Why does she keep coming back?
He wasn’t complaining. He was desperately grateful, but he wasn’t sure she knew that. Or maybe she did. Maybe that was part of knowing him. So few people knew Langdale Pike – actually knew him, as a human being – and they were all sensible enough to keep a safe distance and most of them fucked off eventually. It was standard procedure. Kitty was different and he didn’t know why. She had read so far past the headlines, she should have crumpled him up and tossed him out years ago. Yet, here she was, still turning pages, still answering when he called. Still not sick of it. It was mad, really. How long did he think he think it could last?
The blogger cursed himself with every breath as he hauled himself out of bed, pulled on some jeans, changed his t-shirt for a clean one. Cursed himself for always getting it wrong, for never knowing exactly what it was he was trying to achieve with her. Why did he test the limits like this? Throwing it out there that he was drunk, as though he were excusing himself for inviting her over. To justify a request that wasn’t really a request. (No pleasantries. No thought to what sort of day she might have had or if she had plans. He might as well have texted, i’m a selfish prick, come over.)
What sort of drunk did she expect tonight? What sort of drunk was he? He didn’t even know. He was drinking wine.
When Lang was a little kid he’d had a plastic pirate action figure whose sword-arm had snapped off. His gran had super-glued it back on, told him not to touch it while the glue was drying, but curious little fingers had pried it apart when her back was turned. He had wanted to observe the process. As a result, the glue had done the basic job of reuniting man with limb, but if you tugged at it, it would still come away, attached to the torso by threads of sticky, gluey sinew.
Pike poured himself another glass and knocked it back in seconds. It was alright. They could order pizza. Watch a movie. It didn’t matter. He just needed her here. He flopped down on the sofa, picked up the remote, pointed it mindlessly at the telly. Didn’t take in anything of the sounds and lights filling the room.
Kitty knew the fine-print. She had seen the rough drafts. She was close enough to smell the ink, and she could tell it was toxic, surely. Still, she ran to his doorstep again and again, and he didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand why she let him use her like this. As an escape, a distraction, a pastime, a crossword puzzle he never finished.
There came the familiar knock at the door and Pike’s stomach gnawed at itself.
Sober, day-to-day, he liked to think (or feel, at least, foolishly) that he could keep her… compartmentalised, somehow. She was another column; separate from the rest of it, from the scraps of daily life that made up his total existence. But in truth, Kitty Riley was anything but separate.
If anything, she was the glue.
Pike ran a hand through his dark curls and opened the door to his realest friend.
If he'd been sober, he'd have been able to tell how exhausted she was. She worked longer and harder hours than anyone else at that tiny local paper because she had everything to make up for and prove. Her social life was rushed phone calls to the odd old friend who hadn't followed the Brook story too closely and a long-scheduled lunch with her mum whenever she was in town. And Langdale Pike, the one constant.
Langdale Pike, who made her sigh on sight to disguise the way just seeing him standing there like that knocked the breath out of her.
Langdale Pike, who wouldn't notice that she suddenly felt a lot like crying, or who would notice and would pretend anyway that everything was fine, just like every other night, TV and pizza and gossip that was becoming less and less heartfelt because it was pushing them further and further away from what was at the heart of it all.
Lang, who was ruining everything this time, for himself and for her. And them. Was there a them? She wanted to cry.
"You look like shit," she said matter-of-factly, pushing him gently aside with a firm palm on his chest so she could finally, finally, finally kick those heels off and leave them beside the door. She turned back to face him, hands on her hips, pursing her lips with eyebrows raised. "When was the last time you brushed your hair?"
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