Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Bondy

She fell asleep on the phone to me. It took me a moment or two to realise that she had but she had and when I did I felt a familiar ache in my chest. The one I'd not felt in a long time. The one that reminded me why I hated distance.

It was almost funny and I almost laughed because distance hadn't bothered me for a long time. I'd been good at living alone for a very long time, but seeing her with her cheek squished against her hand, her temple flat against the table, her head resting on her arms as he spine curved at the wrong angle, stirred a familiar desire within me. The desire to see her right.
To set my phone down on the side, ket out a sigh and pick her up, gentle as you like, and carry her to bed. To lie her down on her side and draw the covers across her slightly awkward frame, tuck her in.

I'd never known an ache in my chest like knowing I wouldn't be there to tuck her in every time she passed out in the wrong place.

"saffy," i yawned, i didnt want to wake her but i didnt want to just leave her there, "Darlin you're gonna get cold there, wake up..." i said picking the phone up, talking into it as gently as I could, hoping the speaker was close enough against her ear that she might hear me, but she didn't, "Saff..." i trailed off knowing it was no good.

She looked ever so peaceful, tranquil despite the discomfort of her position. Her eyelids had litterally fluttered shut, she looked as though she really had drifted to sleep, settled on the table like a leaf on the water, sending little ripples of dreamy peace across the room, submerging everyone with her into a serene sort of slumber.
I wished her ripples could reach me.

And then she stopped rocking with the motion of a moving bus, and the engine which had been humming away the duration of our conversation cut out, sort of fizzled to a stop and the nights lull left us in silence. Her breath was soft. I could hear that.

I watched her for a moment more, debating my options. I could give up, exhile myself to a night of werriting about the stiff neck and the bruise shed be brewing on her cheekbone, or I could try to say her name a little louder. Hang up and call her, let her phone ring out like an alarm, but I knew what Saffy was like once the coke had run out and the weed had taken its toll. She was out now and she wouldn't come round for hours yet. If i left her to remain unconscious she would remain just as she was until the early hours, until she woke at 5am, stiff and uncomfortable, a sharp sort of pain shooting through her neck and her shoulders when she tried to move. But i had no choice and that was the fate which awaited her because as much as I'd have liked to believe my calling her telephone would be enough to stir her, I knew it reality it wouldn't be and I'd only wind up waking one of my friends when I hissed her name into the reciever.

And then just like that I didn't have to worry at all. At least not for the reasons I had been.

For a moment she held me transfixed by her beauty, her honey glow under the low lamplight of the fire lights in the cieling as her chest rose and feel.
For a moment we were both so still i maintained that i could reach out and touch her. And then their front door unlocked and a familiar face pushed the door open, tripped up the stairs and found her sleeping with a smirk that didn't sit right. Not with me at least.

He wandered inside, kicked the door shut with the back of his foot as his staggered up to her, hovered around her for a moment and then stopped, and suddenly his smirk wasn't quite so sharp. Still hungry perhaps but when he reached out and touched her, ran his hands through her hair, caressed her cheek with his fingertips, it was with a tenderness I'd not thought he was capable of.

"Heres my babygirl," he hummed, crouching down to kiss her, i hadnt thought he really would but he did. Only briefly, only lightly, but he did.
He sent an ache right through me.

He kissed her lips and then he stood up, licked his lips and looked back at the door, about to leave again, about to just leave her there. I frowned, an uncomfortable twist in my gut.

And then something caught his eye.

"Oh alright mate?" he cocked his brow, cracked half a grin as if he couldn't believe his luck. I didn't know what to say. He was definitely talking to me.

"Hiya Matt," i offered a sleepy smile. He ran his hand through his hair and licked his lips again.

"You know i think she's fallen asleep on yous Bond, you're gonna have to stop borin her matey," he tried for a laugh, i forced a stiff one, filled with an intense jealousy when his hand reached out to her again and he spread his fingers through her hair.

"Would seem so," i hummed simmering, trying not to show it.

"Ah don't worry about it mate, I'll put her to bed for you," he winked before hanging up the phone, leaving me to sit alone in our recording studio cottage in ireland, with the rain outside and the moody horizon to match my mood. Thinking about the way he'd run his hands through her hair, thinking about the way his smirk had hovered abover her serene sleeping lips.

She hadn't seemed to mind, though of course. How could she? She was asleep.

I tried to swallow it down, my adoration for her, but I couldn't. Even then with his greasy hair blocking my view of her, she'd been pristine. She'd been lovely, and I was full of love for her.

Not that it mattered anymore of course. I was, as usual, too late.