Sometimes I Lie

by Alice Feeney

Her mouth contorts so that it looks like she’s unwrapping toffees with her arse.

I can hear heavy rain, like a relentless army of tiny fingernails tapping on the window, trying to wake me from this bottomless sleep. When each angry drop fails to break the spell, I picture it turning into a tear and crying its way down the glass.

I don’t avoid broken people because I think I’m better than them, I just don’t like looking at my own reflection.

The afternoon drags as the four of us eat our way through too much food, plugging the gaps with polite conversation and stories we’ve bored each other with too many times before. I imagine this scenario being replicated in thousands of homes all over the country.