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Once again, Nour put the phone in her pocket and stared at the rigid scarlet droplets on the window. Her face lit up with recognisable needle pricks. She had attempted mindfulness exercises before and always discovered a lack of cognitive control, or any real desire to conquer it. The bus jerked forward, masking Nour in an apricot husk before pulling out onto Merton Road. Absently, as she watched condensation slip downward, Nour pulled her phone back out and mapped a pattern across the screen. New messages: 0.

In the space of two years, Nour had tried on a hundred new identities in a vain effort to put space between her adolescent and adult selves. The words she used to describe her past were now disparate to its reality. This made it a stressful prospect, to knock on the door of a woman who knew exactly who she had been, along with all the reasons.

The bus stopped, unavoidably, between the silent car park and a local pub. Nour's vision switched between past and present clips of her own feet stepping over the same cracks in the road. Taking short and unhelpful breaths, she tried to make the route seem new in light of the years that came between. How might it look to a visitor with no pre-conceptions, she wondered? But every number plate was like a different lyric in her favourite song.

While she had bad circulation, Nour’s extremities never failed to rapidly heat in close proximity to immediate family. Walking past her mother's disappointment, she studied the sideboard in detail. Everything in this house had a voice, but Nour didn’t feel exactly grateful that it drowned her mother out. The words coming from this piece of furniture were not ones she wanted to remember.

‘Tell me, are you late for uni like this?' Faiza's impatience broke over the white noise of the past. Nour turned and smiled at her mother without feeling.

'Merry Christmas, Mum', she said, turning again to head towards the living room. Faiza tutted and shut the front door, following slowly. Nour asked where her sister was, but Faiza only rolled her eyes and sat down in an armchair, raising the remote to the TV as if her eldest daughter had been in the same room for the past 730 days. Nour looked at her without moving for some time but did not receive further acknowledgement. Hesitant, she moved her eyes around the room, searching for objects she didn't know. No one had put any decorations up. It was hard to put her finger on which rejected aspects of her personality Nour most associated with this house, but it would definitely distract from her mother’s inattentiveness for a while.

'Why don't you get a shower? You must be tired.' Faiza's kindness was a shock to Nour, who sat staring at her for a second until prompted again. Faiza said she would make some food and Nour walked upstairs, reminded that the cycle of guilt and resentment in family relationships is stubborn and persistent. As she reached the top, the banister began to recount events that were best forgotten. Nour wished then that she could go back home, back to her crowded lecture halls and damp Edinburgh flat share. She hung a towel on the back of the door and walked into the shower. There was only bar soap and it made her skin squeak. Above the sound of the water falling, Nour heard four words repeating from the hallway; ‘I’m sorry, believe me.' She leaned against the glass door and let her face go red from the steam.

Nour's childhood bedroom appeared exactly as she had left it; in fact, several layers of compacted dust ensured Nour that her mother had not disturbed the door handle since the day she left home. Nour sat on her bed suddenly as the effort of pushing back memories stole the air from her. Every corner of the room was packed with old stories of who she had once been. A purple diary called to her from under the bed; she kicked it out of sight and lay down. It was only three nights. Nour thought back to the Christmas before, of lying to her mother about being too unwell to travel home. Swallowing a reflux of iniquity, Nour stood and got dressed to eat dinner.

Faiza had made Nour's favourite dish; lentil soup. Exclaiming this as she entered the room, Nour had picked up the spoon before hitting the chair.

'You don't thank God, now?' Faiza's eyebrows arched sternly in the dim kitchen light. Nour gripped the spoon in a tight fist and stared into the coral of her eyelids for fourteen seconds. Her mother's eyes were fixed on her but after a second went back to the dishes. Nour's loss of faith bore a direct correlation to the strength of Faiza’s belief. They both began to solidify when someone important walked away. Faiza was oblivious that her daughter saw no light behind her eyes. She prayed twice a day and carried a small pocket bible in case of emergency. Nour had asked a question, waited and listened, but no answer came.

'Will you come with me to get the tree tomorrow?' Faiza asked, putting the last of the dishes into a high cupboard. Nour nodded, exhausted. Faiza closed the cupboard door and walked towards the kitchen doorway. On her way past, she put a hand on Nour’s shoulder and leaned down for a kiss on the cheek. 'My friend is driving us', she said, walking out of the room. 'I've twisted my ankle.' Nour asked who this friend was, but Faiza had scaled the stairs already on her sore foot. Christmas was a family tradition, but after their English half had gone, no one knew which traditions to keep. It was decided that the decorations would be used for a full month to cover all bases.

