The Inverts

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They were quiet for a while, sipping their drinks and smoking, Bart’s leg draped over Bettina’s. Two empty champagne bottles lay on top of the bedsheets, dripping out their dregs onto the purple silk and creating perfect dark circles.

‘Wouldn’t it be awful,’ said Bart, eventually, ‘if we ended up hating each other?’

‘Oh, I would hate that,’ said Bettina.

‘You would hate the hate?’

‘Yes, I’d abhor it. You’re my absolute favourite person.’

‘Same,’ he said, smiling. ‘I am my absolute favourite person.’

‘Bart!’ She nudged him with her elbow, causing his drink to slosh inside the glass. ‘You pretend you’re joking but you aren’t really.’

‘I was joking,’ he said. ‘Possibly.’ He puffed on his cigarette with little smirk creases along the side of his mouth. ‘In any case, I fucking adore you and if things ever soured between us I think a part of my soul would shrivel up. The scant ember of optimism in my heart would go out and I’d become an altogether bleaker human being.’

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