Whispers Through a Megaphone by Rachel Elliott

few minutes, then she would be all right. She wandered from room to room, not wanting to speak to anyone she bumped into, and found herself upstairs, outside the cupboard on the landing. No one would disturb her in there—she could sit on the wooden box full of old photographs, eat her hot dog and drink her champagne in peace.
    A woman’s voice. “Sadie, are you up there?”
    The only voice she wanted to hear, but still she remained hidden in the cupboard.
    “Sadie?”
    Footsteps up the stairs and along the landing. Sadie carried on eating in the dark. She was starving. She wished she’d brought herself a plate of salad and some garlic bread.
    “Hello?”
    Come in, go away. I want you, I don’t want you . She drank her champagne.
    “Sadie, is that you in the bathroom?”
    Bloody hell. No, it’s not me in the bathroom, because I’m actually in the cupboard. Yes, that’s right, the cupboard. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea. Do you have any food?
    Sadie listened to the music coming from the kitchen and garden—‘Hit’ by the Sugarcubes. She used to love this song. She remembered dancing to it years ago in the student union bar with Alison Grabowski. This memory had the same effect on her body as Rosanna Arquette’s poetry. She saw Alison Grabowski, there in the cupboard, dancing in her black jeans and suede jacket, dancing so close. At university, Sadie and Alison were inseparable. They walked through the park holding hands, smoked their roll-ups in the bandstand, laughed dismissively when people called them a couple. She remembered watching Alison getting dressed, and how Alison just smiled when she noticed her watching. Then she recalled something else—how could she have forgotten this? Alison lying beside her on the bed, suggesting that they have sex just to see how it felt. Sadie wanted to say yes, that’s a very good idea, and really we should do it twice, just to make sure we got it right, but she wasn’t sure whether Alison was being serious or sarcastic and she couldn’t take the risk. “Yeah right, as if,” she said.
    The moment was gone.
    ( Because I couldn’t take a risk. )
    In the days that passed, everything felt hollow. Then she met Ralph Swoon, who distracted her from the hollowness.She knew what he meant when careful words came out of his mouth. He was sensitive, serious-minded.
    Among the old clothes and shoes, Sadie wanted to cry but she couldn’t. Missed opportunities flew at her in the dark, one after the other, the chances she never took. What had her mind done with these moments? Was it a kind of sexual amnesia? Would she forget Kristin too? Forget that she ever felt anything at all? That process had already begun—just days after it happened, she had forgotten the incident in the bookshop until Kristin brought it up.
    There was a moment .
    She heard a faint tapping and ignored it. The outside world could wait. She groaned, hoping it would release her tears, but it didn’t.
    The tapping sound again, louder this time. Someone knocking on the door. Sadie reached out to open it, but there was no handle on the inside. She was stuck.
    “Who’s in there?” said Kristin.
    “It’s me.”
    “Sadie?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why are you in a cupboard?”
    “I’m stuck. Can you open the door?”
    And then there was light. Sadie didn’t move.
    “Are you okay?” said Kristin, stepping inside. “What’s happened?”
    An opportunity. A chance. Kristin sat beside her on the wooden box. Sadie leant forward and closed the door. No running away now, Sadie Swoon, Sadie Peterson, whoever you are, whoever you were .
    “What’s going on?”
    “I’ve realized something,” said Sadie, not wanting to waste another second. She put her hand on Kristin’s leg.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Isn’t it obvious?” She moved her hand higher.
    “Sadie, I—”
    She touched Kristin’s face, pulled her closer. Then she kissed her.
    A first kiss. Every kiss that should have happened. A hundred kisses