The next morning arrived silently. Nour's eyes opened without caution or cause; suddenly the physical world was returned to her but in a form she didn't at first recognise. The events of a disturbed sleep had been so significant only a minute before, but now slid from her grasp as bright posters pixelated into focus. Nour could hear her mother talking to Elise and ignored the tension in her stomach, which rapidly escalated as she descended the stairs.

It occurred to Nour, as she found herself frozen in the kitchen doorway, that different kinds of anxiety fit into different pockets of her digestive system. Her mouth opened inanely as the woman rose to acknowledge her arrival. Elise had still not shown up and in her place sat the very person Nour had fought to keep away from the family years before.

'Sophia, have you met my eldest?' Faiza asked with happy ignorance. She continued to read the paper in front of her and allowed Sophia to introduce herself.

'Hi, Nour', Sophia lifted her right hand six inches into the air, then let it drop again by her side. Nour's open mouth abruptly regained its authority over her face but instead of closing, moved around in odd shapes until it could settle around some appropriate words for the situation.

'Nice to meet you', Nour nodded, admiring her unusually effortless response in such an unsettling moment. She had feared this collision of her two lives from a young age, but here it was, daring her to accept both.

*

Sophia was a good driver. She didn't seem to be putting on a performance for Faiza and was much too at ease chatting while navigating the junctions of South Wimbledon. Nour watched from the back of the red Renault hatchback. It smelled so familiar that she'd had to pull her coat around her nose just to suppress inevitable memories. Her mother and her teenage crush had accepted the weak justification that Nour was cold and proceeded to talk casually about the new priest in Faiza's local church.

'Is that how you met?' Nour’s question pierced the friendliness of the conversation with an unrelatable urgency. 'At church?'

Sophia had stopped at a light and turned to look at Nour, but it was Faiza who answered. She said something about a community event and it was muted by the deafening sound of blood moving around in Nour's head. Nour nodded, Sophia looked back at the road, the car fell silent. They reached the tree store seven minutes later.

Years of rumination had carefully constructed a question in Nour's mind and she had not anticipated having a chance to ask it. Now it crammed itself between her skull and the soft tissue of her brain, causing an all illuminating headache to rip into her vision. Nour excused herself from the joys of the holiday event, heading towards a nearby cafe to find some darkness. Admittedly, she had thought that some privacy would help, but it only served to turn up the volume on her internal struggle.

'Are you eating with us today?' asked a begrudging employee at the suitably dim and depressing service station cafe. It was sparsely filled with the lonely drivers of HGVs and long-distance lorries. Nour accepted a drinks menu and took the seat furthest away from any windows. Focusing for too long on the 'green' of the tea list, she pictured Sophia's face two years ago, calling a day on the weeks they had shared. Her features had seemed harder, her mouth more solid and eyes unreachable. The Sophia of today was acting so accessible that it made Nour wonder if she remembered everything correctly.

The reluctant employee returned with a notepad to take Nour's order. She had no longing for tea but ordered the first one on the list. A second later, Sophia was at the door and walking towards the table.

'Your mother's asking questions.' She pulled out the chair opposite and sat down, waiting for Nour to respond. This took some time.

'You knew who she was', Nour eventually exhaled. ‘I told you about her.’ Sophia looked down, searching for a justification somewhere in the folds of her skirt. Giving up, she ventured at the fraying edges of the menu.

'I didn't know you were coming home. You haven't been back for a while.'

‘So how long have you been flirting with my mum?' A cup of tea appeared in front of her as if disembodied, floating lower in its saucer until it reached the table. Nour thanked the air above it.

'Stop that', Sophia winced. 'We met about a year ago. Yes, I figured out who she was once she started naming her daughters. She said you walked out just like your dad and you wouldn’t be coming back.’ The rip in Nour’s head grew wider.

‘That’s a lie.'

Nour had always felt foolish around Sophia; she was much younger and felt that it showed. Sophia always knew what to do; she'd been providing for her family at fifteen. Now Sophia looked at Nour with a strong disapproval through the steam of the tea.

