She Knows When I Did Not Sleep

No speech.

Just the look and an extra mug on the side. Flatmates see the mascara and the hour. Lying is pretty pointless in here.

I used to think I was good at arriving like a finished person. Door, keys, face on, voice already doing the joke. That works on men. That works at work. It does not work on the girl who has seen you eat toast over the sink in last night’s bra.

She does not ask where I have been. She does not do the raised eyebrow pantomime either. She just looks at me for half a second too long, then the kettle goes on like it has a union job.

The tells I cannot hide

It is never one thing. It is the pile of them.

Mascara that has given up. The good wing is gone and the other one is hanging on out of spite. If I have slept, I redo it in the bathroom like a ritual. If I have not slept, I walk into the kitchen with the wreck still on because I cannot face the mirror for another round.

The hour is worse. A normal morning has a sound. Radio. Hairdryer. Someone swearing at the bathroom lock. A no-sleep morning has me trying to be quiet and failing, because quiet is its own confession. Keys in the bowl too carefully. Boots off like I am defusing them.

Then there is my voice. I go brighter. I go quicker. I do a little performance of being fine that would fool a supervisor and would not fool a dog. She has lived with me long enough to hear the extra note. It is the same note I use when I say I am not bothered.

I am bothered. I am also thirty and I would rather die than start the day with a recap.

The mug

That is the bit that gets me, and I hate that it gets me.

I come in ready to be cocky. I have a line loaded. Something about the night bus. Something about a man who can use his hands and cannot use a kettle. I do not get to use it. There is already a mug on the side. Tea, not coffee, because she knows I will pretend coffee is a personality and then feel sick.

No speech. That matters. A speech would make it a scene. A mug makes it a fact. You did not sleep. Here. Do not make it weird.

I say cheers like it is nothing. I wrap my hands around it like I have been out in weather. Sometimes I have. Sometimes I have only been out in my own head, which is worse, because at least weather ends.

People online talk about flatmates like they are either thieves or sitcom best friends. Mine are two women who have seen the insides of this place. One of them is the mug person. The other one will steal your milk and still ask if you want toast. Different love languages. Same nosy little household.

What not sleeping actually means

It is not always what people assume, although sometimes it is exactly what people assume.

Sometimes I have been in someone else’s bed and left before the offer of breakfast could become a conversation. That version of not sleeping has a glow to it if I am honest. Body tired. Head quiet for a bit. I can do a shift on that. I have done worse on less.

Sometimes I have been out and the night ran off with my good sense. One drink. Then a taxi I could not afford. Then the performance, then the drop. I get home hollow and still try to put the face back on in the hallway mirror like that will restart me.

Sometimes I have been here the whole time. Door shut. Phone face down. Something on the telly I am not watching. That is the one she clocks fastest, I think. Because the mascara is still decent and the hour is wrong in a different way. Insomnia has a look. It is not glamorous. It is me in yesterday’s liner trying to look like I chose this.

I do not owe the kitchen a category. She does not ask for one. That is why I have not moved out.

Why I still try to lie

Pride. Obviously.

I like being the fun one. I like being the one who can do a late and a morning and a joke in between. If I admit I am wrecked, the whole act wobbles. And the act is useful. It gets me through a warehouse floor. It gets me through men who want a story. It gets me through the version of myself that wants a boyfriend and will not say it.

So I say I slept fine. I say I am grand. I say it was nothing. She nods like she is humouring a child with a temperature.

I used to find that annoying. I wanted her to believe me. Now I think the not believing is the kindness. She is not going to make me narrate my night for a cup of tea. She is also not going to let me stand there and pretend I am a person who has been unconscious for eight hours.

Living with people is mostly this. Being known in the small ways you would never put on an app.

Work does not care, and she knows that too

I cannot call in because I had a night. Promotion does not come to women who need a duvet day every time their eyeliner migrates. I drink the tea. I do the face again if I can stand it. I leave.

She will text later, not asking. Just a photo of the kitchen looking like a bomb, or a voice note about the bathroom lock. Normal life, continuing. That helps more than advice. Advice would mean I had to pick a version of the truth and stick to it.

On the floor I am sharp. I can hear a radio and a pallet jack and still do the numbers. Nobody there needs to know I watched the ceiling for three hours. Nobody there needs to know I left a warm bed because staying felt like a promise I did not trust myself to want.

She knows. That is enough witnesses.

The look

I should describe it properly because it is specific.

It is not pity. Pity would make me nasty. It is not smug either. It is the look you give someone when they have spinach in their teeth and you are deciding whether to say it. Except she never says it. She just files the information and makes the drink.

Sometimes I catch myself wanting the speech. Wanting her to ask so I can do the funny version and get a laugh and put the night in a box. Then I remember I hate being asked. So I take the mug and I shut up and I sit on the counter like I pay rent, which I do, barely.

If there is a man involved I will offer one detail, maximum. He had decent sheets. He went quiet in the morning. He was kind, which is the dangerous one. She does not press. She has met enough of my types through the wall to write the rest herself.

What I wish I could say, and do not

I wish I could say I wanted to be asked to stay. I wish I could say the nights I do not sleep in this flat are the ones where my head will not put the lights out. I wish I could say the extra mug feels like being looked after, and that terrifies me a bit, because I am meant to be the one who does not need it.

I do not say that. I say nice one. I say I owe you. I drink it too hot and burn my mouth and call it a personality.

There is a version of this life where I have my own place and nobody clocks my mascara. I want that. I also know I would miss the look. Not the lack of sleep. The look. The proof that someone in the next room can tell the difference between me rested and me performing rested.

That is a stupid thing to miss. I will miss it anyway.

So no, I did not sleep

I can admit it here. I cannot always admit it at the sideboard.

She already knows. The mascara knows. The hour knows. The mug is sitting there like a full sentence.

I will go to work. I will be cocky on the floor. I will come home and leave product on the sink and steal the bathroom light for too long. If I have not slept, she will see it before I have my coat off.

I will still try the lie. She will still not need it.

That is the deal in this flat. You can have your secrets. You cannot have your face and your arrival time and your voice all lying at once. Pick one. I usually pick the joke.

She picks the kettle.