A series of texts in which I imagine my life if I were married to boxer and Love Island contestant Tommy Fury.

IF I WAS MARRIED TO TOMMY FURY I’d wake up next to him and tell him: I’m scared that I’m actually a really bad person. That I’m just skilled at pretending to be good. Sometimes I think a thought and then I’ll be paralysed with worry, convinced that when I die, everyone I’ve ever known will sit and watch my life from start to finish and they’ll hear all of my thoughts out loud before voting on whether or not I deserve to go to heaven. I’ve tried training myself to only have good thoughts, but the badness persists. There’d be a pause in our conversation then, whilst Tommy left the room to blend his morning smoothie. And he’d come back to bed smelling like strawberries. And his strong hands would cradle my face. And he’d look at me without blinking to tell me honestly: I’d vote yes no matter what you’d thought or said or done.

IF I WAS MARRIED TO TOMMY FURY we’d go to Tesco and buy a lot of protein and also some Lenor Unstoppables. The cashier would be twenty nine and she’d look like she wanted to die whilst serving everyone else, but not us, because she’d look at us and know that we were different and she’d fall in love with us in an instant. She’d ask us how we were and we’d say we were good, and then Tommy would say something that proved the size of his giant, bulging heart. Something like: I’m really glad you’re alive and still smiling for us, despite the fact that your job and this world makes it easy for a person to want to die. She’d hear this in her bones, and she’d scan our protein with the resilient spirit of someone who hadn’t yet been broken. We’d stop talking and start packing our stuff into bags at a really impressive pace. And the cashier would sit in our shared, comfortable silence, thinking: these people have the best checkout etiquette that I've ever seen.

IF I WAS MARRIED TO TOMMY FURY I’d sit with a Gucci pillow held tight to my belly, terrified of him knowing the reality of my body. And I’d tell him: I don’t know about you, but I feel like a horrible little lump of congealed pus trapped under a black blister of a sky. And he’d look at me, then look up, and then look back at me with the face of someone who’s very confused and also a little bit scared. So I’d elaborate. I’d add: it’s like I’m stuck to the scabbing surface of everything I’ve ever known and loved… I daily have to fight the urge to tell my heart to sit, as if it were a well-trained dog instead of whatever the fuck it actually is….. my sense of humour is waning and I’m driven by a hunger that could lead me anywhere, but that somehow always leads to another wetherspoons fry up. At this point Tommy would raise a finger to his closed lips, as if to tell me to shush, before downloading the wetherspoons app and carrying me like a thing that weighs nothing to our car. He’d order extra beans and sausages for me, knowing that my hunger knows no bounds, and he’d cut out the soggy middles of my hash browns and swap them out for the crispy corners of his, knowing that I’d like this. Later on, back at home, he’d google ‘really funny jokes to tell someone with a waning sense of humour’ and I’d fall asleep to the sound of him reading them aloud to me.

IF I WAS MARRIED TO TOMMY FURY he’d give up coleslaw to kiss me. He’d give up being punched in the face to love me and he’d start painting because of me. His best painting would be one of us in a pub, loving each other in the restless glow of some fruit machines. The colours would be muted but beautiful and the paint would be applied so thickly and joyfully that you’d want to eat it. He’d win an award for that painting, and during his acceptance speech he’d explain: I was sitting in the pub with my wife, and it was a shit pub. We were the only people in there, even the staff had fucked off outside to stand on the pavement smoking, that’s how shit it was. And she was fixating on these machines in the corner of the room. She said there was something extremely sad about them and then she got her phone out to write something down in her notes app. I asked her what she’d written and she showed me. She’d written: even bright lights can carry an implacable sadness within them. To be honest, I didn’t have a fucking clue what she was on about. I didn’t think the lights looked sad. If anything I thought they looked happy. But my wife’s a poet and I think her brain is beautiful, even if it does have a tendency to take a normal thing and make it depressing. Anyways I just thought I’d take that image and make her memory of it a little bit nicer.

IF I WAS MARRIED TO TOMMY FURY I’d be sitting in the bath with him. And I’d love him and I’d want it to be romantic but I’d need to spend some time staring blankly at something that couldn’t stare back at me. Pass me the shampoo bottle, I’d say. He’d pass me the Tresemme. Now get one for yourself, I’d say. And then I’d explain the rules. Right. Five minutes to memorise as much as you can. Every ingredient, every bar code number. The date it was made and the address where any complaints should be sent. After five minutes we swap bottles and test each other. Whoever can remember the most, wins. Okay? Tommy would look at me the way a Victorian child might look at the world if they were brought back to life and placed in the middle of a B&M Bargains. But he would play along anyway. And he’d pretend to try his best, but he’d let me win. Because he’d know how important it was for me to feel like I had achieved something with my day.

IF I WAS MARRIED TO TOMMY FURY I’d take him to the pub where people would be sat ripping their beer mats apart and playing with the torn shreds. It would be a Sunday afternoon and the tables would be sticky and it would sometimes feel like we had nothing left to say to each other. In the silent holes of our conversations I would devastate myself by wondering if he was bored of me and worrying that I’d never think of anything interesting to say and I’d get so frustrated at the sickness in my brain that I’d bite a chunk out of my pint glass. Blood would be spilling out from my gums and my lips and I’d be spitting out shards of glass as I told my desperate truth. Tommy, I’d say. I used to be your beautiful enigma, and it breaks my heart to think that this is no longer the case. Tommy would grab some napkins and try to put them in my mouth to stop the bleeding but I wouldn’t let him. I’d repeat myself. I used to be your beautiful enigma. And Tommy would ask me, sadly, what an enigma was so I’d have to tell him it was an interesting mystery that you’re desperate to know more about. And I’d ask him: do you think there’s such a thing as knowing someone too well? He’d pause to consider this before edging his stool closer to mine and whispering: getting to know you is the single best thing I’ve done with my life before spending the rest of the night listing, in shocking and illuminating detail, all the things he’d loved getting to know about me.

IF I WAS MARRIED TO TOMMY FURY it would be date night and we’d be partaking in a supposedly fun activity. Crazy golf, probably, because that’s the only option there ever tends to be. We’d be half way through the course, surrounded by props that wanted us to believe we’d successfully escaped the shitshow of our world’s reality, when it would dawn on me that I didn’t feel the way I was sure I was supposed to feel. I’d turn to Tommy, who’d be staring vengefully into the flashing neon eyes of a plastic T-Rex, to ask: is this fun?? But Tommy would be having too much fun to answer me, so I’d turn instead to the member of staff walking past with a tray of bright green shots in his hand. Excuse me, I’d ask… exactly how ecstatic am I supposed to feel?