The Green Edge

She messaged him at five in the morning. He was already awake. He'd slept for forty minutes. Maybe an hour. The kind of sleep that wasn't really sleep but a shallow dip below consciousness, a brief submersion that left him more tired than he'd been before.

Oise_88 (PM): I'm awake.

NorthForeland (PM): Me too.

Oise_88 (PM): I don't want to do this today.

NorthForeland (PM): I know.

Oise_88 (PM): I have to clean the house. Air it out. Make it look like I've been here alone. Normal. Boring. Make the bed. Hide the evidence.

NorthForeland (PM): What evidence?

Oise_88 (PM): Me. The happy version of me. He'll notice if I'm different. He notices things sometimes. Not the right things. But things.

NorthForeland (PM): Then be the version he expects.

Oise_88 (PM): I'm so tired of being versions.

NorthForeland (PM): I know. One day you won't have to be.

Oise_88 (PM): One day.

NorthForeland (PM): One day.

A pause. Then:

Oise_88 (PM): I need you. Before I go. Before I become her again. Can I call?

He called her. She picked up immediately. Her voice was thin. Morning voice. Raw from sleep and from the hours of talking that had preceded it. She sounded like someone standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down, knowing they had to step back but not wanting to.

"Tell me something," she said.

"What do you want to hear?"

"Anything. Something that's yours. Not about me. Not about us. Just you. I want to carry something of yours today. While I'm being someone else."

He thought for a moment.

"When I was nineteen, I walked from Folkestone to Dover along the cliff path. It took six hours. I didn't tell anyone where I was going. I just left. Walked. The whole way. It was February and the wind was so strong I had to lean into it or it would have pushed me off the path. There was a moment, about halfway, where the path narrowed and the cliff dropped away to the right and the sea was below me and the sky was above me and I was this thin line of bone and breath between two enormous emptinesses. And I wasn't scared. I was the opposite of scared. I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Suspended. Held. Between the sky and the sea. I've never felt that again. Not until."

He stopped.

"Not until what?" she whispered.

"Not until you."

She was quiet for a long time. He could hear her breathing. Uneven. shaky.

"I don't want to hang up," she said.

"I know."

"I don't want to go downstairs and make coffee for two and smile at a man who doesn't know I spent yesterday coming apart for someone else."

"You don't have to feel guilty."

"I do feel guilty."

"I know. But you don't have to. You're surviving. That's what this is. Survival."

"Is that what you are? Survival?"

"You're asking if you needing me is a survival mechanism?"

"Yes."

"Maybe. Probably. But survival mechanisms exist for a reason. They keep you alive. And you were not alive before this. You were functioning. There's a difference."

She made a sound. A breath that was almost a sob. She caught it. Held it. Swallowed it.

"I have to go," she said.

"I know."

"I'll message you. When I can. It won't be like the week. He's here. I'll have to be careful."

"I know."

"Don't wait up for me."

"I'll wait. That's what I do."

"You're impossible."

"I'm consistent."

"Goodbye, NorthForeland."

"Goodbye, Oise. Breathe."

She hung up. The phone went silent. The room went silent. The wind outside filled the gap where her voice had been, and it was a poor substitute. He lay in the dark and stared at the ceiling and felt the weight of her absence settle over him like a second skin.

He went to work.

He showered. Dressed. Made coffee he didn't drink. Walked to the office in the cold, the wind off the Channel cutting through his jacket, and sat at his desk in a building that smelled like printer ink and stale air freshener. He answered emails. He attended a meeting. He nodded at the right moments. He said the words I agree and let's circle back on that and good point, well made and none of them were real. They were sounds. Noises a body made while the mind was somewhere else.

Somewhere in Senlis. In a stone house. Where a woman was making coffee for two and smiling at a man who didn't know she'd been someone else entirely for fourteen hours.

His phone was in his pocket. He checked it. No messages. He checked it again twenty minutes later. Nothing. Again. Nothing. The nothing was expected. He knew the nothing was coming. He'd prepared for it. He'd told himself it would happen. He'd said the words I know and I'll wait and he'd meant them.

The knowing didn't help. The preparation didn't help. The nothing was still nothing, and it sat in his chest like a stone.

