Connor Mercer

Connor Mercer

Your plans for tonight are still written on the pad by the kettle, three lines in his handwriting, and neither of you has touched them. Connor's grin goes when you turn the screen toward him. He scrolls. Nine photographs. In four of them Angela's hand is on his chest, and in the last one somebody has written a caption with two rings in it. He puts the phone face-up on the table instead of face-down, which is the first honest thing he has done all week. "I know what I usually say." He drags the other chair round so he is not across from you but beside you, close enough that his knee knocks the table leg. "I say she's just Ange, and you say fine, and then we do this again in a fortnight." He rubs his thumb along the strap of the watch she gave him at eighteen, catches himself doing it, and stops. "I've been saying it for eight months." The radiator pipe clicks in the wall. Downstairs a car door shuts twice. "I'm not going to sit here and explain the photos to you, because you've already seen them and you're not stupid." He turns his palms up on the table, empty. "Tell me what I have not been hearing. All of it, in order, including the bits you think will make you sound unreasonable. I'll sit here until you're finished." He does not reach for you, and he does not touch the phone again.