Turn 7 of 11

Go see what Jake's talking about — did he read your message?

You step out of the kitchen into the hallway just as Jake's getting his shoes off, one hand on the doorframe, the other wrestling with a lace that's knotted itself into a situation. He looks up at you with that open, uncomplicated face — the one that makes you want to shake him and protect him in equal measure — and grins.

"Someone's been at the board," he says. "New writing. Is that you?"

Your stomach drops, but you keep your face neutral.

"What new writing?"

"The host thing. Priya's the host. Since when are you the host?" He says it the way he'd say since when are you in charge of the bins — light, curious, already moving past it. He passes you into the kitchen, drops his jacket on the chair that isn't a coat rack but functions as one, and opens the fridge.

"We've got no milk."

"There's milk."

"There's no GOOD milk," he says, and you realise this is going to be a thing now — the good milk, a distinction the flat has apparently always observed and that you've never heard of until this morning. He straightens up and looks at the board properly, reading it with the half-attention of someone checking a bus timetable. QUIET HOURS 9PM. HOST'S DECISION IS FINAL. PRIYA IS THE HOST.

"So you're in charge, yeah?" Jake says, and he sounds genuinely pleased about it.

"That's sound. You're the most organised. Dermot said last week you should be running things anyway."

"Dermot said that?"

"Yeah, ages ago. Said you'd be better at it than Marchetti." Jake pulls out the milk — the normal milk, the only milk — and sniffs it.

"When did you write this?"

"This morning."

"Class," he says, and pours it into a glass he hasn't washed first. He's already past it. He's moved on. Your name is on the board and Jake has accepted it the way he accepts everything — lightly, without friction, like water running over a stone. He doesn't remember a time when you weren't the host. He doesn't remember a time when there was no host at all.

But here's the thing: you don't feel like the host. You feel like Priya, standing in a kitchen that smells like grease, watching a boy drink milk from a dirty glass. You felt nothing when you wrote it, and you feel nothing now. The board took Marchetti's words and gave her nothing. It took your words and gave you — what? A title that everyone else believes in? A role you can't feel?

Jake puts the glass down and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Marchetti's coming down, by the way. Saw her on the stairs."

You hear it then — footsteps above, descending, deliberate, each one placed like a word in a sentence Marchetti is choosing carefully.