NIKKI & JOE, CASUALLY |

57: hey google: is this a relationship?

            I climb out of the car when Joe exits the therapy practice. She casts me a look of feigned exhaustion as I open the door for her but it melts into a greeting kiss, a casual peck before she slides into the passenger seat.

'How was it?' I ask once her bag is in the boot and I've returned to the driver's side. Rather than start the car, I turn my body the best I can toward Joe.

'Good, thanks for asking.' Though she smiles, Joe toys with her necklace. 'Vivek suggested that I could show you some of the messages Tamsin has sent me. They said that it could help me feel less stressed to have someone I trust read them, to shoulder the weight. Would that be something you're comfortable with?'

My mind runs away with the fact that Joe just said she trusts me until I lock the celebratory voice to cheer in a room at the back. Along with the other voice that reminds me I'm a liar and corrupt also for letting her trust me when I'm being dishonest.

'Yeah, alright.'

After a moment's inspection of my eyes, Joe digs out her phone and opens her messages. She stopped blocking Tamsin's burner numbers a week ago since Tamsin kept making new ones anyway and the recent thread spans over thirty messages. I start from the oldest.

I don't get further than the first word before I lower the phone. 'Seph?'

'That's what she called me.'

I stare at her. In no universe could I imagine Joe suiting the name Seph. But that's not the priority right now; I stomp my incredulity flat to keep reading.

xxx xxxx xxxx: Seph, I know I messed up. I'm sorry. Please answer. I just want to apologise.

xxx xxxx xxxx: I know you're cheating on me. It's okay. I'm not even cross with you, I promise. I forgive you. You don't have to run away.

'She's not–?'

Joe understands my question before I have time to ask it. 'No, of course, she's not watching. It's just the sort of thing she says.' She sighs, sagging in the passenger seat. 'I've reported it to the police. Not that they'll do anything but I sent her a picture of the file—maybe the threat will make her stop. And I'm getting a new number. And this time I'll only give it to people who definitely won't give it to her.'

I reach for her hand, a touch which Joe gladly accepts. Her gaze falls out of focus and I caress the bridge of her thumb until she rides the waves of her thoughts back to me. She nods at the phone for me to continue reading.

The messages swing between vitriol and pleads for forgiveness until the most recent one from two days ago: "You're too incompetent. You'll never manage without me."

I offer the phone back to Joe, trying to settle the whorl of my stomach. 'I'm sorry you have to deal with this.'

'You make it easier.' She squeezes my hand.

(Reminder: I'm a liar. Reminder: I'm a liar. Reminder: I'm a liar.)

'I'm not afraid of her anymore. I know I wouldn't go back, no matter what she said, so now it's less terrifying and more bloody annoying.'

'I'm so proud of you.'

Her lips tug into a smile. 'I'm proud of myself.'

We fall into a hug, habitual touch by now. The string of hearts and infestation of nettles fight for territory. Like some twisted game of She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not, each petal I pull off reminds me that she has the right to know. Confession: I love you. Confession: I lied about my parents. Confession: I love you. Confession: I lied about my parents. Confession: I love you.

We're both misty-eyed when we pull apart, both tangled up in contrary emotions. I plant a kiss on Joe's hairline before I blink away my tears and start the car.

Neither of us turns on music but the silence don't need banishment as it settles around us. Joe's gaze travels along the side of my face, the caress of warmth so calming I have to remind myself not to melt while operating a thousand kilos of metal.

Her voice, though, treads carefully. 'There's a bloke who has his sessions after mine and we've been talking between our appointments. He's into houseplants too.'

I offer her a smile, glad that she's making more friends. Maybe she'll stay in Manchester for longer–

'Do you want me to give him your number?'

'Why would I want that?'

'I thought... You're much better at talking. And he seems like a good person.'

My stomach drops. 'No. No, I'm definitely not ready. There are so many things we've not talked about. I've not told ya any of my embarrassing teenage stories. Like the time Sha– my parents took me to the poison garden in Alnwick and I threw up within five minutes cause of all the toxics in the air. We have so much left to talk about.'

I run my hands along the steering wheel, trying to ease the itch under my skin. I almost expect my arms to pustule with a rash from the nettles that remind me what we've left to talk about is my parents.

'I definitely need more practice. Unless you don't want to,' I rush to add. Don't: Be coercive or entitled. 'Since you have therapy now you probably don't need me around.'

'I like having you around.' Joe's eyes yank away from me as she focuses on the scenery. 'And I can't imagine myself with other people yet. I mean, I've dropped the whole casual sex idea but I'm not ready to date either.'

'We'll keep practising then.'

'Okay. Good.'

The silence this time is prickly. My hands continue to itch even under the balm of Joe's attention when it lays on me.

'What do you want out of a relationship? In the future, when you are ready.' It's a conversational question, curious but asked in the tone Joe uses when she don't really expect an answer. The lack of expectation is exactly what makes me answer every time.

She'll be a good therapist.

'Not much. The domestic stuff, I think. Someone I can exist in a routine with. Someone who gets on with my mates and my brother—that's well important to me. Someone who's okay with me also being angry sometimes, okay with me being so needy and clingy.'

'What do you mean by that?' The words barb on her tongue.

My body gathers a laugh on impulse. 'You know what I mean.' How could she not know when we've been doing this for nearly two months? 'I want too much attention. I should "find internal validation" or whatever, innit.'

'Is this about the ex who cheated on you?'

'We weren't together.'

The universe hates me: we get caught in a red light which robs me of my only excuse to commit only half a mind to this conversation. Joe shifts position to drill her focus onto me. I try to twist my body away from her without making it too obvious.

'Sides, can't blame any of them, can ya? Who wouldn't?'

'Them? How many of your exes have cheated on you?'

'None,' I sigh, paralleling her frustration. 'I don't have exes, Joe. I've never been in a relationship. I can't love people enough.'

'That's not true.'

She don't know. I have to tell her; she has the right to know. I smother people and they leave. Or they stick around long enough to see my love is insipid and they leave. It's never right, never what's wanted. But the ball of light Joe planted in my chest feeds the garden inside and I don't want to lose that. Not yet.