It is still on the windowsill. Blue Clipper, slightly chewed at the bottom, the kind you buy for a pound fifty when you have already spent too much on a round. Sophie clocked it on Sunday while she was watering that plant she insists is thriving. It is not thriving. Neither is my excuse.
She said, why is there a clipper on the windowsill that is not ours.
I said it was Mia’s.
Mia, from the sofa, without looking up, said it was mine.
So that went well.
I did not keep it as a trophy
People love that version. The girl who pockets a souvenir like she is collecting stamps. I have done messier things than steal a lighter and I would still like it on record that this was not that. I kept it because by Monday morning I was already doing that thing I do where I flatten a night until it could have been a story I told for content. The Clipper is ugly and specific. You cannot invent a bite mark.
He left it on the kitchen counter next to a glass that still had lipstick on it. Mine. I noticed it while the kettle was boiling and Sophie was in the shower singing like she had not just clocked a stranger’s shoes by the door. I picked it up. Put it down. Picked it up again. That is the whole crime, really.
Look, I know how this reads. Girl keeps object. Girl is not over it. Girl needs a hobby. Fine. I am not over the fact that I keep meeting people who evaporate at daylight and then I have to sit in my own flat explaining a smell of smoke that is not mine.
How he got in the kitchen at all
Saturday started normally, which in this house means Mia sending a location at 8.47pm with no context and me already doing my eyeliner like I had agreed. We ended up in Soho because of course we did. One of those rooms that pretends it is members only until you know someone on the door. I was in the good jeans. The ones that make me walk like I have somewhere better to be.
He was at the bar talking to no one in particular, which is a talent. Tall enough. Dark hair that had given up around midnight. The sort of face that looks better when it is tired. I clocked the lighter first, actually. He kept flicking it open and shut while he waited for drinks, not even smoking yet, just giving his hands a job. I thought, right, so you are one of those.
I asked for a light I did not need. Classic. He looked at me like I had just done a bit and then he smiled anyway. We did the usual. Where are you from. What do you do. I said I write and he said oh like a journalist and I said sort of, if journalists got paid in attention. He laughed at that. Men always laugh at that. It saves them asking a second question.
We went outside. Shared a cigarette I also did not need. London at one in the morning in late September is all bus fumes and perfume and someone crying near a chicken shop. Romantic if you squint. He told me he was crashing at a mate’s in Fulham. I told him I lived in Parsons Green. That is not far, he said. I know it is not far, I said. I have lived here long enough to know exactly how stupid that sentence is.
Mia saw us from the doorway and gave me the look. The one that means I am not saving you and also I am proud. Sophie had already gone home, which is Sophie’s whole personality after midnight. Responsible. Judging from a distance. Deeply useful when you need a witness later.
The bit I will actually admit
We got an Uber. He sat like he had been in Ubers with girls before and I sat like I had written the caption already. I am aware that is unattractive. I am also aware it is true. He smelled like that cologne everyone in Zone 2 thinks is original. I still let him put his hand on my knee. I contain contradictions. Or I am just easy when the night has already cost me forty quid in drinks. Both can be true.
At the flat I told him to be quiet because of Sophie. He whispered like we were in a library. It was annoying and sort of sweet. We did not make it past the kitchen first. That sounds filthier than it was. We were just there, him leaning on the counter, me pretending I was getting water, the pair of us delaying the walk down the hall like teenagers. Then we did go down the hall. I am not writing the rest of that for free. Use your imagination. It was good enough that I did not check my phone for an hour, which for me is devotion.
He fell asleep on his back. I lay there doing the unhinged little inventory I always do. Jacket on the chair. Watch on the floor. Lighter still in his jeans, I thought. Except it was not, because at some point he had used it by the window and left it in the kitchen like a man who assumes the world will hold his things for him.
I got up before him. Redid my face in the bathroom because I refuse to be seen uncorrected in daylight. Looked in the mirror longer than necessary. That is a habit. I know how I look when I am trying not to look like I care. I look like I care.
Sunday morning is where the story gets small
He came into the kitchen in last night’s shirt and asked if we had coffee that was not instant. We did. I made it. He said thanks Chels, which I do not remember telling him, so he must have got it off Mia or off my mouth at some point when I was being charming. He drank it standing up. Checked his phone. Did that laugh people do when a group chat has caught fire overnight.
