i think i love you • matthew healy

20. water

this back pain from sleeping in matty's tub is making me feel like i'm a thousand years old, but i'm smiling at him from across the dining table as if i'm eight.

we've sort of burnt the pancakes. well, matty did, and it it was quite stupid really. they had turned out thin and horribly crisp especially around the edges, and matty had put too much water than what was instructed in the box, so it was barely consumable.

now we're sat with our mugs of coffee in hand and a cigarette in the other because there's nothing else in matty's refrigerator, and this would have pissed me off since i haven't properly eaten the past couple of hours, but i could tell he hasn't eaten either, so i keep quiet despite matty's coffee tasting like expensive shit.

"you look real lovely with your hair." matty says after awhile, like it's the first time he's seen me with my new—rather drastic—haircut.

i wish i could tell him the reason i got it chopped off is because, for some reason, i've connected my hair to the rather fucked up life i had last year. moving out of my mum's, meeting matty on the train, the loud shows, the quiet nights when matty was asleep but i was far too awake, the alcohol and the crying and the drugs and the...

"thanks." i mumble, smiling a little. i don't want him to know why i've cut my hair.

in a way, i feel like matty's done the same thing with him. he's no longer got his sides shaved like last year. he's completely growing it out, a mess of dark curls sitting on top of his head, like he doesn't bother anymore. he looks slightly different, but his features look just the same when you look close enough. just a bit older, and more tired.

"are you mad at me, rhiannon?" he asks after awhile, like he's seeking some sort of approval from me.

i wish i was. i wish i could get myself to feel angry for finding the packs of drugs in his little bag when he's been clean for over a year. i wish he never got addicted in the first place. i wish he never had to rely on something so heavily, just so he could feel something.

i shake my head. "of course not, matty."

i realise i'm just like him. desperate to feel something strong, so i look everywhere to find it.

"i'd be mad at me." he says quietly, staring at the ground.

i wish i could feel the same way.

—

for the rest of the day we'd stayed in bed. i think matty and i have smoked half the pack of cigarettes and we barely even noticed.

for awhile he was on his laptop, reading and replying to tweets from the people who follow him. "i suppose this is my life now. that's fame." he had said to me, for some reason he didn't sound too enthusiastic about it, and i'd wondered why.

then we'd watched a couple of films, some he had seen about ten times, but just kept downloaded on his laptop. matty finally made me watch true romance, a film he'd been wanting to show me for ages. i liked it, but not as much as he did, obviously.

we smoked. then talked. a lot.

"how are you and... alex, is it?" he'd asked while we were laying in bed facing each other, laying sideways with our elbows propped up on the mattress.