Caleb offers me a shot of summat glittery. I shake my head; I shouldn't drink while Cece's here. He shrugs. 'More for me.' And promptly throws the shot back. 'So time to spill the tea, baby girl. How were your date yesterday?'

He reads my expression.

'His loss.' Caleb drinks the second shot with a grimace. 'Sex thing again?'

The bliss of dancing retreats as sweat evaporates from my skin. I love the exhaustion, the ache in my legs from barely leaving the dancefloor for hours on end. Even without a drop of alcohol, I'm as euphoric as everyone else in Spectrum on Pride weekend.

Spectrum has an incredible sense of community on any day but it rises to a whole new level during Pride. People have always partied as a protest and this is a space that is unapologetically too much. There's summat revolutionary about so much queer joy that refuses to shrink itself. Or maybe people are just generous with the ecstasy.

But the lovely exhaustion is swapped for enervation. 'Nah. Apparently I have serial killer vibes.'

'You? Serial killer vibes? Right.' Somehow Caleb makes it sound like an insult.

Leaning against the wall, he looks at the silhouettes kissed by specks of iridescent light as they dance to Grace Kelly. 'Well... Maybe you can find someone organically tonight.'

I don't have high hopes to meet someone who isn't looking for a one-night stand at a club, certainly not Spectrum. 'If I were looking for an orgy, maybe–D'you need to sit down?'

Caleb slants against the wall and nods. I offer him my arm. Rather than waste time looking for a vacant chair, I guide him through the employee-only door and down the back corridor to the dressing room.

Caleb falls into the chair in front of his vanity but it's not alcohol that's the issue. Eyes screwed shut, he squeezes his residual limb, still getting used to the weight and pressure of a prosthesis. 'I'm definitely not getting out of bed tomorrow.'

'You gonna be alright at home?'

'I'll just go stay with Mums until Eilidh comes back. They'll be too busy babying me to argue.'

From the kitchen, I get us Strongbow pints of water and we drink them in silence as the music beats through the walls, pumping joy into the concrete foundations. I sit in Ida Claire's chair beside Caleb on the wall of vanities.

'What is your issue with dating apps anyway?' I ask once Caleb's face has softened from its grimace. 'You and Eilidh met on Tinder.'

'I've nowt against dating apps. You're just even worse at weeding out the gits online than you are in person.' Clearly the pain has passed; the look he nails me with is fully saturated. 'You need to get some self-respect.'

Sighing, I turn to the mirror, sink onto my forearms on the workbench. I know the expression on his face far too well: he's about to lecture me with a healthy dose of humiliation.

'I have self-respect,' I say to my miserable reflection. 'That's why I'm not having casual sex anymore.'

'And it's great that you've been able to keep up that boundary but, baby girl, you still only go on dates with people with no emotional capacity. How're ya expecting that to go, long term?'

Caleb's stare prods my cheek but I refuse to look. 'You date like... You date like someone offers you a Michelin star meal and you go "ew, hanging", then turn around and see a half-eaten stepped-on McVegan on the ground, currently being chewed on by a rat and go "oh my god yum, that's my favourite food".'

My eyes find his in the mirror. 'That's a bit of an exaggeration.'

'I am not even being funny, brother,' he says. 'If you just listened to me for once. Considering I'm your best mate, you don't take any advantage of my expertise. Hello, successful relationship person right here.'

Of course, Caleb found a partner on his fourth match. He's the most loveable, the most loving person around.

Yeah, I get it: dating apps are designed for you to shop for people based on their appearance and we're living in a capitalist hellscape where people have turned themselves into commodities for Mark Zuckerberg to mine endless data out of so the chance of finding a successful relationship on them is pretty fucking slim. But what am I gonna do, be alone forever? I don't wanna be alone forever.

Though I might've gone through every person on Bumble since I downloaded it in February and the verdict is starting to become pretty difficult to ignore: I am going to be alone forever. If I keep increasing my radius, I'll end up looking for a date from the North Sea.

I were supposed to go back to uni in September to finish the postgraduate I deferred when I took Cece in but I decided not to go. I just really cannot be fucked to study right now—I were never passionate about computer science, tech just pays well. And as much as I complain about it, I quite like my job at NutriLents. It's not NASA but I get to hang out with Caleb, and Evan gives us loads of free shit.

But maybe I should've gone back. Maybe Caleb is right and I suck at dating apps; I did go on at least thrice as many dates during my undergraduate than I have since, and that were an accelerated degree!

Then again, those dates were rubbish. I didn't have any easier of a time dating in uni: I had an easier time finding casual sex. And that's the problem, innit, that I'm not looking for easy sex anymore? That sex is the only thing I have to offer to another person? I'm defunct, Pachamama's cock-up. Verdict: Wasteland.

Caleb goes on, not slightly softening the blows to my ego in my time of misery. 'The first months you were on the apps, I reckoned you didn't know how to use em so you were swiping in the wrong direction by accident. But turns out, you just have shit taste.'

'I just think it's prejudiced to judge people based on their pictures.'

'It isn't.' Caleb over-annunciates each syllable: 'That's how dating apps work: people upload pictures they think best represent them. Judging them is, quite literally, the point. You're still picking people who aren't ready for relationships.'

I lift my head from the workbench with a spritely smile. 'Actually, I were the one being accused of having no emotional capacity. That's why he quit: cause there's no long-term potential in me is a partner.'

I don't expect the words to shear several veins from my heart. Blood pools under my skin, a bruise that covers my entire torso.

'Whoever said that is mental, darling.'