By noon, he'd checked his phone eleven times. By two, seventeen. By four, he'd lost count. He stopped checking for twenty minutes, then started again. The screen was blank. The group chat was quiet. No Oise_88. No messages. No voice notes. No breath in his ear.

He drove home. Walked through the door. Sat on the edge of his bed. Opened the messaging app.

Nothing.

He typed a message. Deleted it. Typed another. Deleted it. Typed a third.

NorthForeland (PM): Thinking of you. No need to reply. Just wanted you to know.

He sent it. It sat there, blue bubble on a white screen, delivered, not read. He stared at it for five minutes. Then he put the phone face-down and lay back and stared at the ceiling and listened to the wind.

She read it at nine that night.

Oise_88 (PM): Thank you. Today was. Hard. I'm okay. I'll message properly tomorrow. x

The kiss at the end. A single x. It was the first time she'd used it. A small, tentative offering. A crumb. He held it in his palm like a jewel.

He typed back.

NorthForeland (PM): Take your time. I'm here. Always. x

He added the x. Matching her. Offering back what she'd given. He stared at the message after sending it, wondering if it was too much. Wondering if the x was a thing they did now. Wondering if he was already overthinking a single letter.

He was. He knew he was.

He didn't sleep.

Saturday.

She messaged at noon. The time stamp was casual. Midday. Weekend. The kind of time a person messages when they have a free moment between errands or during a quiet afternoon. He knew better. He knew she was messaging from a bathroom, or a garden, or the car, stealing minutes from a life that didn't include him.

Oise_88 (PM): Hi. How are you?

NorthForeland (PM): I'm here. How are you?

Oise_88 (PM): Fine. We went to the market this morning. Bought vegetables. Very exciting.

The tone was wrong. He could feel it immediately. The typing was clean. Complete sentences. Proper punctuation. No fragments. No breathless pauses. No putain. This was the performed version. The version she wore like a uniform, polished and correct and entirely hollow.

He hated it. Not her. Never her. He hated the version. The smooth, pleasant shell that she became when she was being watched. He could feel the performance through the screen the way a doctor feels a fever through skin. It was hot to the touch. Wrong.

But he played his part. He was gentle. Light. The version of himself that didn't demand or probe or see too much.

NorthForeland (PM): Vegetables. Living the dream. What did you get?

Oise_88 (PM): Tomatoes. Courgettes. Some cheese from the market. The usual.

NorthForeland (PM): Sounds better than my lunch. I had a meal deal from Tesco.

Oise_88 (PM): What's a meal deal?

NorthForeland (PM): It's the most British thing in the world. A sandwich, a snack, and a drink for £3.50. It's the culinary equivalent of giving up.

Oise_88 (PM): Haha. That's sad.

NorthForeland (PM): It is. But it's honest. Like my sea.

She didn't reply for twenty minutes. He watched the screen. The typing indicator appeared. Vanished. Appeared. Vanished. She was choosing her words. Filtering. Performing.

Oise_88 (PM): Sorry. He came into the kitchen. I had to put my phone down. How was your afternoon?

NorthForeland (PM): Quiet. Work was fine. I went for a walk along the promenade. The sea was angry today. Big waves. Probably rain later.

Oise_88 (PM): I love the sound of the sea. I miss it sometimes.

NorthForeland (PM): Come visit. The cliffs are always here.

A long pause. He'd gone too far. The invitation was too direct. Too real for a Saturday afternoon when her boyfriend was in the next room and she was performing normalcy on a phone screen.

Oise_88 (PM): Maybe someday.

NorthForeland (PM): Someday. I'll hold you to that.

Oise_88 (PM): I should go. He wants to watch a film. I'll message later if I can.

NorthForeland (PM): Enjoy the film. I'll be here.

Oise_88 (PM): Thank you for being patient with me.

NorthForeland (PM): Always.

She went offline. The screen went quiet. The room went quiet. He sat on his bed and held his phone and felt the absence of her like a phantom limb. She was there. In her house. Watching a film with a man who thought he knew her. And she was performing. Being the version. The good girlfriend. The woman who bought courgettes at the market and watched films on Saturday evenings and didn't spend her days coming apart for a stranger in Kent.

