Pretty Girls Make Graves

Danny got to the pub early. It was easy when there was no difference between being asleep and awake. He sat hunched over a half-pint he shouldn’t have been drinking. Collar up and hair unwashed, wearing the kind of face people glanced at twice before realising who he used to be. The medication had softened him around the edges. Slowed him and blurred him. But his eyes were still sharp in flashes, like a glint of steel behind frosted glass.

Spud arrived with that sideways grin of his; the one that said I’m not saying anything, mate, but I’ve clocked it all the same. He slid into the booth opposite, shrugged off his jacket and nodded at the beer glass.

“Thought you weren’t meant to mix that with your space pills.”

Danny smirked without looking up. “It’s only a shandy.”

“It’s a pint.”

“Half a pint.”

Spud let it go. That was how they talked about Danny’s health: never directly, never kindly, but with a sort of rough loyalty that didn’t need naming.

They talked about the cassette. Or rather, Spud talked and Danny listened, rubbing the condensation on his glass with a thumb gone numb and restless. Some bloke in Romford had been selling copies out the back of a record shop. A grainy and hissy set of rough demos, but unmistakably them. Or so they said. Dean and Micky were claiming it was their rehearsal, which made Spud snort into his drink.

“Dean couldn’t keep time with a metronome nailed to his head,” he said. “And Micky... Christ. You remember that gig in Basildon? He came in a whole bar early and blamed the monitors.”

Danny smiled faintly. It hurt to do it. “We never had monitors.”

“Exactly.”

Kev and Martin were late, as usual. Spud kept checking the door, muttering about buses and useless bastards. Danny drifted in and out of the conversation, the pub noise rising and falling like waves. Every so often the boating lake flashed behind his eyes: moonlight on water, the wind in the trees, Julie’s laugh. It came so vividly he had to grip the edge of the table to steady himself.

Spud noticed but pretended not to. He just said, “You alright, Dan?” in that casual way that meant I’m here if you fall apart but don’t make me say it out loud.

Danny nodded. “Just tired.”

They talked money then. Or the lack of it. Danny’s house was gone. Sold quietly, without fuss. He told Spud he fancied renting for a bit, keeping things flexible. Spud didn’t believe him, but didn’t challenge him either. Essex lads don’t pry.

When Kev and Martin finally arrived, the talk turned loud and pointless, full of old stories and half-remembered gigs. Danny laughed in the right places, but his mind was already elsewhere. By the time they all stood outside saying their goodbyes, his decision had already formed. Quietly and irrationally, with the certainty of dream logic.

He was in the neighbourhood. Julie lived ten minutes away. And hadn’t the psychologist said something about closure? About facing things? Or thinking about facing things? Or imagining what facing things might feel like? It didn’t matter. Danny had taken the meaning he needed.

He walked there slowly; hands in pockets, head down. The streets were familiar in a way that made his chest ache. When he reached the house, he continued walking and stopped at the corner, heart thudding like he’d run the whole way.

He couldn’t knock. Of course he couldn’t. He stayed across the road, half-hidden behind a wall, telling himself he’d move in a minute. Just one more minute.

Then Julie appeared.

She was older, fuller in the face, hair cut short with blond streaks that caught the light. She looked animated in the way that mothers do: busy, purposeful and alive. Her son bounced beside her in his school uniform, talking a mile a minute. Danny felt that familiar twist inside himself, tight and sudden.

He almost stepped forward. Almost called her name. But the fear stopped him. The fear of breaking whatever fragile thing he’d built in his head.

The door opened before she reached it. A man stood there, smiling, filling the frame like he belonged in it. The boy shouted “Daddy!” and ran to him, arms flung wide.

Danny’s breath caught. His world tilted. Mark? He supposed it was him. Or maybe... Danny couldn’t trust his eyes anymore. The medication made everything soft around the edges while the flashbacks made everything too sharp.

Julie leaned in to kiss the man’s cheek. The boy wrapped himself around his leg. They all went inside together, the door closing with a loud, final slam.

Danny stayed where he was, rooted to the pavement. His hands were shaking. He didn’t know if he was cold or frightened or both. The boating lake flickered again: Julie turning to him, smiling, moonlight on her hair. It felt more real than the street in front of him.

He stood there until the curtains in the living room were pulled shut and the light switched on. Then he turned away, walking without direction, the night on his shoulders like a weight he couldn’t bear.