Duchess rushes into the dressing room with her sixth asexual Pride cocktail. It don't sell a lot considering the combination of liquorice liquor and grape juice ain't favourable to most people's taste buds but I'm pretty sure Rishi would eat liquorice for every meal if he could.

She slides it on the first surface she finds and unlaces the front of her gown. 'You are the most emotional person I've ever met.'

'That don't sound like a compliment.'

'It wasn't.'

'Shut up, you shady bitch.' Caleb throws a makeup brush at her though Duchess barely notices as she wrestles out the layers of her skirts and bolts to the conjoined toilet. 'Don't kick a man while he's down.'

As if Caleb himself ain't doing that. But summat has shifted; he's not giving me the same speech about dating emotionally unavailable gits and then being surprised when they're emotionally unavailable. This is new.

There's genuine curiosity in his voice. 'What more did he say?'

'Apparently I asked too many questions and only talked about Cece. Okay, that second part were probably true, but how can you ask too many questions? Google always says to ask people questions and express interest–'

'Oh Lord.' Caleb rubs his temples, breathes deep. 'Listen to me, baby girl: Stop. Googling. Everything. That's not God.'

'Kind of is, though. Does contain all the knowledge of the universe.'

His glittered eyebrows shoot up. 'I might burn you at the stake actually. Filthy pagan! Anyway, what if you did summat without googling it first? What if you just YOLO it and figure it out as you go?'

'But I'm rubbish at all this!' I whine. 'And Google knows everything.'

'So close! But actually, I know everything. Let me give you a crash course: first date, you're supposed to be talking marriage, kids, money, sex, career, politics, everything. Otherwise you find out months down the line that you're entirely incompatible and you've just wasted all that time pursuing summat that were never gonna work.'

Rishi emerges from the bathroom, rococo wig in his arms. 'This all sounds like a lot,' he drones, back to his Derry garble. 'I couldn't see myself doing all that just for a partner. I'd be ready for the hills, me. It's grand that you're so dedicated though, mate. Love that for you.'

Scowling, I return my focus to Caleb. 'I can't exactly ask someone "did you vote to stay or leave" on a first date.'

'Uhh... Yes, you can. What are you, heterosexual?' He glances at Sarah just as she peeks through the door. 'No offence.'

She waves a hand to dismiss it, entering the dressing room. 'Are you leaving?' she asks Rishi who, bladder empty, carefully strips off the rest of his clothes.

'It's one am; party's not even started yet. Just have to get out of all this.'

Sarah smiles, reassured that her best friend isn't cutting the night short, and sits on her vanity chair. 'What're we chatting about?'

'Nikki's shit relationships,' Caleb says.

'"Relationships" insinuates he's ever been in one. Which you haven't, mate, cause you being in love with someone who doesn't give a wee fuck about you isn't a relationship.' Rishi piles his gown and undergarments onto a table and finds his jeans. 'Where's Parker? He'll miss all the craic.'

The sarcasm oozing out of his voice makes it obvious that he don't indeed think this is "craic". Well, me neither!

'Cheers.' I sigh and lean on my propped-up elbow, idly arranging Ida's individual eye shadows into a colour gradient. 'Maybe I should become aromantic.'

'Good luck with that.'

I love my friends more than the whole world. I love Cece more than the universe. But the ache for romance is a bruise that never heals, a cavity that keeps corroding through fillers.

Caleb and Eilidh clicked instantly. She just moved in a few months ago, right after their one-year anniversary, which some might say is too soon, but in this economy! Besides, they're so in sync they might as well have been married for years.

Rishi and Parker were already dating when we met and they're poly so they've got no shortage of partners. Allan's not in a relationship but he don't wanna be in one right now either, too passionate about addiction treatment and drag to make time for a permanent person. Even Caleb's sister Daisy who is aromantic has plenty of platonic and sexual partners.

Maybe I just don't have it in me, the capacity for it: loving someone enough to earn it back.

'The problem is that you try too hard,' Sarah says, her voice sweet in the way a primary school teacher might console a kid who dropped their ice cream on the ground. 'Take it from someone who's a little older than you, being in a relationship for the sake of wanting to be in a relationship is rarely gonna work out. You shouldn't date someone just because they happen to be around. You should date because you wanna be with that person. Love is supposed to make you happy.'

'Aye, grand, now we all want to die.'

'Trust me, once you're thirty-five, you'll laugh at all this.'

'That's eleven years. I don't wanna wait that long,' I whinge. 'Let's talk about summat else.'

Caleb pouts. 'But this is so fun for the rest of us.'

'Would you like me to do a little jig for ya? Like the court jester?'

Sarah barks a laugh. 'Please.' The ring of my phone cuts her off. 'Awh, saved by the cell,' she laments but they all go quiet; they recognise Cece's ringtone as instantly as I do.

Anxiety yanks my shoulders tight as I accept the call, trying my best to rake worry out of my voice. 'Hey.'

'Hi,' responds a foreign voice and all the noise of the club drowns beneath a wall of my heartbeat. Summat's wrong. 'I'm Joe. Cece asked me to phone you.'

Notes

This chapter title is in reference to the novella Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel García Márquez.
Eilidh: Scottish Gaelic name. Pronounced ay-lee.
Pachamama: Mother Earth.
Ready for the hills: Derry (Northern Ireland) slang for being annoyed or reaching your breaking point.
Vote stay or leave: Reference to the 2016 Brexit referendum where British citizens voted to either stay in or leave the EU. The results were 51.9 per cent in favour of leaving.
Craic: Irish slang for gossip or fun.
Whinge: Whine, complain.

05: medicines for my melancholy whores

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