The two poems at the beginning are by Roger McGough, from the book The Mersey Sound

The littlegirl
 pulled up her bellyskin
 like a vest
 and examined her chest
 spleen, kidneys and the rest
 as a measled child a rash

Sugar and spice
and everything nice
that's what littlegirls are made of

So she put in a hand
and pulled out a gland
and said 'What a strange girl am I'

Helga was lying on the lounge floor, her feet up on the sofa, when she heard Arnold come home. They'd been living together so long now she could picture exactly what he was doing.

The jangle of his keys as he dropped them on the kitchen table. The thud… thud… thud as he dropped his bag, then kicked off his shoes. Then he'd be shrugging off his jacket and dropping it over the back of that one kitchen chair they never used.

- They'd said a hundred times they should put a coat hook up on that wall, but they'd never gotten around to it. -

He'd then pat his jeans for his wallet, and drop that next to his keys. Check his cell phone, and… wait for it…

"Helga! You home?"

She couldn't help but smile. He was just so sweet. Predictable, but sweet.

"In the lounge!" She called back.

Her eyes were on his face as he came through the door.

"How was work?"

But he just nodded distractedly in reply. She watched him take in the room. How she was lying, the paperback in her hands, the neat stacks of books on the coffee table, her closed laptop… the casual smile on his lips spread into a wide grin.

"You submitted your thesis?"

Ohhh, that grin was contagious. "Sent the pdf to the printers about an hour ago."

"Pataki! That's awesome!" He dropped to his knees to press a kiss to her forehead. "Highest honors. I bet you…. I bet you the Packard that you'll get the highest grade in the year."

She was blushing, she could feel it. "Wehl shucks. Ahm jest a seemple cahn-tree gerl…"

He rolled his eyes at her self-depreciation, but he was chuckling at the same time. That low, throaty laugh that meant he was thinking about other things. "Well, Stinky, we need to celebrate. What do you wanna do?"

She stretched, wriggled, tilted her head back to look at him as he settled himself prone on the floor. "Gee-whillikers…" She grinned at his long-suffering expression "I honestly just want to relax, Shortman. Plus, you have an exam tomorrow…"

He kissed her temple, lying cheek to cheek on the carpet. "Whatcha reading?"

She passed him the book of poems "Careful, the pages are starting to fall out" and closed her eyes.

They lay there for a long time. Quiet. They'd started doing a bit of stuff like this in the week-and-a-bit since they'd… y'know… started stuff. She'd gone back to a more sane work schedule, now that she wasn't trying to distract herself from that awful feeling of undone she'd had… and in the evenings, they'd hang out.

He'd taken to making her lie on the floor, their fingers twined together as he played her songs… really made her listen to them. She'd always just listened to music for the beat, for the energy. But he made her slow down, approach the music like how she approached poetry. It was awesome.

And she did the same to him with poetry. Reading to him, or playing recordings.

It all felt very insular, how they created their own little pocket of the world…

She cracked an eye open when she heard Arnold snicker. That laugh meant that he found something genuinely funny, but was trying hold it back a bit. "What?"

She watched him through one eye, watched his mouth curl up. "Just, one of these is so like us."

"Well, read it then," She said simply.

He cleared his throat:

Increasingly oftennow
you reach into your handbag
(the one I bought you some xmasses ago)
and bringing forth
a pair of dead cats
skinned and glistening
like the underside of tongues
or old elastoplasts
sticky with earwigs
you hurl them at my eyes
and laugh cruellongly
why?
even though we have grown older together
and my kisses are little more than functional
I still love you
you and your strange ways

Yeah, she could see why he was laughing. "You make me sound like the cat lady from the Simpsons…"

She turned her head, catching his gaze and staring dead into his eyes.

"… YAARRGHRLLLRAGHBRAHBRALLLRAHHYBL"

When he finally managed to control his laughter, his hand on his stomach and tears in his eyes, he kissed her. "You and your strange ways…"

Later, when they were lying in his bed, naked and sleepy, facing each other with her forehead pressed against the strong pulse at the base of his throat, she asked him why that poem reminded him of them.

He told her how she could be sweet and whimsical and funny. But how she could also be wild and brutally harsh. How she was nostalgic and deeply sentimental, but also dismissive and mocking.

"It's like you implode when you're held too tight." He sighed, his voice soft. "You want the small, quiet life, but only on your terms, and when you feel shackled to it, you shut down, or you'll just tear yourself apart."

Her breath felt strangely shallow, like she couldn't fill her lungs. "Like with Matt."

"Like with Matt." He agreed. She felt him hold a breath for a second. "And probably with me."

She'd wondered if something like that was coming. "It's not happening, huh?"

"I… I don't think I agree with that. I think something's happening. But just not what we thought would, uh, happen."

"Explain."

She could just picture him smiling at her demand.

"All that over-protective stuff… it wasn't just jealousy, y'know. You know me, I've always worried about people. I worry about everything, about saying the wrong thing or accidently hurting someone…"

"Remember Iggy and the bunny pyjamas?"

He laughed. "Exactly. And you know I like routine, I like things to stay the same."

