New Year’s Eve is overrated so I make a simple decision to drink it in from the limited options presented. Three pubs, a house party and a long wait for a cab home on triple time. When we finally get inside my lungs are cold burning and I can feel a sweat broken across my shoulders. I also feel underdressed because the blokes here are in unbuttoned black tie and their terrace house hallway is narrow, almost claustrophobic without the hall light and there’s tinsel across the picture frames. I can hear a muffled disco track blaring that has aged pretty well. Nikki opens the door in a velvet cocktail dress and looks peeved at me.

I’m move quick, stomping up the stairs because I’m underdressed and Ruth will be in there somewhere. We’ve recently developed an acute sense for plotting social diaries that don’t overlap. I found myself out of options after some unnecessary drama in the pub (usual stuff). 

I have a slash, compose myself in the mirror and head back down. In the corridor kitchen there a group of people fixed around Sean. Some of this lot were the type to kick the shit out of him after school and he’s had mental health problems long before they were some sort of badge you put in your bio. Now he’s signed and they’ve heard his records on at work on the daytime playlist. Nikki’s warmed up and sorts me out a plastic cup and I go overboard with the bourbon, a little for courage but mostly by accident. I’m watching Billy interjecting nearly everything Sean says and it's at this point I see Ruth and she looks amazing, which is incredibly annoying. She mouths a small hello at me, I reciprocate but neither of us approach. Later on she says happy new year to me in the front room. I grab some ice from the kitchen side and level a couple rocks into a fizzy, tawny abandonment. When the patio doors swing open the kitchen gets cold and it’s a bit too loud to stay in here anyway. 

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Liz corners me and says she’s already spoken to Ruth who doesn’t mind me being here. Nothing out of character, she’s low drama and has kept things pretty chill recently. I ask Liz about her because I’ve been hopelessly spinning stories in my head about what she gets up to. I can hear the other room singing along to a pop punk song that has aged badly. Liz says everyone thinks it’s me flying off the rails, a comment parked in truth. I’m really quite drunk at this point.

At midnight we  go into the front room which is also too small for this amount of people and they put on FM radio which sounds louder and more compressed than the records that were playing before. Just after midnight when everyone is dancing I see Tom from her new work put his arms around her hips and I have to leave the room, which is easy because I’m standing in the doorway. I go outside alone and quickly Frank and his workmates come out and they have scarves draped across their shoulders and cigars which I get involved in. When I go back inside everyone has left the front room and the London Eye fireworks are on the telly and I can get a seat on the sofa which is more comfortable than I can remember. It smells like party poppers and when I open my phone, my screen is full of copy paste whatsapps from mates and a kind one from Mum. When they’re all out in the kitchen and garden I ghost. I walk home to the dull thud of fireworks and it's probably a bit further than it should be and inside the house it's cold but clean and the cats are hungry and acting like nothing has happened.