‘You can watch them like they’re on TV.’

‘How specific are the emotions? Can I see that someone is sad yet slightly horny at the same time?’ Poppy checked.

Norah thought it over. ‘Sure.’

Poppy considered. ‘I’m gonna go with the dreams.’

‘That’s so the wrong answer,’ Norah said with a chuckle.

‘You want the emotions?’ Poppy said, aghast. ‘You wouldn’t want to watch someone’s personal nightmare, where they’re, like, trapped in a world where squirrels are the size of t-rexes?’

‘If you had the colour thing, no one could ever lie to you,’ Norah pointed out. ‘You’d know exactly where their heads were at.’

‘I don’t want to know when people are lying to me, thanks,’ Poppy said. ‘What if you told me you liked my song just now, and then your aura was pity coloured?’

‘What’s the colour of pity?’ Norah asked, amused.

‘Chartreuse?’

‘Well, I’d have been orange. That’s sincerity. So you wouldn’t have to worry about that,’ Norah said. She went back to her work.

Poppy liked that answer, and she went back to working on the chord progression.

Sometime later, Poppy realised she was a bit parched and looked up to ask Norah something banal about a beverage, but the words never left her mouth.

Norah was bent over her work, with her inky black hair falling across her face. She moved to pull it back behind her ear, her pretty, serious face in a light frown of concentration, her grey eyes so intense it seemed like they might burn a hole in the page, and Poppy thought, ‘I want to kiss her.’

It felt like Poppy had been seconds away from this revelation for a while, and when it presented itself, it was a surprise, yet it wasn’t. They’d been getting closer for months. And Norah was cute, with her soulful eyes and her mouth that looked both sarcastic and incredibly kissable. She had depth. She was talented. She was funny. She made Poppy feel interesting. Poppy liked to talk to her. She felt easy around her. It felt good and exciting to see her.

But the gender of her was surprising. Poppy had never felt this reaction to a girl before.

Oh shit, Poppy thought. Am I gay?

‘Hey, you want to get a coffee around the corner?’ she asked Norah quickly, trying to shut her brain up.

Norah looked up. ‘Gimme three minutes. This shading is fucking me up, but I’m nearly there.’

‘Cool. How are you getting on, by the way? You’ve been working on that thing a lot lately.’

‘It’s going slow, but I think it's finding its feet,’ Norah told her.

‘So I’ll get to see the end of the story, then,’ Poppy said, pleased.

They smiled at each other for a second. And then Poppy felt like her aura was showing. ‘Anyway, finish your shading. I want coffee,’ she said quickly.

Norah chuckled and did as she was told. Poppy went back to her strumming. And soon enough, some words came for her music. Just like that, it became a real song.

Seven

Now

Norah was finding her rhythm. The shock of Poppy’s reappearance was passing with the weeks, and she was left with the situation as it truly was. A niggle, nothing more. She couldn’t carry on worrying about it. She had bigger fish to fry. She was sitting in a waiting room, preparing herself to go into her first couples’ counselling session.

‘You ready?’ she asked Max.

‘What do you mean?’ he replied, confused.

‘Just what I said. Are you ready?’

‘Ready how, though?’

Norah rolled his eyes. ‘Forget it.’

A woman in a jaunty scarf popped her head through the door. ‘Norah and Max?’

***

They came out fifty minutes later, and Norah was exhausted. She had just found out that everything was her fault, and Max was a blameless angel. She’d been quite surprised to learn that.

‘Should we go for a drink?’ Max asked. ‘Talk about the session.’

‘No, we need to get back,’ Norah said flatly. ‘Jane’s expecting us.’

‘I could text her?’ Max asked.

‘What for?’ Norah asked as they headed down the dark city street towards the car.

‘What’s wrong?’ Max asked, finally twigging the bad vibe.

‘What’s wrong?’ Norah spat back, a rage building in her that had been aired in the session. There wasn’t the time. Max had sucked up the whole session with his many, many grievances. ‘What’s wrong was the whole last hour.’

‘I thought that was good,’ Max said, shocked and hurt. ‘We really talked, for the first time in a long time.’

Norah could only laugh.

‘What is it?’ Max asked.

‘You’d like to know what’s wrong with me?’ Norah asked.

‘Yes?’ he said nervously.

‘Funny, you didn’t seem to give a shit in there,’ she said, thumbing in the direction of the counselling office.

Max was confounded. ‘I thought we did great. Really opened things up.’

‘The counsellor made a point of saying that one person couldn’t be solely responsible for every problem in this relationship. Did you even hear that?’ Norah checked.

‘Of course. I know I’m not perfect.’