I did shout. Sort of.
It came out more like a yelp than an actual warning, which is useless when someone already has their hand on the handle. By the time the sound left my mouth the door was open and Sophie was standing there in her work cardigan holding two mugs, looking at a situation that was very much not tea related.
He was still in my bed. I was still not wearing anything you’d describe as clothes. The duvet had given up halfway through the night, as duvets do when you have been inconsiderate with them. Sophie went scarlet so fast I thought she might faint. Then she said, very quietly, “I’ll put the kettle on,” and shut the door like she’d walked into the wrong meeting at work.
Which, to be fair, she had.
How we got here
His name is Tom. Or Tim. I am going with Tom because that is what I put in my phone at 2am and I am not opening that chat to check. We met in Soho, the usual circuit, that little bar on the corner that always smells of spilled tonic and other people’s perfume. He was tall enough, funny enough, and he didn’t do that thing where men explain the cocktail list to you as if you have never been outside.
I wasn’t hunting. I was just out. Mia had peeled off with some DJ she swore was “actually quite big in Berlin,” which in London usually means he has an AUX cable and a cousin with a warehouse. Sophie had gone home at a respectable hour because she had a 9am and a moral compass. I stayed. I always stay a bit longer than I mean to. That is not a personality flaw. That is a schedule.
Tom bought the next round. I let him. We talked about nothing useful. He laughed at the right moments. At some point I looked at him properly, in that ugly yellow bar light, and thought yes, fine, this will do. I know how that sounds. I also know how Saturday nights actually work when you are twenty seven and your flat is twenty five minutes away in a cab if the driver is feeling generous.
I should have texted the girls. I didn’t. I told myself I would in the morning. I always tell myself that.
The lock I did not use
Our rooms do lock. That is the whole point of paying what we pay in Parsons Green. I know the lock works because I tested it the week we moved in, like a person who intended to be considerate. Last night I did not use it. I had my heels in one hand and his shirt in the other and I was already thinking about whether I had any decent water left in the fridge. Romance is rarely as organised as people pretend on their grid.
He was decent, if you want the honest version. Not cinematic. Not disappointing either. He had cold hands and he apologised for them, which I found more charming than it deserved to be. I fell asleep on my front with makeup still on, which I will regret when I look at the pillowcase. I always regret the pillowcase and I never take the makeup off. Some habits are bigger than consequences.
Morning arrived the way it always does after a night like that. Grey light. A mouth that tasted of lime and bad decisions. Him breathing like he had paid rent. I was halfway through locating my phone under the bed when the door opened.
Sophie.
She takes tea seriously. Builder’s, splash of milk, no sugar, mug that does not match anything else in the cupboard. She had made two. One for her, one for me, because that is the sort of person she is even when she is furious with you. She did not scream. She did not laugh. She just took in the scene the way she takes in a bad seating plan at a press dinner, filed it, and left.
I pulled the duvet up so hard I nearly took Tom with it. He made a noise that I think was meant to be a greeting. Sophie did not return it. The door clicked. The kettle went on in the kitchen like this was any other Sunday.
That was worse than if she’d shouted. Shouting you can work with. Polite retreat is a life sentence.
The kitchen summit
I put on a shirt that was not mine and a pair of shorts that were, which felt like the correct ratio of dignity to chaos. Tom stayed in the room because even he could tell the temperature in the hall had dropped. I walked into the kitchen and Sophie was stirring tea as if it had personally offended her.
“I did shout,” I said.
“You made a sound,” she said. “That is not the same thing.”
She was right. I hate when she is right before caffeine.
Mia appeared then, because Mia can smell drama through walls. Hair in a claw clip, last night’s eyeliner still doing its best. She took one look at my stolen shirt, one look at Sophie’s face, and started grinning like Christmas had come early.
“No,” I said.
“Oh yes,” she said. “Who is in there?”
“A person.”
“A person with a name?”
“Tom. I think.”
Mia sat on the counter, which we have asked her not to do about forty times, and stole my tea. “Sophie walked in, didn’t she.”
