Then Because She Goes - Matty Healy

You fracture light again

*recreational drug use

Hypotheticals - Lake Street Dive

1 June, 2018

Inevitably, she recognized the voice she heard on the BBC the night before as Matty's. Este listened intently to what she could catch of his interview with Annie Mac after the song played, and observed his played-up radio voice—subconsciously comparing it to the humbled one she had encountered over a month previously.

Of course Matty was in a band, she thought. He was the exact type to be a front man; flashy fashion sense, reads essays in his free time, patchwork tattoos. It only doubled the amount of questions she found herself asking.

The song was enjoyable, too. It sent a surge of energy through her and Cate, inspiring a late-evening dance party between the two roommates, as they listened to the wordy and humorous lyricism contained throughout the 3 minutes. Este agreed that whiskey really did never start to taste nice, and also hoped that her 27th year didn't involve any STIs. Her plate of eggs on toast had to wait until after the song was done to be eaten, eventually munched down by a very out of breath Este (dancing is cardio).

Back at work, she opened her phone, bored during a lull of customers. Typing 'matty healy' into Instagram, she found his account easily. The number of followers shocked her, but when she scrolled down to the posts, she only saw a sparse few photos. Este's original plan was to, quite honestly, stalk his page for answers to all of her curiosities; but his basically empty profile put that idea to a stop.

Her thumb couldn't help but click the 'follow' button before she even had the time to think. Glancing back at the small checklist of things she had to do before closing up, Este got back to work, letting Matty slip out of her head.

—

[trumanblack]: este.manansala followed you.

Matty had been watching his notifications on social media a little too closely lately. With the new single out, he was heavily focused on the response it was getting, wanting to know what people thought.

Because of this, he had his eye on his mentions constantly, and happened to catch the fact that the girl from Greenhouse gave him a follow a few hours after the interaction came through. He was shocked that she found his account, as it had only been active again for a short amount of time, but he assumed that she heard Give Yourself A Try and did some digging. Matty's press schedule had been insane, and he had been anywhere and everywhere to talk about it—and the album announcement—so it made sense to him.

He felt extremely grateful that the new song was well-received so far, but jumping back into the public eye and kickstarting a new era of The 1975 was a mental rollercoaster. Este felt like the last normal thing he experienced before it all restarted.

She reminded him of Manchester, of the smell of used books, of the venues the band played before anyone knew their name, of waiting in line at coffee shops, and of the uneven pavements he last tripped over back in April.

This sense of comfort he correlated with Este was a little strange, he admitted to himself. It almost brought him to shoot her a DM to strike up a conversation, but Matty thought logically for a moment and decided to just follow her back instead.

Heading onto the train, he was lucky that more promo brought him back to Manchester. He'd only be in for a couple of hours, scheduled to meet with some local music journalists to talk about the new song and what's to come. After his arrival, a few polite people, dressed quite professionally, took turns having a seat with him for a conversation. He enjoyed talking about his art and felt especially excited to dive into sharing the headspace he'd been in while writing A Brief Inquiry.