LITMIR.BIZ

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lean on the wooden fence outside his building and glance around. It’s busy, yet weirdly peaceful – you don’t feel like you’re in a city centre. There are people hanging out on the grass because it’s surprisingly warm for October today, having picnics, fishing – it’s a picturesque Saturday lunchtime.

      The reason I’m hanging around outside, admiring the Aire & Calder navigational canal (which I know to be its name now, because I just heard a tour guide telling a flock of tourists that’s what it’s called) is because Millsy has a girl in there with him. We’re supposed to be catching the train home to Outwood to visit our parents, but he needs to ‘finish up’ with last night’s bird before we can go – whatever that means.

      Bored, I decide to amuse myself. I take a gold wedding band from my handbag and stand it on its side on the fence in front of me. I use a finger to gently twirl it around in circles before channelling every sad thought I’ve ever had: the fact I’ve lost a charm off the Juicy Couture bracelet my parents bought me for my birthday, the end of that film where the dog dies, the fact I’m probably going to die single and alone – shit, that one was a bit real. Anyway, it only takes a few seconds before my sorrowful frown catches the attention of two twenty-somethings walking past.

      ‘Are you OK?’ the first girl asks. She’s got her long, bright purple hair up in a bun on top of her head, the structure supported by a hair doughnut so big it looks like a burden. Her naturally red-headed friend, who appears equally concerned, looks like she could’ve been an extra in Pretty In Pink, her hairstyle and outfit positively 80s, even though she was probably only alive for a year or two of the decade.

      ‘I’m fine,’ I tell them. ‘It’s just…I’ve just found out my husband has been cheating on me.’

      ‘Oh my God, that’s proper rough,’ the first girl says.

      ‘Totally,’ the second echoes. ‘What are you going to do?’

      ‘That’s what I’m trying to figure out. We’ve only been married a few months – together for ten years though. I don’t think I can live without him.’

      The girls stare at me for a moment, fascinated by the seeming collapse of a stranger’s life.

      ‘You can’t take him back,’ the purple-haired girl tells me. ‘You just can’t. He’ll do it again and again if you do.’

      ‘You’ve just got to be strong and start again,’ Molly Ringwald wannabe adds.

      I think for a second, my expression dominated by a look of faux anguish.

      ‘You know what,’ I start, my confidence slowly coming back to me. ‘You’re right.’

      I pick up the ring from in front of me and examine it for a second before meaningfully throwing it into the river. I watch as the ripples disappear before exhaling deeply.

      ‘You go, girl,’ the first girl says as they wonder off, the show over. I turn around and watch them head up the steps, noticing that Millsy is standing behind me. He gives me a slow clap as he approaches me.

      ‘Bravo,’ he praises me. ‘It’s nice to see you’ve still got it in you.’

      ‘I act for fun, not work,’ I remind him. ‘Anyway, that was too easy.’

      ‘Great improv. with that ring though,’ he says, leaning on the fence next to me. ‘I would’ve gone all Andy Serkis, giving it “my precious” and all that.’

      ‘Oh I’m sure that would’ve had those two girls eating out of your hand – speaking of girls and eating out, where’s your bird?’

      Millsy wiggles his eyebrows.

      ‘I got rid when I came out, during your matinee. I reckon I could handle seeing this one maybe one more time, don’t want her meeting you, do I?’

      I furrow my brow.

      ‘Don’t give me that resting bitch face, Miss Wood,’ he laughs. ‘You know you’re a cock-block. Birds see that I’m close with you and run a mile – God knows why. But most blokes seem to find you fit, so we’ve got to keep you out of the way, you know the score.’

      The fact Millsy doesn’t want to sleep with me is actually the highest compliment he can pay me, because Millsy only sleeps with girls he doesn’t plan on keeping in his life for very long.

      ‘They have no need to be jealous,’ I tell him. ‘I know where you’ve been, I won’t even share drinks with you – herpes is for life.’

      ‘Fuck you! So I had a cold sore last year. One, once. It’s not the same as herpes.’

      I laugh as he passionately defends his cold sore, like he always does when I tease him about it. It’s just too easy.

      ‘OK, sorry.’

      ‘Right, we going for this train?’ he asks as he zhooshes his messy brown hair.

      ‘Sure, right after you jump in and get my ring back for me,’ I inform him, staring at him expectantly.

      ‘What?’

      ‘My ring. I saw where it landed. That was a real gold one, I threw it by mistake.’

      Millsy looks worried sick, the reflex to help his best friend without question doing battle with his aversion to jumping in dirty water and getting his hair wet.

      I watch as he appears to reach for his T-shirt, as though he were going to take it off, before I put him out of his misery.

      ‘Don’t worry, Tom Daley, I’m just kidding. It was a cheap one, from a Primark set. Plenty more at home.’

      ‘You bitch,’ he laughs. ‘You’re lucky I don’t care enough about you, or I would’ve just jumped in.’

      I grab him and hug him.

      ‘I love you too,’ I laugh. ‘Even though you’re dumb enough to think you can retrieve a tiny ring from a huge river.’

      ‘They’ll be retrieving you from a river when I strangle you and dump you in the Aire,’ he warns me.

      ‘And there’s me thinking you weren’t going to give me the same treatment you give all your Matcher birds.’

      ‘Come on, trouble. Train,’ he insists with a chuckle.

      Considering it is October – and we’re up north – it’s not that cold today, perfect for a stroll through my favourite part of Leeds. The Calls area is a mixture of offices, flats and bars/restaurants. Along with Call Lane and Lower Briggate, it makes up the heart of the gay scene in Leeds, so it’s great for peaceful walks during the day, before it comes alive at night.

      This is the part of Leeds where I wish I lived, instead of my flat-share hell above a bar on New Briggate, further up the hill. I mean, it’s not awful where I live. It’s in the city centre, and it’s right next to Merion Street which boasts some pretty cool bars, but I want to be down by the river where it’s pretty. Situated midway between where I live and where Millsy lives is the Trinity Centre, full of all my favourite shops as well as a whole host of bars and restaurants, so naturally when we hang out, that’s where we go. Yes, it’s awesome, but it doesn’t hurt that we can both easily crawl home after, it just sucks more for me because I’m headed up the hill, whereas Millsy heads down. When I put this argument to Millsy once to try and blag a rare night on his sofa, he countered it with: ‘at least you’re not at risk of rapists like I am’ – he quickly added that he meant because he walks along the edge of the river in the dark, and not because I’m so grossly undesirable that not even the rapists want me. Neither place is anywhere like where we lived for most of our lives.

      4 Finch Avenue, that’s the street Millsy and I grew up on. In cute red-brick detached houses, down a quiet little cul-de-sac in Outwood, a town near Wakefield that no one has heard of.

      Millsy didn’t just grow up on the same street as me, he lived in the house next door. Our mothers have been best friends since

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