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‘No,’ I laugh. ‘You look much better.’ When I hug her she feels like a wilting flower, one that keeps going even though there’s no sun. I want to be strong like Granny, but I’m not sure I’m made of the same matter as her. She’s iron and I’m something like dust.

I text Josh, a guy from back home that I worked in a pub with. Joe didn’t want me to be friends with him because he knew there was something between us. It makes me feel giddy, as though what I’m doing is against the rules. I’m allowed to do whatever I want now. Josh responds with a voice note:

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He's not really a dandy, but neither is he careless about his appearance. He is not a libertine. He has a wife he loves, and two children. And yet he likes women. But he's never made a career as a "lady's man." He believes that that sort of career is a career of contemptible "substitution" and mo…