We sat at the bus-stop. The road was a thin grey line, the houses red-brick.
Discarded bottles and fast-food wrappers formed strange tumble-weeds.
The bus shelter was small. There was a thin metal railing to sit on. I could feel
the cold seep through my jeans. The bus shelter had metal sheeting instead of glass.
It was like sitting in a tin-can.
Emily sat next to me. She wore a denim jacket covered in pins, and ripped
black jeans. She was blonde. Gold hoops dangled from her ears. She had a mostly
perfect face, only ruined by her nose. It was like someone had come across a Greek
statue and given the nose a spiteful tweak.
It was very unfortunate, that nose. It stuck out like an icecap from the sea.
Like a United shirt at the Etihad. Like a fart in a lift. Couldn’t be helped, I suppose.
And I wasn’t exactly an Adonis. But still.
On the wall of the station was a list of bus numbers, and their scheduled times.
Our bus was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.
A puddle of Lucozade was between my feet. The bottle was nowhere to be
seen. I watched my reflection waver on the murky liquid. Upside-down, I watched a
truck drive by, and then a red car. Neither caused the surface to ripple. I opened my
mouth, and let a drop of spit fall. It hit the puddle. Above us, the sky seemed
colourless.
‘That’s disgusting,’ Emily said.

I shrugged. In one hand, she held her phone. The screen was bright white,
marred only by the red blip of a notification. She held her phone like it was a monkey
paw with only a single wish remaining. Her phone case was decorated in pink
flowers. Green vines crept around the edge. A rabbit danced near the camera lens. It
could’ve belonged to a little kid.
‘This bus is taking forever,’ said Emily.
‘They always do.’
‘It’s boring.’
‘Yeah.’
My spit had been absorbed into the puddle. Over the road, one of the doors
opened. A man stepped out, followed by a woman. He wore a blazer and shirt, she a
blouse and heavy necklace. Were they going to Church? Or a funeral? Those were the
only two activities I knew old people frequented. I assumed she was his wife, but
there was no way to know.
Beside me, Emily texted with alternating thumbs. Her phone made small
clicking noises. Beneath the colourful phone case was dark plastic. I saw her battery
was at 36%. A message from her mother appeared, but was quickly ignored.
‘I wonder where they’re going,’ I said.
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Who?’
‘That couple.’
The woman locked the door behind her. The man walked with a cane. His
back was sloped. He was bald, his skin liver-spotted. By contrast, the woman seemed
healthier- her back was straight, and her hair was brown. Maybe she dyed it. That

was what my mother did. She told me all the women in her family went grey early.
She had gone grey at 27. Stress, apparently.
Emily glanced at them.
‘Don’t call them a couple. They’re old,’ Emily’s voice was hard. She resumed
texting. ‘And nobody over 40 should be having sex.’
‘How do you know they’re having sex?’
‘I just know.’
I scratched at the back of my head. I had a dandruff problem. If I wore black,
it was like snowfall round my shoulders. Luckily, I was wearing blue, so it wasn’t as
bad. I had a sweat problem too, and an eye problem, and a speed problem. My
mother was fond of saying I had a life problem.
The woman joined the man on the pavement. They began to walk. They must
be heading into Stockport. I put my left hand in my back pocket. The wind toyed with
the ends of the man’s jacket. He walked with precision. The woman walked fast to
catch up with him. She removed a woollen hat from her pocket, and handed it to the
man. He put it on. For a reason I am still unsure of, he reminded me of a sailor.
Inside my pocket was a crumpled receipt from Morrisons. I opened it. It was
for a bag of oranges, and a small carton of milk. I twisted it between my fingers. I
tapped Emily’s shoulder.
‘They’ve been arguing again,’ I said.
‘What about?’
‘I’m not sure.’

