The State of Me. Nasim Jafry Marie

      I hope so, I said.

      It’d taken me ages to fall asleep and he’d woken me up in the middle of the night, sleep-talking. (The plants are coming to get us!) I’d teased him in the morning and told him he’d been moaning about a girl with a red hood.

      At Guy Fawkes, Richard’s parents had a firework display for the kids in the back garden. (His wee sister was only nine. His parents’d had a late baby to save their marriage.) I sat on the kitchen step, blanketed in Nab’s sheepskin. The children were writing their names with sparklers. I wrote Ivan’s name and it melted into the air before it was formed. I’d wanted him to come back this weekend, but he was writing an essay on leprosy and armadillos. You shouldn’t have left it ‘til the last minute, I’d said, and then you could’ve come, couldn’t you?

      We’re not all like you, you wee swot.

      I’m not a wee swot, I said, I just don’t leave things ‘til the last minute. (I knew I was using the present tense. I should’ve been using the past.)