“Why are you still here Tom?” She looks at me, she looks at me. I’m listening, but, she looks at me.

“I thought for ages you enjoyed this. I thought you liked being… slightly around all the time but now I think that you’re miserable, probably. I think you’d be less miserable if you left, even if you missed me. I think that’s how bad it is.”

The thing with her has always been the tunnel vision, the blinkers, the rest of the world frozen but not forgotten and clearer; tuned in, turned up. Concentrate on this Tom: She wakes the rest of my mind up, bits of brain I needed and parts that prefferred the dark, that did well there. I won’t call this love, not when it’s something else, not when it’s someone - she would still be here if I didn’t love her, need her and love is noble anyway, I know, I heard it in a song once.

“Why are you still here Tom?” She might kiss me tonight, if we talk like this, if her eyes are sad and wide as she speaks about secret things, as she asks me questions only she can get to, as she acts as if we are… Not friendly, not forgiven but far, far past everything that won’t let it be. When Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriatey went off that waterfall they clung to each other like baby boys, brothers. She might kiss me tonight, it’s headed that way, we’re stood against something.

“Tom? Why are you still here?”

“I’m waiting for something, aren’t I? Aren’t you?”