, I still wanted Chelsea Boy. No one else shined like that, and I was nothing if not a magpie.

Settled now, I can’t help myself. I remember more and more and live each moment in my head like I’m rewatching my favourite series. I know what he does next, the drinks we order — white wine and a pint — and the table we sit in — corner, high table. I shiver thinking of my hideous leather-on-leather-on-leather outfit, of how I layered several belts over each other and shoved on my highest boots to lengthen my legs. Did he notice? No. Not unless I was in his shadow in the reflection of the mottled glass window. But nothing mattered then beyond his words. They leave the taste of something bitten in my mouth now, like rotten apples and perhaps turned milk, but a year ago they honeyed my thoughts beyond belief.

“What do you read,” I said, half way through my drink. I was an anxious alcoholic, and I don’t want to talk about it.

“I only really like fiction that revolves around coming-of-age events,” he explained. What he meant was drugs and alcohol filled partying, but as I said, poet.

“Mmmm,” I agreed, then, “a lot like your debut?”

He nodded enthusiastically. He loved talking about that book. You should’ve been there at the party. He could talk the hind legs off a donkey. With the leather jacket on and the buzz of alcohol beneath my skin, though, he sounded like a revolutionary. I loved parties. I loved whatever he wanted me to love.