Nell: No Problem

The conversation went badly for seven minutes before it became useful.

I know because my phone displayed the call length, and I was looking at it instead of Kit's face on the screen. Video calls had introduced a new category of cowardice: technically making eye contact with a person while staring at a number beside them.

“I said I was sorry,” Kit said.

“I know.”

“You said it was fine.”

“I said no problem.”

“Those sound fairly similar.”

“I didn't want to be the girlfriend who stops you having friends.”

“I didn't ask you to stop me.”

“No, you just left me waiting.”

She went quiet. I could see the little room behind her, the lamp, the edge of the photograph. It hurt that the room looked ordinary. Some unreasonable part of me wanted the background to justify how far away she felt.

“I should have cancelled the call properly,” she said. “I know that. But I didn't know you'd turned down other plans.”

“I didn't want to make it sound like a sacrifice.”

“Was it?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it.

I had turned down a film I wanted to see because I thought being available would prove something. Kit hadn't asked me to do that. She had asked whether we could talk around nine. I had built an evening around the possibility and then resented her for not knowing the size of the structure.

“I made it one,” I said.

Kit rubbed her forehead.

“I wasn't trying to choose them over you.”

“It felt like that.”

“I know. But it wasn't.”

We were both quiet. Outside my room, Ollie dropped something in the corridor and whispered a word he wasn't supposed to know. Under different circumstances, I would have told Kit and made her laugh.

“I miss you,” I said.

“I miss you too.”

“You look as though you're having such a good time.”

“Sometimes I am.”

The honesty stung for a second, then steadied the conversation. She wasn't going to prove she loved me by pretending Manchester was disappointing.

“Good,” I said. “I want that. I just don't know what to do with the rest of the evening when I thought you'd be in it.”

“Maybe don't keep the whole evening empty for me.”

“That sounds sad.”

“It sounds like you still have a life.”

She wasn't being cruel. I knew her face well enough to see that she was frightened of hurting me and trying not to let the fear make her promise something impossible.

We made a smaller plan. One call we'd actually set aside time for, with a clear message if it had to change. Other calls when they fitted. Voice notes that didn't require an instant answer. No pretending a vague maybe was a confirmed appointment.

It was not romantic in the way the harbour had been romantic. It was romantic in the way fixing a leak before the whole ceiling came down might be romantic, though I decided not to use that comparison aloud.

Then Kit told me about the sound assignment.

Not the cheerful version. The one where Martin had asked what changed and she hadn't known how to answer.

I listened. I wanted to say he was wrong, because that would have put me instantly on her side. Instead I asked what she'd changed in the second version.

She showed me the screen. The tracks were simpler now. She explained the timing, the empty space, the sound that made the listener realise somebody else was present.

“That sounds better,” I said.

“It is. I just hated needing him to tell me.”

“Welcome to my entire placement.”

She laughed. The room between us became a little less occupied by the argument.

After the call, I messaged Taz.

Film next week? I have discovered that waiting beside a phone is not a personality.

She replied: Historic breakthrough. Tuesday?

I said yes.

At dinner, Dad asked whether I wanted to come to the pub quiz with him and Mum on Wednesday. It was an early family-friendly session run in the function room, and their team was apparently weak on anything that had happened after 1998.

“I don't know everything young people know,” I said.

“You know what an app is. That's a start.”

I went. We came fourth. Dad confidently misidentified a flag, Mum knew every museum question and I got a pop-culture answer wrong in front of three people who had specifically recruited me for it.

On the way home, I sent Kit a photograph of the score sheet.

Nell: A humiliating evening. Highly recommend.

Kit: Did you have fun?

I looked at Mum and Dad arguing gently about the flag.

Yes, I wrote.

It felt good to have something to tell her that hadn't happened while I was waiting for her to call.