Page 51 of Our Stop

‘You can’t … you know. Get consent.’

‘Woah! Who said I was going to fuck her?’

‘Nobody. I didn’t mean—’

‘Fuck you, man. What are you fucking saying?’

Daniel held up his hands, in surrender. ‘I’m saying I’ll get my duvet and sleep in here, and she should go in my room with a pint of water and fully clothed. That’s all.’

Lorenzo’s face flashed purple with rage. ‘I’m not some fucking creep. What do you think I’m going to do?

‘Nothing …’ Daniel tried to sound calm. Emotionless. Non-judgmental. He kept his voice level. ‘Lorenzo, you’re drunk. Just go to bed.’

Lorenzo pushed Daniel’s shoulder. ‘You’re drunk!’ He pushed Daniel’s shoulder again. ‘Fuck you!’

Daniel pushed him back, instinctively. ‘Don’t push me.’

Lorenzo pushed him again. ‘Don’t push me!’

Daniel wasn’t sure how it happened, but one of them lunged at the other – he’d say tomorrow morning that it was Lorenzo who’d forced his hand, but he couldn’t be sure, they were both drunk and angry – and Daniel could only remember a feeling of almighty pain, the sensation of liquid running down his cheek. There was screaming. Oh god, there was screaming.

‘Stop! Ohmygod! Stop!’ It was Becky. She was crying – sobbing. Really, really, sobbing. Daniel adjusted his focus and saw Lorenzo lying on his side, groaning. He touched his hand to his face and then looked at his fingers. Blood. They’d beaten the living daylights out of each other.

Becky continued to cry – a weird, confused cry, but a cry that indicated she’d sobered up. The cushions were pulled off the sofa, the coffee table had dragged the rug underneath it into a ball, and Daniel wasn’t just breathing deeply but panting.

‘Becky,’ he said, sounding as authoritative as he could under the circumstances. ‘I’m going to call you an Uber, okay?’

Becky made eye contact with him and nodded through tears that were now stunned and silent.

‘Come on.’

It hurt Daniel to stand, and looking in the living-room mirror he understood why: there was a bruise shining brightly at the top of his right arm, which he could see because his shirt had popped open and been pulled down, and there was another shiner below his right eye too. He looked sweaty and dirty and bloodied and a mess. ‘Where’s my phone?’ he asked, and Lorenzo silently handed it to him from the floor, his eyes fixed firmly on the ground. He looked almost as bad as Daniel did.

‘Get your bag, Becky. We’ll wait outside.’

Daniel and Becky waited outside, neither of them knowing what to say. The Uber pulled up, and Daniel opened the door for her.

‘Get home safe.’

She nodded.

Inside, Lorenzo had tidied up the mess they’d made. The cushions were back in place and he’d sorted out the rug and coffee table. There was just a single lamp on, and his bedroom door was closed. Daniel thought about knocking on it, but didn’t know what he’d say. He wasn’t sure what had just happened, really. He just knew he was relieved the girl wasn’t behind that closed door with his flatmate. He just … Lorenzo shouldn’t have brought her home, and that was the end of it.

He leaned in close to the mirror, and even in the dim light he could see the bruise, already deeper and brighter. It hurt to touch.

‘Fuck,’ he said quietly, a sentiment he’d continue for the next four days, when the bruising looked worse before it looked better.

33

Nadia

Nadia had ended up seeing Eddie earlier than planned, on the Saturday instead of the Sunday. They’d texted all of Friday night, with Eddie giving Nadia a blow-by-blow account of what he thought about firstYou’ve Got Mail, and then when Nadia said she was going to watchSleepless in Seattlebecause she loved Meg Ryan, he timed it so that he played the same movie in sync with her from his house. They messaged back and forth, unpacking the plot in real time, talking about their lives and cracking jokes in between talking about the movie. It was 2 a.m. by the time Eddie had said:This is nice. You. Me. Us.

And it had been. Eddie was good company, even via a phone screen, and in the end Nadia took a breath and typed,Hey – I don’t suppose you’re free tomorrow, are you?

For you I might be …he’d said back, and so at 11 a.m. the next day they’d met for coffee at Granger & Co. in King’s Cross, and coffee turned into brunch, and brunch turned into a slow meander down to the Wellcome Collection, which neither of them were particularly bothered about, but it was an excuse to be together, to keep talking. After the exhibition they walked some more, and Nadia hadn’t realized she was guiding them towards the direction of her flat, until it was 4 p.m. and Eddie had said, ‘What now?’

‘We could stop at Tesco,’ Nadia said, ‘and then go cook at mine?’

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