Adults. Emma Jane Unsworth

might get one. Maybe it makes you morph like any relationship, except physically not psychologically.’

      My phone pings. Kelly again.

      Hey – did you get my last message? Could do with a chat x

      I’m thinking of what to reply and start scrolling before I know it and then Nicolette says bye and I put my phone back in my pocket and try to find my bank card and what was I doing? And how is it already dark? I zip up my jacket and hurry on. The street is littered with leaves, like the remains of a parade I’ve missed.

       I POST

      a video of my feet going through the leaves.

      No sooner has it gone up than Nicolette likes it and comments with a line of hearts.

      I message her:

      You are doing that thing we told each other to be aware of and promised to tell each other about

      What thing?

      After we’ve seen each other in real life, remember? You don’t need to prove our closeness to anyone else on there or the ongoing elevation of your feelings towards me. No cord has been cut. Same way if we haven’t seen each other or spoken for a while you don’t have to NOT like anything I put on there to make me notice you like you’re withholding affection from a lover

      I am not doing that! I felt those hearts

      Nicolette I know a real line of hearts and you know a fake line of hearts and that was a fake line of hearts

      Okay

      As soon as I’ve finished messaging, I go and see what Suzy Brambles has been up to. Not much. Which is rather remiss of her, I think.

      I catch the Overground to Dalston Kingsland, and from there walk to Stoke Newington. I like the walk down Kingsland Road, past the meat market and cocktail parlours. Old locals sip bitter outside the last few traditional boozers. Unhinged newspapers scud across the street into coffee cups and cigarette ends.

      When I get to the house I open the front door and shuffle in past the day’s pizza leaflets and taxi cards. This hallway is getting darker, and it’s not just the year; it’s the clutter. It used to feel spacious in here. Just after I moved in, Kelly came round and ran down the hall in her boots shouting: Is this your house? Is THIS your HOUSE? I said it was, for now. We have a plan, you see, Kelly and I. A plan that has withstood years, relationships, jobs, everything. We envisage spending our dotage together as an elderly couple in a manor house somewhere on the moors. ‘The Commune’, we call it. When we’re in the Commune … we say:

       We’ll drink martinis at 9 a.m.

       We’ll try all the drugs we were scared of taking when we were younger, like crack and smack

       We’ll Whac-a-Mole each other’s haemorrhoids

       We’ll have the highest quality mattresses money can buy*

       *And employ a person specifically to put duvet covers on

      We’ll go out in each other’s arms, freebasing – with Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill on repeat

      For now, alas, me and this dark hallway must find some way to coexist.

      I walk through to the lounge. Sid and Moon are in there, encrusted on the sofa, drinking Sid’s homemade probiotics.

      Fuck. I forgot to buy an avocado.

      Frances must be in her room. She’s the only one I can really endure for more than five seconds.

      Sid has artist’s hands, scabby and ink-covered. She works as a receptionist at a recruitment agency and spends most of her time doodling. Moon works in PR and is rocking neon knitwear and an erupting beehive. They are having a conversation about intestinal flora.

      ‘There’s a convincing argument that we are composite organisms rather than individuals,’ says Sid. ‘I don’t know which way round I work sometimes – whether my brain leads my stomach or my stomach leads my brain. If it’s the latter, that means I am ruled by billions of bacteria.’

      ‘I know what you mean,’ says Moon. ‘I’ve often wondered whether I have a personality or whether everything I’ve ever said or done has been a response to eating or not eating bread.’

      ‘So true,’ says Sid. ‘Sometimes I think the word “gluten” sets off a chain reaction in my body. I think it’s only a matter of time before they ban the word, too. And quite right …’

      ‘Listen,’ I say, ‘would you guys mind tidying up in here if you get time tonight? Just, you know … the footbath and the bagel slicer.’

      They stare at me. ‘I don’t suppose you remembered the avocado?’ says Sid.

      I shake my head. ‘I’ll get you one tomorrow.’

      ‘No avo and calling me “Stephanie” in your column. It’s practically abusive. Lol!’

      ‘I changed your name out of respect for your privacy.’

      ‘And then you wrote about our personal habits.’

      ‘It was for other women to learn from.’

      ‘What’s to learn? There was no conclusion in the piece. Nothing in it was of any consequence whatsoever.’

      ‘The conclusion is if you honestly share then you feel less alone.’

      Moon snorts into her ginger ale. ‘You said it was twenty years ago. That’s not very honest.’

      ‘Again, protecting you.’

      ‘I think talking about your friends’ bodies in public is a pretty garbage thing to do.’

      ‘It’s an online feminist magazine. And you’re my lodgers.’

      ‘Well,’ says Sid, ‘that’s put us in our place.’

      My cheeks are hot. I turn and walk out of the room.

      I am thirty-five, I am thirty-five, I chant as I walk to my room. I pass Frances’s door – the door to what should have been a different room altogether. I can hear her practising her latest one-woman monologue. ‘Call me, Adolf!’ she’s screaming. ‘Call me! CALL ME!’

      She gets funding for this shit. It’s all a bit much.

       THEY SAY

      screens at bedtime are bad for your brain, but the sensation of holding a phone is, I find, therapeutic. I find the shape of it reassuring. Soothing. I press it to my chest like a bible. Every few minutes I lift it up and look to see what has changed in the world. I feel the weight of my thumb. My heart pounds. My veins thrum. I am in every way alive and progressing. My brain is lit up like the Earth from space at night.

      I have a couple more likes for the croissant. I think it’s reasonable to conclude now that it wasn’t worth it. I squandered an entire morning on that. I can’t keep building these cathedrals out of crumbs.

      I scroll.

      A friend of mine, a semi-famous scriptwriter, has posted a picture of herself in a lift. She isn’t smiling. She looks like she’s in a perfume ad. Like she’s thinking: Look at me, don’t look at me, who are you, I don’t trust you … It is very effective and confusing. I comment:

       Looking reflective

      We’re real-life friends but she doesn’t follow me on here, which has always been a point of hurt. I know she seldom uses social media and she has a strict sense of how she is ‘seen’. But why don’t I fit in with however she is seen? Why am I not perfect