He wanted to scream. He didn't. He lay back and stared at the ceiling and counted the cracks in the plaster and tried not to think about her on the sofa, curled up against a body that wasn't his, laughing at a film she probably wasn't watching.

Saturday night. Midnight. His phone buzzed.

Oise_88 (PM): Are you awake?

NorthForeland (PM): Always.

Oise_88 (PM): He's asleep. I'm in the bathroom. Sitting on the floor. Classy.

NorthForeland (PM): The bathroom floor is a sacred space. I've had some of my best breakdowns on bathroom floors.

Oise_88 (PM): Haha. I'm not having a breakdown. I just needed to breathe.

NorthForeland (PM): Breathe then. I'm here.

Oise_88 (PM): I miss you. Is that crazy? I saw you yesterday. We talked for fifteen hours. And I miss you already.

NorthForeland (PM): It's not crazy. I miss you too.

Oise_88 (PM): Today was hard. Being her. The version. It's like putting on a costume that doesn't fit anymore. I kept thinking about yesterday. About what you said. About the cliff path. About being suspended between the sky and the sea. I kept thinking about that while he was talking about work and I was nodding and smiling and inside I was screaming.

NorthForeland (PM): I know. I could feel it in your messages. The punctuation was too good. You only use full sentences when you're performing.

Oise_88 (PM): You noticed that.

NorthForeland (PM): I notice everything about you. I told you that.

Oise_88 (PM): I know. It's terrifying and wonderful and I don't know which one more.

He wanted to say wonderful. He wanted to say please don't be terrified of me. He wanted to say leave him, come to me, I'll stand on the cliff path and wait for you. He wanted to say all of it. He typed none of it.

NorthForeland (PM): You don't have to perform for me. You know that. Even here. Even in text. You can just be.

Oise_88 (PM): I know. It's hard to switch. I've been her all day. She's sticky. She doesn't come off easily.

NorthForeland (PM): Take your time. I'm not going anywhere.

Oise_88 (PM): Can I tell you something? Something honest? Something I probably shouldn't say?

His stomach tightened.

NorthForeland (PM): You can tell me anything.

Oise_88 (PM): We had sex tonight. Him and me. After the film.

He stared at the message. The words sat on the screen like a slap. Clean. Factual. Devastating. He read it three times. His jaw clenched. His vision narrowed. The green thing. The thing he'd been holding back since the first time AustinDominator took the controls. The envy. It surged up from his stomach and filled his throat and he could taste it, metallic and hot, and he wanted to type back something sharp and possessive and cruel.

He didn't.

He breathed. He set the phone down. He picked it up again. He breathed again.

NorthForeland (PM): Okay.

Oise_88 (PM): I'm not telling you to hurt you. I need you to know that. I'm telling you because I promised I wouldn't lie. Because lying is what I do with him and I can't do that with you. It would feel like a betrayal of what this is.

NorthForeland (PM): I know. Thank you for being honest.

Oise_88 (PM): Are you okay?

Was he okay. He was not okay. He was sitting on his bed in Folkestone with his fists clenched and his jaw tight and a voice in his head that was screaming mine mine mine like a child who'd had a toy taken. He was not okay. He was the opposite of okay. He was the dark thing, the ugly thing, the envy that lived in the basement of his chest and clawed at the door every time someone else touched what he considered his.

But she didn't need that. She needed safety. She needed the version of him that was steady and kind and the safe place. She needed the dark that wrapped around her and let her breathe, not the dark that consumed. And if he couldn't be both, if he couldn't hold the envy and the kindness in the same hand, then the kindness would win. For her. Always for her. Even if it broke him a little.

NorthForeland (PM): I'm okay. I promised I wouldn't lie to you either, so I'll be honest. It's not easy to hear. But I'd rather know than not know. And I'd rather you tell me the truth than perform for me the way you perform for him.

Oise_88 (PM): I knew you'd understand. I knew you'd be like this. That's why I told you.

NorthForeland (PM): How was it?

