She stirs herself from the sofa and holds a hand out, traffic cop style. My ears are bleeding. She's a copywriter and very fussy about what people say in front of her. Don't ever dare utter, you know? No, I don't know. That's why you're telling me. I cut that habit out after about the hundredth time she said it. I love this sofa. It took me five visits to the SofasRUs and all on the days when there were sofa sales, so I wasted a lot of bank holidays to find my perfect one. This is it. Dark red velvet, super squishy and big enough to fit four people, five if you don't mind snuggling up closely.
Tomorrow, I say goodbye to this sofa. Just like I wave farewell to the coffee table I rescued from a junk yard, sanded down and varnished myself, the bookshelves I built from flat packs accompanied by a lot of cursing, the laminated floorboards I laid one hot and sweaty weekend, the curtains Gabrielle Amelia Richardson!
My mother's voice. This moping will not do. Katya backs her up. Not in real life, but in my head; the two of them competing to see who can order me around the most. Katya rummages through her handbag, and her hand emerges with a large bar of chocolate that she waves in front of me.
It's the Oreo cookie version, tiny bits of biscuit crumb encased in thick slabs of chocolate, and it snaps with a satisfying crack. Oh no, no, no. I lurch forward and grab the bigger bit from her hands, dancing away from her as she shrieks and tries to snatch it back. My fingers move in double quick time, ripping through purple foil while Katya howls, "Don't you dare! All's fair in love and war, or love and chocolate, right? I do too, seeing as me and this comfy hunk of red velvet are on the brink of a split.
Best I make the most of it. We finish the bar between us. Katya holds chocolate-y fingers in the air and wiggles them. I raise an eyebrow, and she lifts the cushion underneath her and wipes them clean on it. Even plane if you want to. We have lived not more than fifteen minutes from each other ever since we were kids. Even when we went to university, we chose the same city.