"Seems weird, considering your Grandma…"

Another chuckle. "Sure… but she's consistently mad. It's when she's acting normal that I worry." The laughter fell from his voice. "But you. You're restless, even when you're peaceful. I don't think I could cope with your brief obsessions and impulsive actions. If you decide to take a walk alone at 3am, just because the mood hits you, I would freak out. I have freaked out. I'd wonder what I did wrong, I wouldn't want you to walk alone… I couldn't just let you do you…"

"… and I think you'd hate me for it. I'd try hold you too close, too still. But that's just not in your nature. You like to pull away and look at things, that's how you show appreciation for them… but I just like to have them near."

Helga nodded, it kinda made sense. "I think this is the most poetic I've ever heard you, Shortman."

"You're a good influence." He brushed his lips against her hair. "If this turned into more, I think we'd self destruct. I always thought I could help you if you just let me close, that I could keep you grounded, and secure… but… but that was just looking at things from my perspective, what I want with my life. You're not that person, and I didn't have any right to think I could fix you like that, because you're not broken. You're just different to me."

"Maybe you wanted that around you when we were little, because of your shit home life… but you're not actually like that. You're forceful and independent, and you need someone who's not going to try hold your hand through everything. But I'm a hand-holder…" He groaned. "Does this make any sense at all?"

"Perfect sense." She whispered. "Though you did start waffling a bit at the end." She chewed her lip, trying not to giggle.

"See what I mean. Completely irreverent."

"You love it."

"Yeah, I do." He sighed. "I love you… but I don't think we'd be a good couple."

"Neither."

They lay in silence, just kinda taking in what had just happened. They'd been testing out this new development for, what, ten days? And it was already clear that – while very, very fun – it wasn't going the way they thought it would.

They laughed a lot during sex (fun, remember), and always cuddled and talked after. But they didn't lose themselves in it, it wasn't the intense, intimate discovery that she'd had with Joel. It wasn't that there was any shame or anything in it, but it was, plainly, just like two friends having sex to scratch an itch, so to speak.

Scratching an itch?! What on earth? She giggled at herself… and once she started, she couldn't stop. She could feel his chest jumping as he laughed at her, and they were stuck in the loop. A stupid, hysterical wheezing, where one would start to calm down, but the other would set them off again.

But when he finally managed to hold a breath long enough to speak, he squeezed her. "I love you, Pataki."

"Oh god…" she gasped, her eyes watering and her belly sore. "I love you too, Shortman. Never change."

So it just kind of ended.

"End of an era, huh?" They were sitting on the bonnet of his car, drinking coffee, postponing the inevitable moment when he got in and drove away.

"I've loved it here, Helga…" His eyes were soft. "Thanks for not making me your gimp."

"We never did watch Pulp Fiction."

"Huh… true. You remember a lot, don't you?"

"Everything."

It was still early morning. With university finished, and his new job looming, Arnold was on a deadline. Needing to get back to New York in only a few days, he didn't really have the time to spare... but they just kept sitting, watching the light shift across Dyna's driveway.

"Do me a favour, Pataki?"

"Anything."

"Try again with Joel?"

She turned to him, surprised.

He just smiled. "I meant it, that time I apologised for being a dick to him. I've never seen you so happy. I think…" He frowned, gathering his thoughts. "I don't think he'd try to hold your hand…"

The look in his eyes was so earnest, so heartfelt… tears sprang to her eyes. "I'll try." She rasped. Dammit, she'd promised herself she wouldn't cry.

"OK."

"And Maya?"

He sighed, shrugged. "I'll get in touch, but I doubt she'd be interested, not once she finds out about us." He waggled his finger in the space between them. "She was never fooled by my protective bullshit."

"Oh." Poor Arnold. "I'm sorry."

He raised an eyebrow, asked her what she was sorry for.

"That I pushed it… when it didn't come to anything."

"Don't ever." He scowled at her. "I've never felt closer to you than I do now, Helga. I'm glad we did it. You were right, everything would have turned to shit otherwise." He leaned over to press a coffee-flavoured kiss on her cheek. "I've never felt closer to anyone."

"I love you."

"I know."

She laughed through her tears, even once he took the mug out of her hand to hug her, standing in the driveway with her arms around her. Even when he got into the laden car and drove slowly away, she was smiling.

"Under your pillow!" He yelled from the open window, giving her a wave… and then he pulled out onto the road, and was gone.

Under her pillow? She picked up the mugs and padded back into the house. Going straight to her bedroom.

Yep, under her pillow. She pulled out the little book, and let a bubble of mirth escape her lips, even as more tears escaped.

Go Giants, a book of poetry by Nick Laird that she'd been waiting to come into the bookstore. How had he managed to get a copy before she did?

A page was marked with one of her own post-its.

EPITHALAMIUM

You're beeswax and I'm birdshit.
I'm mostly harmless. You're irrational.
If I'm iniquity then you're theft.
One of us is supercalifragilistic.

If I'm the most insane disgusting filth
you're hardly curiosa.
You're bubblewrap to my fingertips.
You're winter sleep and I'm the bee dance.

And I am menthol and you are eggshell.
When you're atrocious I am Spellcheck.
You're the yen. I'm the Nepalese pound.
If I'm homesteading you're radical chic.

I'm carpet shock and you're the rail.
I'm Memory Foam Day on Price-Drop TV
and you're the Lord of Misrule who shrieks
when I surface in goggles through duckweed,

and I am Trafalgar, and you're Waterloo,
and frequently it seems to me that I am you,
and you are me. If I'm the rising incantation
you're the charm, or I am, or you are.

fin.