Nell: The Other End of the Journey

Kit's room was smaller than the photographs made it look.

Not because she'd deceived me. Cameras did something optimistic with corners. In person, the distance between the bed and the desk required two people to negotiate who was standing where, especially if one of them had brought a bag containing an unnecessary amount of tea.

“The wall is excellent,” I said, looking out of the window.

“Consistent. Never lets me down.”

I put the tea on the desk. Kit laughed and kissed me in thanks.

The photograph of us stood beside the lamp, not dramatically displayed, just there among the things she used. The guide was on the shelf. The little notebook lay under a course handout. I liked finding it in an ordinary place, not preserved like a museum object.

“May I?” I asked.

She nodded.

I read the new pages. The brick wall. Bex's milk. A sketch of a tram stop. A sentence about the first sound assignment, crossed out and rewritten more honestly beneath it.

On one page, Kit had written: A good day here does not mean I miss you less.

I looked up. She was watching me with a little uncertainty.

“I know,” I said.

“I wanted it written down.”

“I'm glad.”

I added a note under the room description: The room contains the correct person. The wall is doing its best.

In the kitchen, we met Bex and Asha. Bex offered tea and fetched the milk carton protected by the threatening cat. Asha asked about the guide and then, more importantly, told me about the cardboard room’s next impossible renovation.

I had worried that they would know a version of Kit I couldn't reach. They did know things I didn't. A joke from class. A terrible lunch. The name of a tutor whose cupboard apparently contained every adapter ever made.

It wasn't pleasant every second, realising I was no longer present for all the small stories. It also wasn't exclusion. When I asked, they explained. When I made a joke, they laughed or didn't, like normal people. I did not have to become their best friend before the afternoon was allowed to work.

At the college, Kit showed me the teaching room during the open studio period. There were cables coiled properly, labels that meant nothing to me until she explained them, a desk with more controls than I trusted myself near and a small stage area that looked unremarkable until somebody changed the light.

She played the sound sequence she'd struggled with.

I heard a person enter a room. I heard the pause, the space beyond them, the sound that made the room no longer empty.

My shoulders tightened before I understood why.

“That,” Kit said, watching me. “That's the bit I couldn't make work.”

“It works now.”

“I know.”

I loved hearing her say that. Not because confidence was always more attractive than doubt, but because this particular confidence had been earned through work she had wanted to hide from me at first.

She let me try a simple cue under her supervision. I missed it by an amount too large to call subtle.

“The haunted house appears to have a scheduling issue,” I said.

Kit laughed. “Try again. Watch the movement.”

The second time was better. Not good. Better.

I handed the controls back before I could establish a career in delayed doors.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking without trying to complete the whole city. We ate soup. We looked at an exhibition. We sat on a bench and watched people go past. I told Kit about the flood photograph and the school paper. She told me about Bex's sleeve, Asha's models and the part of the course she still didn't understand.

At one point, I stopped talking because I realised I was happy.

Not relieved that the relationship had survived a test. Not performing enjoyment so Kit wouldn't worry. Just happy, in a place I hadn't known, beside someone I did.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“You're doing the smile again.”

“It's becoming a medical concern.”

She kissed me on the side of the head.

The return train existed all afternoon at the edge of my attention. I tried not to let it swallow the hours before it. Sometimes I succeeded. Sometimes I checked the time and felt my chest tighten.

When we finally walked back to the station, I said, “I don't want to go.”

“I know.”

“I don't mean I shouldn't have come.”

“I know that too.”

We stood near the barriers while the board changed. Kit held my hand. I wanted a sentence that would make leaving painless, and for once I did not blame language for failing at an impossible job.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you too.”

Then I caught the train, because loving someone did not exempt a person from the last practical journey home.