DAYLIGHT FADING

nineteen | if it burns too bright then it'll burn too fast

             | nineteen: if it burns too bright then it'll burn too fast |

                                                       or

                                       | anti-faith: anavae |

I’m woken by a text the next morning and there is the momentary confusion at the fact that I am waking up in my apartment rather than in Eastfields before I remember everything.

Right, Adam’s a total wanker and it’s taken me this long to figure it out.

At least the text can’t be from him. Unless he’s suddenly found a way of acquiring my new phone number.

I roll over with a groan, too used to the routine of late nights and late mornings. My phone practically blinds me in the half-darkness of my room at I glare at the time stamp. Who texts someone at half eight in the morning?

Of course it’s Jez. I can’t decide if she honestly thinks I’m a twat or if she’s joking. She might not have discovered the guitars yet and I figure they’d improve her mood.

It’s not bribery or anything – I have too many guitars anyway and she needed something to play whilst I’m not there.

What I need to do is find somewhere to play. I’ve kept in touch with a couple of the club managers that I met back when I was sixteen and still playing clubs instead of arenas. Tour managers don’t seem to mind sending underage girls to places full of alcohol as long as it pays.

I look up from my phone and wince. It seems even more masochistic now that I put those pictures up on my wall. I stare at the orange sunset that fills the gap between us and realise that I have a Telecaster in that colour.

I’d gone to buy a candy apple red one but something stopped me and made me buy the orange one, even though it was more expensive and it was back in the days when I didn’t have more money than I know what to do with.

I turn away from the picture, getting up and opening my curtains, noting that it’s still raining. When it rains in London, the city looks slightly bleak, but the pavements are dotted with brightly umbrellas and I know the puddles outside will be rainbow-swirled with the oil of regularly used roads.

The sight of the grey city makes me feel a little melancholy, so I put Coldplay’s Parachutes on my turntable. It’s a great album to listen to when everything outside is a little dark – it seems to fit it and brighten it at the same time.

Unfortunately, if I want to sing along I have to shift everything up an octave. I don’t have the pipes to sing that low. I’m not even sure if Prue does and I’ve learnt that nothing Jez Wild can do with her voice should surprise me anymore.

I sit down at a small desk tucked away in the corner of my room, flipping open my laptop. Deciding to be impatient and not wait for the half a minute it will take to boot up, I leave my bedroom to head for the kitchen.

I like to call the space that connects the bedroom with the rest of the house a hallway, but it’s too small. It’s really just there so my front door doesn’t open into a room which isn’t really necessary given that the previous tenant was paranoid enough to install five separate locks and three deadbolts. It makes my apartment rather time-consuming to look up.

I step into my living room and tell myself that I really need to go over everything with a duster. It’s in the same modern style as the rest of the apartment – all black and white with red accents and a rose mural on one wall.