the run in, the confession, the accident

I hadn’t seen her in years.
She was just as, if not more, attractive than I remembered.

And from the glassy sheen of her brown black eyes...I could see that she was seriously drunk.

The look she gave me when I greeted her, made it abundantly clear she had no idea who I was,

but in any case if I was unknown to her, she seemed more than happy to make my acquaintance.

I wanted to play along, but couldn’t control my amusement.

lady... hey!...its me! remember...?

her eyes, shifting and focusing, locking into place as if working out a complex equation and then...she throws her arms around me, i think we may even end up holding hands.

oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god it’s you!

she says.

the bar I’d been heading to was closed. I manage to signal to the friend I’m with, that I’ve been kidnapped by this girl, as he joins her friend and we all walk along. And now she is talking in a breathless ramble, zigzagging down the pavement, clinging to me. I try my best to help her maintain her balance.

she tells me how happy she is to see me, but that she’d been very sad lately. she doesn’t want to tell me why, but she is very sad and most of all, she is very very drunk. i nod and smile and tell her again and again that its ok, that i'm happy to see her as well. funny to run into her really, as i don’t even live in the neighborhood , or the city, or the country any more. but then its such a small world isn’t it

she’s very drunk she says. maybe we should pass on having another drink i say. my friend seconds this, its thursday, we’re both skint. we’d really be fine with turning the corner and walking home.

but no no no no no the girl says. she hasn’t seen me in ages, and she’s not working tomorrow and all she wants is one or two more drinks, and her other friends have left so please could we not be so boring and walk five minutes with her to a very very very near pub.

so me, my friend, and this girl’s friend walk along. its a much longer walk than the promised five minutes. she gets my attention again. makes sure we’re walking a little further ahead, needs to make sure no one else is listening. its very important i listen. its very important i hear what she has to tell me. there’s something she’s always wanted to tell me, she can only tell me now, because she’s very drunk.

i really used to fancy you.

she says.

I say that.s very sweet of her to say, and feeling her struggle to walk straight, am about to suggest again, that maybe we should skip this drink. I’m feeling more and more like we should meet another time. but no no no we can go just-for-one just-for-one and did i hear her? did i hear her say she used to really fancy me? and no she isn’t a lesbian. that would be fine but she isn’t. and actually l’m the only girl she’s ever fancied but it used to really mess with her head.

I’m not sure what to say or how to take this.

but its ok because she’d worked out it wasn’t a sexual thing. she just really liked me then and thought i was really cool and beautiful, but its ok now.

it used to really mess with my head.

its cool, don’t worry about it.

And i appreciate its important for her to tell me this, but now more than ever, as her monologue repeats, it starts to make me feel incredibly anxious.

we get to the bar, we just about get last orders. afterwards she suggests that me and my friend go with her to another late night bar. but we don’t really have money, and its not really walking distance. but she says please, and she’s paying the cab fare, and she’ll get our drinks. and she’s so excited we’re going with her. she’s not working tomorrow. ok ok ok we say, and relent.

at the bar , after she gets a round, she disapears to the dance floor. i try to find her for a while, and then give up, going instead to the smoking courtyard. i get talking to a boy i think is my friend Florian from Berlin, only to discover it is really my friend Naruna’s friend Etienne from paris. Then some lovely east london gay boy is talking to me about how everyone here is spanish. shhh just listen he says. so i listen and he’s right and hey..

what happened to that girl I came in with? I ’m a little worried. should i look for her? should i be worried? no of course not my new friend says, its a nice local bar, a gay bar. nothing bad can happen. what bad thing could happen to a girl in a nice local gay bar.? relax. smoke another cigarette. he lights all of my cigarettes. I really like talking to him, this is turning out to be nice chilled evening and then..

a bouncer walks up to me and asks me to come out right now, something had happened to the girl i came in with.

when i walk out the front doors the first thing i see is the police cars, then the ambulance. i walk to the police car and peer through the back windows to see my long lost friend. her right eye puffed up and swollen. as if she’d been punched there. what happened? the police regard me with piercing glares. she was very drunk, how could i have left her by herself? she had walked out and hit her head on the pavement. if i could be at all helpful maybe i could convince her to get into the ambulance.

she insists everyone is making a big deal out of nothing. i somehow coax her into the ambulance. sobered by the sight of her , too broke to even get the bus. i walk the thirty or forty minutes it takes to get home. smoking the last of a ten pack of cigarettes. and all i can hear in my head, is the echo of the ambulance sirens, and her saying again and again.

i used to really fancy you , you know? you’re the only girl i have ever fancied.

and it really used to mess with my head...