Same number waiting
Still I open the app again. Hope is a stupid habit. So is thinking some random transfer is about to appear tonight.
I do it before I have even decided I am doing it. Thumb on the little icon, face already arranged, like the number might be kinder if I look sorted when it loads.
It never is.
The three seconds I pretend I am fine
There is a pause. You know the one. Logo. Little swirl. That breath you hold without meaning to. I used to tell myself I was being responsible. Checking in. Staying on top of things. I have a maths degree. I can add a night out in my head before the card even comes back. Responsibility is a lovely word for what this actually is.
It is fear with a nicer outfit on.
The number comes up and it is the same number. Of course it is the same number. Nothing has happened in the forty minutes since I last looked except I walked to the kettle and thought about a cab I have not booked yet. Still. Some tiny daft part of me is waiting for the figure to have grown while I was not watching. Like money might arrive out of manners.
It does not.
I lock the phone. Put it face down. Pick it up again. Same ritual as the bathroom mirror. Check the face. Check the account. Make sure nothing has slipped.
What I think I am looking for
Not information. I already have the information. Rent has gone. Travel has gone. That Tesco shop I swore was going to be small was not small. The top I did not need is sitting on the chair with the tag still in the bag because I have not decided if I am keeping it, which is a lie, I am keeping it.
What I am looking for is a miracle with a sort code.
A transfer from nobody. A refund I forgot about. Some quiet little apology from the universe that lands as £40 and says, there you go babe, go out if you want. I have never received that message. I still open the app like it might be typing.
Hope is a stupid habit. I said that already. I mean it more the second time.
Payday is a trick and I fall for it every month
The morning it lands I feel rich for about eleven minutes. Not yacht rich. Not even holiday rich. Just that brief, fizzy version of myself who can say yes to a drink without doing the sum. I check the balance then as well. Different flavour of the same ritual. Look. Proof. I work. I got paid. I exist in the adult world.
By Wednesday the proof has wandered off.
Standing order. Travel. The bit I said I would not spend. I am good with numbers on the warehouse floor. Rotas, pick rates, who is lying about overtime. I can see a discrepancy at twenty paces. My own account is the one spreadsheet I treat like a rumour.
People love a lecture when you admit this. Budget better. Make a pot. Stop the little treats. I know. I have heard it. I have said it to myself in the bathroom with a lip product in my hand that I did not strictly need. Knowing is not the same as the feeling going away.
The app does not care that I look expensive
That is the joke. I can clock in looking like I have somewhere better to be. Hair done. Face on. Smart casual that still says I might go out after. Nobody on the floor has to know I opened the banking app in the toilets and felt my stomach drop at a figure I already knew.
London is good for that performance. Good coat. Dead eyes. Phone out. Everyone here is doing some version of fine. The city rewards the look. It does not ask if you slept. It definitely does not ask whether you can do Friday without going over.
I want the promotion. I say it is about the title. It is about the title. It is also about this. About not doing mental maths every time someone says pub. About a cab not needing a committee meeting in my head. About enough of a buffer that the app is boring.
I would love a boring app. I am not there.
The imaginary transfer
Late at night is the worst. Flat quiet, or as quiet as a flat with two other people ever gets. Something on the telly I am not watching. Music low. Phone warm in my hand.
That is when the fictional payment shows up in my head. A refund. A mate who said they would send it. Some forgotten bit of overtime. I know my overtime. I chase my overtime. There is no forgotten bit. Still I open it.
Same number. Sitting there like it is having a laugh.
I used to think this was about being skint. It is partly about being skint. It is also about control. If I look at it, it cannot surprise me. If I look at it enough times, maybe I get to feel like I am managing it, even when I am only circling the same figure like a tight little orbit.
My flatmates have seen me do it. One of them does it too. We do not always say the number out loud. We just make the face. That is its own language. The face that says, yeah, still that.
None of it was fraud, it was all me
There is a joke that goes round. You check the transactions hoping one of them is a mistake. A thief. A glitch. Something you can phone up about and feel righteous. Then it is all you. The drinks. The cab. The meal deal that turned into three meal deals. The night you said was just a quick one.
I have done that scroll. Finger down the list like I am investigating a stranger. Turns out the stranger has my makeup on and my laugh and my terrible talent for saying yes when the lighting is good.
I am not going to pretend I regret every line. Some of those nights were worth it. Some of them were just noise I bought because the quiet in my head was worse. Money cannot fix that quiet. I know that too. I still treat the app like it might.
What I want the number to mean
I want it to mean I can stop calculating. Not yacht money. Not even move-out-alone money, not yet. Just the kind where a taxi, a takeaway, and a Sunday with no plans do not need a strategy first. That would feel like rest.
I want a door that is mine. I want the raise. I want enough that checking the balance is a chore, not a ritual. And I want, even though I do not say it in the kitchen, someone who stays. Someone who does not make money the whole personality and also does not vanish when the bill arrives. That is a lot to hang on a banking app. The app did not ask to be my personality test.
It is just a number. I keep asking it to be a feeling.
I am going to open it again anyway
I can write all of this and still do it in ten minutes. That is the honest bit. Insight does not retire the habit. You can know you are poking a bruise and poke it because at least you know where it is.
So here is where I actually am. Thirty. Warehouse. London. Good at looking like I have it handled. Opening the same app to look at the same figure and briefly, stupidly, hoping it has changed because I was nice today, or I worked late, or I stayed in, or I wanted it enough.
It will be the same number.
I will lock the phone.
I will put on another bit of lip.
And later, when the flat goes quiet, I will almost certainly look again. Not because I think a transfer is coming. Because some part of me still waits for the universe to tap my shoulder and say, go on then. You can have a little bit more.
It has not so far.
I still check.
