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It’s the night before the night before the wedding. She comes home and throws the keys in the basket. Picks up the post off the matt. Flicks distractedly through it and wanders into the kitchen. She opens the fridge, finds some white wine from last night and pours it into a glass from the cupboard. Back to the fridge she takes some onions and garlic. Back at the board she starts to chop and slice the onions. With the garlic she takes the flat of the knife and smashes it onto the side of the garlic, some of her aggression flows with it. She smashes it again knowing that it doesn’t really need it, just because.

She takes pans from the cupboard, sips from the glass and slowly lets her day drift away on a cloud of routine cooking and alcohol. For a moment everything is calm but then a thought enters her mind and quick as a flash her hand flicks on Radio 4. No thinking and cooking, she’s learned that doesn’t work.

Midway through sauteing the onions he gets back, throws his keys in the basket, flicks through the post and turns on the tv. He’s in there, she knows he is, because she can hear him flicking between channels. She wants him to acknowledge her and while she knows she could call out to him she lets him come to her.

The adverts come and he strolls into the kitchen leaving the tv on even though he knows it annoys her, he sidles up, gives her a kiss, steals some food, wanders off to the fridge for a beer and says, “so what’s for dinner”.

“Are you sure you want to get married?” She asks matter-of-factly. She turns off Radio 4; she wasn’t listening to it anyway.

“Not really.”

He opens his can and takes a large swig. Looks at her and takes another one. She reaches for her wine and finishes the glass in one.

“No. Neither am I.”

He sits on a train. He has slightly spikey gelled hair but when he leans forward to read his book you can see he’s beginning to thin on top. He’s reading to distract himself not just from all the people listening to music and jabbering away, he is reading to distract himself from his own head – from his own voice.

The train goes round a corner and squeaks in a rather alarming way. He looks up distracted for a second and even in that moment he hears his head say, “you’re worthless”. He puts his head back down and tries to focus on his book. But he’s lost his place and his eyes are wandering all over the page. The voice is getting louder and more cross while this is happening. It is simply, for once, just repeating the same phrase again and again. Once it used a word he didn’t even know, which made him feel really bad. He’d always wondered afterwards how that could be possible. But he still hadn’t quite brought himself to look it up, it might be too depressing.

Suddenly there was a hand on his knee, a woman’s hand. He followed the arm up and saw a beautiful face looking at him – really examining him. She looked into his eyes and he blinked.

“Sorry,” he said, “was I in the way?”
“You,” she paused and looked excited, “fascinate me”
“Me?” he resisted the urge to look over his shoulder.
“Yes you. Every day I see you and you never seem to see me. Every day you’re reading and when the train squeaks you look up, and then you always look so worried. I’ve started worrying about why you’re so worried.”
“I…” the words wouldn’t come, the voice started swearing at him in his head, but he ignored it and looked at her. He’d never really seen anyone as beautiful as her before in his life. Maybe in a magazine or a movie but she didn’t look fake she was breathing he could see that. She kept his gaze the whole time.

“You can tell me, I promise, and you don’t even know me yet”

It was the word “yet” that convinced him.

“I hear voices,” he said, “telling me that I’m useless. Telling me that I can’t do anything.”
“Well you can’t be useless. I think you’re brilliant.”

What had changed? Something. Something had changed. The voice had stopped. Was it because he’d admitted it or was it because of what she’d said?

“It’s stopped,” he said.
“Right then, now we can be friends.”

It’s dark. You can’t see. Your arms and legs move sluggishly because of the weight of the water on them. You almost start thrashing about just to get some freedom but as soon as you start you remind yourself to stop. To be calm. To concentrate on keeping your head above the water. You can feel the line around your neck like a noose. It’s rising. It’s rising quite quickly now. You tilt your head and that keeps your chin out of the water. You keep kicking with your legs, keep kicking, keep trying to stay afloat, keep kicking. And your hands are constantly searching, constantly tracing along the surface of the roof, the roof that you’re getting far too close to. Your hands feel only the smooth metallic surface. You know there is nothing. No release. Now no matter how you angle your head your chin is under water. You can’t move to keep searching. Your legs are tired but you keep kicking. Water laps against the corner of your lips. Even with your mouth closed you can feel it creeping into the cracks of the corners. You know it’s too dark to see anything but you have to try something. You turn and swim underwater, hands outstretched, blind, searching. It’s the last thing you remember.