The telly was on but muted — one of those daytime shows where everyone’s smiling too wide and clapping too much. Jodie wasn’t watching anyway. She sat curled at the far end of the sagging sofa, Ziggy the cat pressed like a hot water bottle against her side, steam rising off a half-drunk mug of builder’s tea.

The curtains were half-drawn. Smoke from her cigarette curled lazy in the shaft of dusty morning light, drifting toward the ceiling in loose spirals. She looked tired, but she always did. Hair down, long and a bit greasy, parted in the middle with faded roots showing. Her Bowie t-shirt was stretched and thin, collar hanging wide off one shoulder, the word glass spider barely visible anymore. Her old pink dressing gown draped over it all like a robe from some soft-hearted cult. Pajama shorts barely peeked out underneath as she tucked her legs up under herself, one socked foot bouncing slightly to the rhythm of her thumb scrolling through a silent phone screen.

She lit another cigarette, more out of habit than need, tapping ash into the same chipped ashtray that had lived on that coffee table since forever. Her face was pale, a little puffy around the eyes, with that usual blank expression she wore when no one was speaking to her. But her eyes flicked to the door every few minutes. Carl was meant to be back from the shop by now.

A slow breath. Sip of tea. Another look at the door. Nothing.

Then she looked down at Ziggy — fat, moody, curled like a smug loaf — and something softened in her face, like a stone cracking open to show a warm middle.

“Aww, my little sausage,” she whispered, lowering her head to nuzzle into his fur. “You’re the only fookin’ man who never lets me down, aren’t you? Yeah you are. You little pissy prince.”

Ziggy flicked an ear and stayed exactly where he was.

Jodie wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into her lap. Her dressing gown slipped open a bit as she curled over him protectively, nose buried in the warm scruff of his neck.

“Love you, you little bastard. Mummy loves you so bloody much, you don’t even know.” She kissed the top of his head, once, then again, then again. “My sweet little lint-covered meatball. My angry cuddle sponge. My piss-pants angel.”

He squirmed. She tightened her grip.

“Nope. You don’t get to wriggle away. I need this.”

She held him tighter, stroking his back with slow, lazy hands, the cigarette between her fingers still burning down unnoticed. Her face was quiet again, but not blank this time. Just… content. Almost happy.

The telly flashed bright colors. She didn’t look up. Ziggy sighed in the way only cats can. And Jodie, smelling like smoke and sleep and cheap fabric softener, stayed right where she was — in her Bowie shirt and bare thighs and aching heart — waiting for her idiot to come home.