I asked if he wanted breakfast. He said he should get back. Of course he should. They always should. I walked him to the door like a hostess. He kissed me on the cheek, which felt worse than if he had not kissed me at all. Then he was gone down the stairs two at a time, already on a call.
I went back to the kitchen. There it was. The Clipper. Blue. Chewed. Sitting next to the fruit bowl like it paid rent.
I should have put it in the drawer with the takeaway menus and the batteries. I put it on the windowsill instead. Next to the plant. In the light. Where I would see it.
Mia wandered in wearing my jumper and said, he was fit then. I said he was fine. She said fine is how I talk when I liked him. I told her to make toast and mind her business. She made toast. She did not mind her business.
Sophie does not miss objects
Sophie waters plants on Sundays. Sophie notices foreign cutlery. Sophie once found a sock that was not ours and held a flat meeting about it. So when she picked up the Clipper between two fingers like it might be contagious, I was ready, and I still lied badly.
Mia’s, I said.
Mine, Mia said.
Sophie looked at both of us. Then she looked at the shoes that were no longer by the door. Then she put the lighter back exactly where it had been, which is worse than throwing it away, because now it is evidence she has agreed to live with.
She said, you do know you can just say you had someone here.
I do know that. Saying it makes it a person. A Clipper on a sill can still be a prop.
I told her I was not hiding him. I was hiding the fact that I already could not remember his second name and I hated how ordinary that felt. She said that was honest, at least. Then she asked if he was coming back for it.
I said I doubted it.
She said good.
Mia said she would use it if nobody claimed it. I told her not to touch it. That was the moment I gave the game away. You do not defend a pound-fifty lighter unless it is doing a job.
What the job is
I have a habit of turning nights into content before they have finished happening. It is the job. It is also the dodge. If I write it funny, it cannot have landed. If I give him a nickname in the group chat, he becomes a type. Mayfair Suit. Wrong Uber. Kitchen Counter. This one has not earned a nickname yet, which is irritating.
The lighter stops me from sanding him down. Every time I go to make tea I see it and think, no, he was real, he flicked that thing outside the bar, he left it like he would be back in five minutes. He will not be back in five minutes. I checked. No follow. No message after the polite one at 2pm that said last night was fun. Fun is a wet word. I replied with a full stop energy smiley and then I put my phone face down like a grown up.
Do I want him back? Not in the way that would survive a Tuesday. I want the version of Saturday where I was the most interesting person in a small radius. I want proof I did not make that up because I needed a paragraph.
Is that sad? A bit. Is it also extremely me? Yes.
Mia has a theory
Mia thinks I keep things because I do not keep people. She said it while painting her nails on my bed, which she does when she wants to be listened to. I told her that was rich coming from someone who still has an ex’s charger in the hallway drawer. She said at least a charger is useful. A chewed Clipper is a shrine.
I said it is not a shrine. It is admin. Physical evidence. Like receipts, except sexier, except not.
She asked if I would give it back if he texted.
I thought about it longer than I meant to. Then I said probably. Then I said I would photograph it first. She called me disgusting and borrowed my concealer. That is love, in this flat.
What I am not doing
I am not waiting by the window. I am not sniffing it. I am not naming it. I am not writing him a cute story in my notes app about fate and smoking and how our hands touched over a flame. I have standards. Low ones, but they exist.
I am also not throwing it away yet. Sophie asked again on Wednesday, casually, like she was asking about milk. Still there, I said. She said it makes the kitchen look like a pub. I said the kitchen already looks like a pub most weekends. She could not argue that and went to work.
Sometimes I catch myself lining it up with the edge of the sill. Straight. Label facing out. That is the vanity creeping in. Even my mess wants to photograph well.
If you are waiting for a moral
There is not one, really. I went out. I brought someone home. He left a lighter. I kept it because I am twenty seven and still slightly terrified that a night can vanish if I do not pin it down with an object. Fame is the big fear, being nobody. This is the small version of the same fear. Being a girl who tells stories that did not happen.
He happened. The Clipper happened. Sophie asking happened. Mia selling me out happened. That is the article. That is the whole thing.
Tonight I am going out again. Different jeans. Same face. If I come home with another lighter I will have a collection and Sophie will evict me, or at least start a group chat without me. If I come home with nothing I will still see the blue one in the morning when I make tea, sitting there like it knows something.
I should chuck it.
I will not chuck it today.
Anyway. If he does come back for it, he can text. I will be in the kitchen. The plant still is not thriving. I am, depending who you ask.