She moves her hand to her ribs, feels the slow inflation of her diaphragm.

Do you think it would be better if we had never been together? she says.

I don’t know. For me it’s hard to imagine my life that way. Like, I don’t know where I would have gone to college then or where I would be now.

She pauses, lets this thought roll around for a moment, keeps her hand flat on her abdomen.

It’s funny the decisions you make because you like someone, he says, and then your whole life is different. I think we’re at that weird age where life can change a lot from small decisions. But you’ve been a very good influence on me overall, like I definitely am a better person now, I think. Thanks to you.

She lies there breathing. Her eyes are burning but she doesn’t make any move to touch them.

When we were together in first year of college, she says, were you lonely then?

No. Were you?

No. I was frustrated sometimes but not lonely. I never feel lonely when I’m with you.

Yeah, he says. That was kind of a perfect time in my life, to be honest. I don’t think I was ever really happy before then.

She holds her hand down hard on her abdomen, pressing the breath out of her body, and then inhales.

I really wanted you to kiss me last night, she says.

Oh.

Her chest inflates again and deflates slowly.

I wanted to as well, he says. I guess we misunderstood each other.

Well, that’s okay.

He clears his throat.

I don’t know what’s the best thing for us, he says. Obviously it’s nice for me hearing you say this stuff. But at the same time things have never ended well with us in the past. You know, you’re my best friend, I wouldn’t want to lose that for any reason.

Sure, I know what you mean.

Her eyes are wet now and she has to rub them to stop tears running.

Can I think about it? he says.

Of course.

I don’t want you to think I’m not appreciative.

She nods, wiping her nose with her fingers. She wonders if she could turn over onto her side and face the window now so he couldn’t look at her.

You really have been so supportive of me, he says. What with the depression and everything, not to linger on that too much, but you really helped me a lot.

You don’t owe me anything.

No, I know. I didn’t mean that.

She sits up, swings her feet off the bed, puts her face down in her hands.

I’m getting anxious now, he says. I hope you don’t feel like I’m rejecting you.

Don’t be anxious. Everything’s fine. I might head home now, if that’s okay.

I can drop you.

You don’t want to miss the second half, she says. I’ll walk, it’s alright.

She starts putting her shoes on.

I forgot there was even a match on, to be honest, he says.

But he doesn’t get up or look for his keys. She stands up and smooths her skirt down. He’s sitting on the bed watching her, an attentive, almost nervous expression on his face.

Okay, she says. Bye.

He reaches for her hand and she gives it to him without thinking. For a second he holds it, his thumb moving over her knuckles. Then he lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses it. She feels pleasurably crushed under the weight of his power over her, the vast ecstatic depth of her will to please him. That’s nice, she says. He nods. She feels a low gratifying ache inside her body, in her pelvic bone, in her back.

I’m just nervous, he says. I feel like it’s pretty obvious I don’t want you to leave.

In a tiny voice she says: I don’t find it obvious what you want.

He gets up and stands in front of her. Like a trained animal she stays stock-still, every nerve bristling. She wants to whimper out loud. He puts his hands on her hips and she lets him kiss her open mouth. The sensation is so extreme she feels faint.

I want this so much, she says.

It’s really nice to hear you say that. I’m going to switch the TV off, if that’s okay.

She gets onto the bed while he switches off the television. He sits beside her and they kiss again. His touch has a narcotic effect. A pleasurable stupidity comes over her, she wants very badly to remove her clothes. She lies back against the quilt and he leans over her. It has been years now. She feels his cock pressed hard against her hip and she shudders with the punishing force of her desire.

Hm, he says. I missed you.

It’s not like this with other people.

Well, I like you a lot more than other people.

He kisses her again and she feels his hands on her body. She is an abyss that he can reach into, an empty space for him to fill. Blindly, mechanically, she starts removing her clothes, and she can hear him unbuckle his belt. Time seems so elastic, stretched out by sound and motion. She lies on her front and presses her face into the mattress, and he touches the back of her thigh with his hand. Her body is just an item of property, and though it has been handed around and misused in various ways, it has somehow always belonged to him, and she feels like returning it to him now.

I actually don’t have condoms, he says.

It’s okay, I’m on the pill.

He touches her hair. She feels his fingertips brush the back of her neck.

Do you want it like this? he says.

However you want.

He gets on top of her, one hand planted on the mattress beside her face, the other in her hair.

I haven’t done this in a while, he says.

That’s okay.

When he’s inside her she hears her own voice crying out again and again, strange raw cries. She wants to hold onto him but she can’t, and she feels her right hand clawing uselessly at the quilt. He bends down so his face is a little closer to her ear.

Marianne? he says. Can we do this again like, next weekend and so on?

Whenever you want to.

He takes hold of her hair, not pulling it, just holding it in his hand. Whenever I want, really? he says.

You can do anything you want with me.

He makes a noise in his throat, leans into her a little harder. That’s nice, he says.

Her voice sounds hoarse now. Do you like me saying that? she says.

Yeah, a lot.

Will you tell me I belong to you?

What do you mean? he says.

She says nothing, just breathes hard into the quilt and feels her own breath on her face. Connell pauses now, waiting for her to say something.

Will you hit me? she says.

For a few seconds she hears nothing, not even his breath.

