Nothing changes everything's the same

Someone must have told Carl about my giveaway. His casual attitude and the distant tone of his voice would have scared me if I thought he had read it himself. It's late when he calls, I can almost hear Chloe breathing in the background through traffic noise and telephone wires.

"How is she?" I ask, imagining her dancing barefoot on black marble floors. I'm not mad at her, she didn't know, I just wonder if she sits next to him by the fireplace like she did with me. "She's fine" he says, then tip-toes around the subject of the jacket. He wants me to keep it but won't say why, and maybe it would have mattered if he had found the right words but he doesn't, and now it's all too late.

So for those of you who have asked me if I'm serious: yes I am. I'm giving the jacket away, I want one of you to have it and I'm not going to change my mind. Take it or leave it.

x