88 ·^ COSMOPOLITAN

is hair – curly

and the colour

ofHobnobs – is

what I expected.

His body – slim

and clad in a red

tartan shirt – is,

too. He wiggles

his fingers at me,

I wiggle mine

backasI approach. I tug

atmyskirt,ruffle my hair.

I hopehelikes what he

sees.I certainlydo.

H

I think of his five profile pictures, the

small window into his world that I’ve

been granted. Here, in real life, sitting

on a high stool, a half-drunk pint in

front of him, I see he matches all

of them. And then... he grins.

There, where his two front teeth

should be, is a pink gummy ridge.

A black void stretching right back

into his mouth. I think back to

those pictures: in all of them his

mouth was wedged shut.

I want to spin on my heel, leave

right there and then. But I sit down

and accept the gin and tonic he’s

bought for me. It’s not just manners

that makes me stay. It’s the swirl of

thoughts crowding my head, jostling

for space. Can I really judge him for

his lack of teeth when I’m sitting

here without half of my right leg?

Three years ago I tripped...

and lost my leg. No one expects

something so cataclysmic to happen

from something so small. But it did.

I was out running with my sister

when I tripped over my own two

feet on a flat gravel canal path in

east London – easily done, especially

as I’m so clumsy. I dropped to

the ground, twisting my knee in

the process. It was fractured and

dislocated – later, it turns out that the

blood supply to my right knee was