No, he says. I don’t think I want that. Sorry.

She says nothing.

Is that okay? he asks.

She still says nothing.

Do you want to stop? he says.

She nods her head. She feels his weight lift off her. She feels empty again and suddenly chill. He sits on the bed and pulls the quilt over himself. She lies there face down, not moving, unable to think of any acceptable movement.

Are you okay? he says. I’m sorry I didn’t want to do that, I just think it would be weird. I mean, not weird, but … I don’t know. I don’t think it would be a good idea.

Her breasts ache from lying flat like this and her face prickles.

You think I’m weird? she says.

I didn’t say that. I just meant, you know, I don’t want things to be weird between us.

She feels terribly hot now, sour heat, all over her skin and in her eyes. She sits up, faces the window, pushes her hair out of her face.

I think I’m going to go home now, if that’s okay, she says.

Yeah. If that’s what you want.

She finds her clothes and puts them on. He starts getting dressed, he says he’ll drive her home at least, and she says she wants to walk. It becomes a farcical competition between them, who can dress faster, and having a head start she finishes first and runs down the stairs. He’s on the landing by the time she closes the front door behind her. Out on the street she feels like a petulant child, slamming the door on him like that while he raced out to the landing. Something has come over her, she doesn’t know what it is. It reminds her of how she used to feel in Sweden, a kind of nothingness, like there’s no life inside her. She hates the person she has become, without feeling any power to change anything about herself. She is someone even Connell finds disgusting, she has gone past what he can tolerate. In school they were both in the same place, both confused and somehow suffering, and ever since then she has believed that if they could return to that place together it would be the same. Now she knows that in the intervening years Connell has been growing slowly more adjusted to the world, a process of adjustment that has been steady if sometimes painful, while she herself has been degenerating, moving further and further from wholesomeness, becoming something unrecognisably debased, and they have nothing left in common at all.

By the time she lets herself into her own house it’s after ten. Her mother’s car isn’t in the driveway and inside the hall is cool and sounds empty. She takes her sandals off and puts them on the rack, hangs her handbag on a coat hook, combs her fingers through her hair.

At the end of the hall, Alan comes up from the kitchen with a bottle of beer in his hand.

Where the fuck were you? he says.

Connell’s house.

He moves in front of the staircase, swinging the bottle at his side.

You shouldn’t be going over there, he says.

She shrugs. She knows a confrontation is coming now, and she can do nothing to stop it. It’s moving towards her already from every direction, and there’s no special move she can make, no evasive gesture, that can help her escape it.

I thought you liked him, says Marianne. You did when we were in school.

Yeah, how was I supposed to know he was fucked in the head? He’s on medication and everything, did you know that?

He’s doing pretty well at the moment, I think.

What is he hanging around you for, so? says Alan.

I suppose you’d have to ask him.

She tries to move towards the stairs but Alan puts his free hand down on the banister.

I don’t want people going around town saying that knacker is riding my sister, says Alan.

Can I go upstairs now, please?

Alan is gripping his beer bottle very tightly. I don’t want you to go near him again, he says. I’m warning you now. People in town are talking about you.

I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I cared what people thought of me.

Before she’s really aware of what’s happening, Alan lifts his arm and throws the bottle at her. It smashes behind her on the tiles. On some level she knows that he can’t have intended to hit her; they’re only standing a few feet apart and it missed her completely. Still she runs past him, up the stairs. She feels her body racing through the cool interior air. He turns and follows her but she manages to make it into her room, pushing herself hard against the door, before he catches up. He tries the handle and she has to strain to keep it from turning. Then he kicks the outside of the door. Her body is vibrating with adrenaline.

You absolute freak! Alan says. Open the fucking door, I didn’t do anything!

Forehead against the smooth grain of the wood, she calls out: Please just leave me alone. Go to bed, okay? I’ll clean up downstairs, I won’t tell Denise.

Open the door, he says.

Marianne leans the whole weight of her body against the door, her hands firmly grasping the handle, eyes screwed shut. From a young age her life has been abnormal, she knows that. But so much is covered over in time now, the way leaves fall and cover a piece of earth, and eventually mingle with the soil. Things that happened to her then are buried in the earth of her body. She tries to be a good person. But deep down she knows she is a bad person, corrupted, wrong, and all her efforts to be right, to have the right opinions, to say the right things, these efforts only disguise what is buried inside her, the evil part of herself.

Abruptly she feels the handle slip from underneath her hand and before she can step away from the door, it bangs open. She hears a cracking noise when it connects with her face, then a strange feeling inside her head. She steps backwards while Alan enters the room. There’s a ringing, but it’s not so much a sound as a physical sensation, like the friction of two imagined metal plates somewhere in her skull. Her nose is running. She’s aware that Alan is inside the room. Her hand goes to her face. Her nose is running really quite badly. Lifting the hand away now, she sees that her fingers are covered in blood, warm blood, wet. Alan is saying something. The blood must be coming out of her face. Her vision swims diagonally and the sense of ringing increases.

Are you going to blame me for that now? says Alan.

She puts her hand back to her nose. Blood is streaming out of her face so fast that she can’t stem it with her fingers. It runs over her mouth and down her chin, she can feel it. She sees it land in heavy drops on the blue carpet fibres below.