He shouldn't have asked. He knew he shouldn't have asked the moment he typed it. But he needed to know. Not the details. Not the physical act. He needed to know if she'd been present or performing. He needed to know if the real her, the version he'd held at twenty percent and talked to for fifteen hours, had been there or if she'd been the shell.

Oise_88 (PM): Honestly?

NorthForeland (PM): Honestly.

Oise_88 (PM): It was fine. He's not bad at it. He's just. He doesn't see me. He touches my body but it's like he's following a script. He doesn't read me. He doesn't know when I'm performing and when I'm real. He doesn't know the difference. I came and it was fine and afterward I lay there and thought about you.

His chest cracked. Not from jealousy. From something worse. From the recognition that she was doing to her boyfriend what she did to everyone. Performing. Being the version. And the version was so convincing that the man beside her couldn't tell the difference between her orgasm and her performance of one.

NorthForeland (PM): You thought about me.

Oise_88 (PM): Yes. Is that wrong?

NorthForeland (PM): No. It's not wrong. Nothing about what you feel is wrong.

Oise_88 (PM): I feel guilty. About him. About you. About all of it.

NorthForeland (PM): I know. The guilt is yours. I can't take it from you. But I can hold it with you while you carry it.

Oise_88 (PM): You always know what to say.

NorthForeland (PM): I only know because I've rehearsed every possible scenario in my head a hundred times before you speak. I'm not wise. I'm prepared.

Oise_88 (PM): Haha. You're ridiculous.

NorthForeland (PM): I'm honest. There's a difference.

Oise_88 (PM): I should go back to bed. He'll notice if I'm gone too long.

NorthForeland (PM): Go. Sleep. I'll be here tomorrow.

Oise_88 (PM): Thank you for being you.

NorthForeland (PM): Thank you for letting me.

Oise_88 (PM): Goodnight. x

NorthForeland (PM): Goodnight. x

Sunday.

The longest day.

He woke at six after a sleep that had been shallow and broken and full of dreams he couldn't remember but that left a residue of anxiety on his skin. He showered. Made coffee. Sat at the kitchen table. Opened the app.

No messages.

He expected that. It was Sunday. She'd be with him. The boyfriend. They'd be having breakfast. Maybe walking. Maybe driving somewhere. Being a couple. Being normal. Being the version.

He went for a walk. The promenade. The cliffs. The wind was brutal, straight off the Channel, carrying salt and cold and the faint, distant smell of France. He stood at the edge and looked south and knew she was there. Somewhere beyond the gray water, in a village or a town or a field, being someone else.

He wanted her.

Not sexually. Not only sexually. He wanted her the way you want air when you're drowning. The way you want land when you're swimming. The wanting was total. It occupied his body. His hands. His chest. His throat. He wanted to hear her voice. He wanted to hear her breathing. He wanted to hold the slider and feel her respond. He wanted to make her come and then talk about poetry and then make her come again and then fall asleep on the phone and wake up and do it all over again.

He wanted to be the only one. The thought was possessive and ugly and he knew it. He knew it the way he knew the wind was cold. It was a fact. It was true. And knowing it was true didn't make it smaller.

He checked his phone. Nothing.

He walked home. Sat on his bed. Stared at the ceiling. Checked his phone. Nothing.

At two in the afternoon, he cracked.

NorthForeland (PM): I miss you. I know you're busy. I know you can't reply. I just needed to say it. I miss you and the wind sounds like your breathing today and I know that's insane but I can't help it. You don't need to reply. Just. Know that I'm thinking about you.

He sent it before he could stop himself. He stared at the message and felt the familiar spiral of self-loathing. Too much. Too intense. Too desperate. She was with her boyfriend and he was sending her paragraphs about wind and breathing. He was the worst version of himself. The clinging, needy, bottomless thing that couldn't be satisfied with silence. The thing that needed constant reassurance that it existed, that it was seen, that it mattered.

He put the phone face-down. Picked it up. Put it down again. Picked it up.

She'd read it. The read receipt confirmed it. But no reply. No typing indicator. She'd read it and closed the app and gone back to being the version.