'Why don't you tell your mother that?' Sophia stood, scraping the chair back on the wooden floor. 'Don't take too long, she's waiting in the car.' She turned and walked out of the cafe with a sharp resonance to each exasperated step. Nour's tea was cooling, but still not cool enough to drink. She went to the bar and asked for it in a paper cup. Leaving two pounds and fifty pence on the counter, she walked out to a vibration in her pocket. Elise had called.

*

They walked in a line; the tree balanced on their left shoulders. Faiza stood in front, Nour took the rear. She examined Sophia's confident footsteps and wondered how many times her ex-girlfriend had walked into her mum's house before this day. Nour wasn't sure if she could call Sophia her ex-girlfriend; at the time, she had considered it a very real relationship, but the triviality of hindsight made it look innocent and misunderstood.

Elise was supine on the living room floor, the tv too loud considering her simultaneous phone call. Faiza called her name twice before getting through. Her youngest had always had too much energy, as if the spirit which was stolen from the rest of the home when Nour was 14 had somehow whipped itself up into Elise and kept her youth and optimism as strong as ever. Now, at 18, she jumped up and ran to greet her sister, limbs everywhere. Nour felt weighted in comparison and thought about packing lighter on the way home.

‘I missed you’, Elise breathed as Nour pulled slightly from her embrace. She couldn’t remember exactly when touch had started feeling so repulsive. It wasn’t always like this. Nour smiled, trying her best to affect a warmth to her side of the reunion. She rested the base of the tree on the ground, allowing the others to push it up to standing.

‘Are you staying to do the tree?’ Nour could hear her voice break and wished hard for Elise to hear past her anxiety to what was a genuine affection. Elise nodded, but her eyes and her mouth said nothing.

Three hours passed, lights and memories were strung up alongside each other and Nour wondered when Sophia would go home. Under a seven-foot pine beast in the living room, the tension in Nour’s head had progressed unbearably. She excused herself and made the familiar route to her old bedroom. In the dark, the muffled sound of voices was comforting to her in a way she never generally missed. This world seemed misshapen to her, but it was a perfect mirror image of something that still existed inside.

After a few minutes, careful footsteps caught their way around the bannister. They were clumsy over the broken floorboards and hesitant at doorways. Nour’s heartbeat quickened in spite of itself. She sat up in the indigo room and the right side of her face shone in streetlamp glare. As the door opened, she squinted. Nour’s eighteen-year-old self lurched forward and held a hand over her mouth. Sophia shut the door behind her but did not turn on the light.

‘I might have known you were coming home.’

Sophia walked forward and sat on the bed, close to her. Nour measured the gap between their legs in her head.

‘I always wondered what your room looked like.’

Nour looked up at the face opposite hers. It was poorly lit, but she could make out some changes and marks of the time that had passed.

‘Sorry for walking in. I just wanted to explain.’

Nour studied the soft lines on her face still and didn’t respond. She felt Sophia had a good level of control over this conversation and that her direction wasn’t necessary. Even so, it took a moment for the monologue to continue.

‘When you left, I’ – abruptly, Nour’s mind was changed.

‘I left because you told me to’. Sophia raised her hands to cover her eyes and let out a small breath. She continued to speak, but her spotlight had been taken away by the glinting stone on her left hand. Whatever words she said next were never heard.

‘You’re married.’

Sophia moved her hands away from her eyes and watched Nour’s reaction, which was void and blank.

‘When?’

‘Not long after you left.’

‘Is that why?’

Sophia nodded. Nour began to think about how long they had known each other, and how much had really been said at the time.

‘We’d been engaged for years. I thought I would grow into the relationship but…’

‘I was a distraction.’

‘No, Nour. You were the bit that was real.’ Sophia put her palm on the back of Nour’s cold hand and her eyes glistened.

After this there was silence, but they both stayed. Neither wanted to leave the moment unattended, in case it disappeared and became inaccessible again.

Finally, Nour remembered the only method that could always realign the structure of a conversation; the formality of manners.

‘Congratulations’, she said, directly into Sophia’s eyes.

The woman across from her, evidently more woman than Nour had previously accounted for, began to laugh. It was a sad and inward laugh and very unexpected. Nour watched her for a few seconds.‘You haven’t changed', she thought.

Time had taken what it wanted from so many things; Faiza’s family, Sophia’s childhood, Nour’s naivety. She waited for the years to catch up with this moment and give it some stead, but it would take a lot more time. No one had called upstairs in ten minutes. Sophia must have fed Nour’s family some lie or part of the truth to appease their conjoined absence. In a new and extenuating way, Nour didn’t care which.