Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Fliss

I never thought I would grow up to be the particularly needy kind. I never thought I'd br the kind of girl who desperately struggled with distance, but since Van and the lads had gone into isolation at tbe recording studio I felt it more and more. Heartache.

I felt like I'd lost a limb. Like part of me was missing.
It was hard to concentrate on anything and every night the highs we reached only left me wanting a little more. A little more coke to try and reach the electricity that ran through me when I was in his presence.

Of course, it proved impossible.

"You look sad honeybee," pouted Saff across the table of a seaside cafe somewhere in the north of England. It was cold for September but the two of us wore our sunglasses all the same. Outside it was raining and every now and then I spared a glance at the traffic stuck at the red lights. Their headlights all cutting through the bleak despite it being the middle of the day.

"I'm a whistful bitch," i smirked a little self aware, full of self pity. She smirked along too.

"Ive spent all morning listening to the Cranberries, tell me about it," she hummed stirring her coffee with her little finger. "You missin someone?" she asked already knowing the answer. I just flashed her a smile.

"Are you?" and then she surprised me.

She didn't blush, she just laughed, half hearted, half cut, and then she simply told the truth.

"More than I expected to actually," i wasnt sure if the element of surprise in her inflection was for my benefit or hers, whether she really had been taken by surprise or not, but I let it slide.

"I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one sundance," i licked my lips, "I just want call em up, watch em balancing maltesers on eachothers noses or somet," i offered her an almost laugh hoping she'd take the bate, giggle along. She did.

"Shove tictacs up their nostrils,"

"Balance little toy soldiers on eachothers pressure points,"

For five minutes we were lit up on that, just simply reminiscing all the strange things we'd watched them doing in the name of entertainment. Van and Larry driving the others up the wall. Bondy drunkenly swaying in the background, dad dancing whilst Van pretended he was Frank Sinatra.

And then Saffy opened her phone and her smile faded away, my stomach dropped.

"Ew," she said softly, starring down at her screen ever so disheartened.

"What?" i stretched up, elbows on the table leaning over our drinks to strain and see the phone screen. "Ew," i said just as softly, not quite as let down.

"Thats you Fliss," she breathed looking down at the image which had set both our stomachs plummeting.

"Yeah," i nodded slowly.

It was a picture from my sisters wedding, of me and Van on the hotel lawn sprawled and entangled, just the two of us in the grass, and it was circulating twitter.

We'd been play fighting, it hadn't even been just us, somewhere in that fight Larry had kicked a bottle at Van, Van had straddled Bondy and Saff and I had both stolen his shoes, legged it around the maze and hidden them in separate resting places.
But none of that had been photographed.

All there was to see now was two lovers entwined, ragged, dishevelled.
It didn't look like we were fighting at all.

"Whyyyy," i winced, "this isn't good," i chewed my cheek, pinched the bridge of my nose. Felt a little bit like crying.

"I don't know sugarlamb, its not so bad, at least you look fit..." Saff did her best to lighten the mood but I couldn't not freak out about it.

"I tried so hard," i bit my bottom lip, a real pout this time, a real tremble in my smile, "I tried really fuckin hard not to become that girl whose just shaggin Van Mccann, and now look.." i gesticulated, arms in the air, dramatic as you like. "Im that girl whose shaggin Van Mccann..." i blinked back a couple of tears, my mood shot to pieces. The more I thought about it the more worked up i got, the harder it was to think about anything else.