‘Are you sure this bus was supposed to come 20 minutes ago?’
The couple turned a corner and walked out of sight. With my free hand, I
scratched my nose. ‘That’s what it said when I Googled it.’
Emily rolled her eyes.
I ran a finger along the cool metal bar. The bus stop was made of metal
sheeting. It used to be made of glass but people would smash it. You’d see it in the
street, green-white shards, sunlight sparkling off it. People say smashed glass is like
diamonds but it isn’t. It’s more like crushed ice.
‘The truth is,’ Emily began, ‘If your parents break up, you’re guaranteed a ton
of money. You basically won’t have to work.’
‘Okay,’ I said. Emily glanced at me.
‘That’s what Rob says, anyway.’
Emily seemed to meet the new love of her life each week. But Rob was her
long-running obsession. I’d only met him once. We stood at the fence outside our
school. Autumn had stripped the trees bare, and rose goose bumps on our skin.
Ash had dropped from Rob’s cigarette like falling leaves. He wore black nail
polish and a frayed scarf, and observed me from under his fringe. Emily clung onto
his arm.
I’m going to be a novelist, he told me.
Good luck with that, I told him. I didn’t know any novelists. I only read
comics. At the time, I could name every Batman villain in alphabetical order. I’d once
done it for a school talent show. I’d gotten stage fright around the Riddler and
fumbled.

Rob was a little older than us. A yellow beanie was shoved in his back pocket.
Rob went to university in London. He told us that was the solution to Northern
dysphoria. Rob liked Bukowski, and expensive cars, and Americanos. He asked me
what I was studying. I said Photography, Media and Art. Rob nodded. He didn’t ask
Emily what A-Levels she was studying.
A passing car sent water onto the kerb. It had been raining earlier, and the
drops had gathered to form puddles in puddles and drains. Sweat from my palms
made the receipt easy to mould.
‘How is Rob?’ I asked Emily.
‘Rob’s got this awful haircut now. Let his hair grow out and dyed it red,’ Emily
paused. Her screen went dark. ‘He wants us to go to Edinburgh.’
‘Edinburgh?’
‘Rob says there’s a castle that overlooks the whole city. And the nightlife in
incredible. That’s culture, of course.’
‘Of course.’
It was hard to hear Rob and culture in the same sentence. I began to fold and
unfold the receipt. In front of us the traffic was a trail of cars, sullen and belching
fumes. Traffic lights hovered nervously on amber. The sky was white, I realised. Not
colourless. Emily tossed her hair over her shoulder.
‘Take a picture of me,’ she said. I blinked.
‘A picture?’
‘For my profile.’

In photography, White Balance is when colours are adjusted to match the
colour of the light source. It’s a way of manipulating tone in photographs. Going from
dark to light and back. So white objects look white. Black looks black. Things appear
as they really are.
Emily passed me the phone like a sacrificial knife. I touched cold plastic. A
blank screen stared up at me.
I should not have been touching it. I’m digitally diseased, I wanted to tell her.
If I’m not watching Netflix I’m watching YouTube. During the day, I hold a slab of
white to my eyes from the second I wake up, till well after I should’ve gone to bed. I
watch house tours in LA, footage of war in the Yemen, prank YouTubers with stupid
haircuts and worse names. I watch black-and-white footage of schoolchildren from
sixty years ago and I look at them in their classrooms and I count the fear in their
eyes and try to work out if we are the same. You’ve handed the needle to the addict,
Em, you’ve really done it now.
But I didn’t say any of it.
Recently, I’ve been sitting through every Ad I get. I don’t press skip. My hands
stay at my side. My record for Longest Ad is seven minutes. It was for Swiss watches.
Through the camera her face took a moment to adjust. Her skin was pale. Hair
dulled. She pulled an expression. Digital bliss. The camera lapped it up. You could
take multiple photos soundlessly on Emily’s phone. On mine, there was always a
noise, and you could only take one photo at a time.
The pixels flickered and blurred. They swarmed at her skin like mosquitos,
sucking her in, preserving her in flashes. She’s in a cloud now. Uploaded. My hands
didn’t know how to hold her phone. The first phone my mother allowed me to have

was a brick. It had no internet, and only one song, a Swedish one with a lot of
drumming. It was my ringtone for three years.
Further up the road, the bus appeared. You learn to recognise the way buses
limber in suburbia.
‘Do you have the right change?’ I asked Emily.
‘Have you got it?’ Emily asked.
‘Dayriders are about five quid now. It’s not cheap. You need to have your
money ready when you get on or the bus driver will get annoyed.’
The bus loomed behind her. Her A-Levels, I wanted to tell Rob, are Music,
Literature, and History.
Emily took her phone from my hands. She opened her album and examined
the photos I had taken. The bus slowed. The breaks hissed. The expression on
Emily’s face changed. I clutched the metal bar with both hands.
The door opened.