Night swiming

One month in, I sleep and dream in disjointed fragments. Henry's viper tongue and transparent vodka cocktails send my heart racing until it threatens to stop completely.

Some nights we're awake together, the three of us in the saturated lights and Henry's oversized Moschino T-shirts. His sister does most of the talking while I smoke my cigarettes by the kitchen fan. "Those things will kill you" she says, as if I ever planned on growing old.

I ask about their family. She tells the pedestrian story of a loving father and soft-hearted mother but talks as if reading from a movie script. It looks fine from a distance, like an H&M jacket on a Dior mannequin, but in-between the lines are the little imperfections that keep me intrigued. Henry stares at the table. He knows she's lying.