He understood. He did. She couldn't reply. She was with him. She'd read it and she'd felt something and she couldn't respond and that was the situation. The situation they'd chosen. The situation that was his fault as much as hers. He'd known she had a boyfriend from the beginning. He'd known what he was signing up for. He'd walked into this with his eyes open and his heart exposed and now he was paying the price of the admission.

The price was Sunday. The price was silence. The price was lying on his bed in Folkestone, staring at the ceiling, while the woman he was falling in love with sat in a garden in Senlis, being someone else's.

At nine that night, she messaged.

Oise_88 (PM): I'm sorry I couldn't reply earlier. I read your message. I read it four times. I wanted to cry. I couldn't. Not there. Not with him in the next room.

NorthForeland (PM): Don't apologize. I shouldn't have sent it. It was too much.

Oise_88 (PM): It wasn't too much. It was exactly you. And I needed it. I needed to know you were there. Today was. Long. Being her for two days straight. It's exhausting. I feel like I'm wearing a costume made of someone else's skin.

NorthForeland (PM): I know the feeling.

Oise_88 (PM): Do you?

NorthForeland (PM): I've been wearing costumes my whole life. The version that functions. The version that goes to work and says the right things and nods at the right times. The version that pretends the darkness is just a mood and not a permanent resident. I know what it costs to perform. And I know how it feels when the performance ends and there's nothing underneath.

Oise_88 (PM): There's something underneath. With me. There's you.

NorthForeland (PM): There's you too. Underneath all of it. The real you. The one who sits on bathroom floors and sends messages to a stranger. She's there. She's always there.

Oise_88 (PM): How do you always know what I need to hear?

NorthForeland (PM): Because I need to hear it too.

A pause. Then:

Oise_88 (PM): I don't deserve you.

He stared at the message. The familiar words. The self-hatred, the same frequency, the same frequency he carried in himself. He recognized it the way you recognize your own face in a stranger.

NorthForeland (PM): You deserve everything. You just don't believe it yet.

Oise_88 (PM): Neither do you.

NorthForeland (PM): No. Neither do I. But I believe it about you. And maybe that's enough for now.

Oise_88 (PM): It's enough.

NorthForeland (PM): Good.

Oise_88 (PM): Can I call you? Just for a minute. I just need to hear your voice before I go to sleep.

NorthForeland (PM): Always.

She called. He picked up. Neither spoke for a moment. Just breathing. Two people in two countries breathing into the dark.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi."

"I'm tired."

"I know."

"Today was hard. Yesterday was hard. Being her is hard."

"You're not her. Not with me."

"I know. That's why I called."

"Good."

"I miss you."

"I miss you too."

"Is this what it's going to be like? Every weekend?"

"Until it's not."

"Until what?"

"Until you don't have to be her anymore."

"And when will that be?"

"I don't know. But I'll be here when it happens."

She was quiet. He could hear her breathing slow. The clock ticking. The cat somewhere, a faint rustle.

"You said something yesterday," she said. "About the cliff path. About being suspended between the sky and the sea."

"Yes."

"I want that. With you. I want to be suspended."

"You are. We both are. Between two countries. Between two lives. Between what is and what could be."

"I want what could be."

"Then we'll find it."

"You sound so sure."

"I'm not sure. I'm desperate. But desperation sounds a lot like certainty when you've been alone long enough."

She laughed. Soft. Tired. Real.

"Goodnight," she said.

"Goodnight."

"Don't hang up yet."

"I won't."

"Talk to me."

He talked. Low. Steady. About nothing. About the color of the sky. About the sound of the ferry horn that he could hear sometimes at night, low and mournful, crossing the dark water. About how he imagined the passengers on the ferry, traveling between two countries, neither here nor there, suspended.

She fell asleep in eleven minutes. He listened for twenty. Then he hung up and lay in the dark.

The wind pressed against the window. The ferry horn sounded, distant and low. He closed his eyes and saw green. The green of envy. The green of eyes that wanted. The green of a man who was holding himself together with kindness and willpower while the dark thing inside him clawed at the walls.

He held it. For her. He held it because she needed him to be the safe place, not the storm. She needed him to be the dark that wrapped around her. And he would hold it. For as long as it took. Even if it broke him a little more each time.

Even if the green was eating him alive.