Sophie did not answer. She did not need to. The colour in her cheeks was still doing the talking.
I tried to explain the lock. I tried to explain the shout. I tried to explain that it was early and nobody expects a housemate to do a tea round at that hour on a Sunday. All of it sounded thin even to me. The truth is simpler. I got lazy. I got comfortable. I treated the flat like it was only mine for the night, which it isn’t, which I know, which I ignore when it suits me.
Sophie pushed the second mug towards me anyway. That is the thing about her. She will be embarrassed and still make sure you have something hot in your hands. I don’t deserve her and I say that as someone who rarely admits she doesn’t deserve things.
Getting him out of the flat
The walk of whatever you want to call it is always worse when there are witnesses. Tom came out in last night’s jeans looking like a man who had heard every word through the door and decided to pretend he hadn’t. He said hello to Sophie. Sophie said hello back in her work voice. Mia waved like she was on a balcony.
I got him to the front door as fast as manners allowed. He asked if I wanted to do something later in the week. I said maybe, which in my language means I will think about it when my head stops hurting. He kissed my cheek. Sophie looked at the floor. Mia looked delighted.
When the door shut, Mia clapped once, quietly, like a theatre kid.
“You are both unwell,” Sophie said.
“You made him tea adjacent hospitality,” Mia said. “That is worse.”
Sophie sat down at the table and put her head in her hands. “I just wanted to know if you were alive. You didn’t come home. Your location was off. I thought you were in a ditch.”
That landed. I forget she does that, the quiet checking. I treat the night like a story and she treats it like a risk assessment. We live in the same flat and we are not living the same life.
“I’m sorry you saw that,” I said, and I meant it, even if I also knew I would tell the story later. Both things can sit in the same sentence. I contain a lot of inconvenient truths.
“I am going to bleach my eyes,” she said.
“Please don’t. They are your best feature.”
She almost smiled. Almost. Then she pointed at me with her teaspoon. “Lock the door, Chels. I am begging you.”
What Mia is going to do with this
Mia has already started. She changed the group chat name to “knock first you animals.” She put a sticky note on my door that just says PLEASE in capital letters. She asked Tom’s star sign, which I do not know, and then decided he was a Gemini based on the fact he left his lighter on my windowsill.
She will bring this up at dinner. She will bring it up when Sophie’s sister visits. She will bring it up in six months when we are arguing about whose turn it is to buy bin bags. That is her love language. Public memory.
I should be annoyed. Part of me is. The other part, the part that started a blog because I cannot keep a secret to save my life, knows this is exactly the sort of thing I would have written about even if it happened to someone else. It just happened to be my room and Sophie’s retinas.
For the record, nothing about it was that shocking if you have ever lived with other people in this city. Walls are thin. Doors are optimistic. Everybody thinks they are quieter than they are. The only unusual bit is Sophie’s manners. Most people would have screamed. She made tea. That is why she is dangerous. She will remember this with perfect politeness forever.
The bit I am actually embarrassed about
Not the sex. I am not performing shame I do not feel. I like men. I like nights that run on too long. I like coming home when the sky is already thinking about morning. That is not a confession. That is a calendar.
What I am embarrassed about is the laziness. The unlocked door. The half shout. The fact Sophie had to find out I was safe by walking in on me instead of getting a text that said on my way with a heart she would have rolled her eyes at. She does the adult bit of this household. I do the anecdotes. It works until it doesn’t, and yesterday morning it didn’t.
I washed the pillowcase. I opened a window. I put Tom’s lighter in the bowl by the front door in case he wants it back, which he won’t. Sophie has gone for a walk to “reset her brain.” Mia is in the shower singing. The flat smells of toast and someone else’s aftershave.
I locked my door just now, even though I am alone in the room. Practice, I suppose.
If you share a flat, lock it. Shout properly. And if you are going to make someone tea after they have ruined your Sunday, at least make them feel half as guilty as I do. Sophie managed it without raising her voice. That is talent. That is also why Mia is never going to let either of us forget this one.
