I love foggy mornings. Unexpected things emerge from the fog, shapes shift. Fog is the trickster, the space of possibility, play and wonder. I love the soft translucent grey of it and the feeling that I can touch and caress the air. I love that it beckons, invites me to come closer, to step into it, but at the last moment, when I am already at the threshold, it recedes: the objects around me become clear and another space of murky possibility appears, daring me to try again, lulling me off my path.

Griffin is letting their blond hair grow long like on the decade-old photo I saw once. They wears earrings with a stone of exact same blue colour as their eyes and looks beautiful. This is the first thing I say after five months of separation: You look beautiful. We couldn’t find a table to sit face to face, so we sat side by side, facing outside, and turned our heads to look at each other. I used to not be able to look at Griffin directly. I used to not be able to look at people I care about directly, because looking at them meant opening myself to the kind of intimacy that was too much to bear. I used to talk too much just to fill the silence, because silence is another kind of intimacy. So, we sat and we talked, pausing, as necessary, and we looked at each other. What did you do this morning, asked Griffin, and I told them about meeting the common acquaintance who’d harmed me in a bad way. I still hate her, I said, and I hated seeing her, but was also strangely excited to see her. I guess, I’m addicted to the drama and the chaos of complex trauma. To which Griffin laughed because aren’t we all. They showed me the pictures of the makeup they wore for a burlesque show. I told them I still hadn’t had the courage to buy the red lipstick I wanted to buy since spring 2023. I will buy it next week, I promised, and I’ll send you the picture. It will be my accountability.