Twenty to five again

It's twenty to five on a Thursday in June. There's a summer party tomorrow for the whole building, on the roof terrace, from half past five. You said yes the day the email came.

The dread started on Tuesday this time, a day later than it used to. It's there now, a weight under your ribs. At lunchtime you caught yourself picturing the terrace, with you at the edge holding a glass and nobody to talk to. You noticed the picture, and you made yourself think about which train you'd catch home. A draft of an excuse got as far as "So sorry" at about three o'clock, and you deleted it.

Friday at twenty-five to six you walk out onto the terrace. There are nine people there. Your stomach is tight and your face is warm. You go straight to the woman from facilities who organised it, and say it looks great, and ask how long it took to set up. She tells you about the saga of the gazebo. By six you're in a group of four, and one of them is new and knows nobody. You ask her how she's finding the place. Your phone is in your bag.

At about ten to six you said something about the finance director that came out wrong. There was a small pause, and then someone laughed and the talk moved on. You felt the heat in your face. Nobody seemed to notice.

You'd meant to leave at half past six. At twenty past seven you realise you haven't looked at the time in a while. You say goodbye to the woman from facilities and the new starter, and you catch the ten to eight.

That night you write, "Gazebo story. New starter used to live two streets from my sister. Stayed nearly two hours." You'd predicted seven out of ten for how bad it would be, and you write down three. In bed the remark about the finance director comes back, and you wince. You tell yourself it's the going-over and that the evening is written down. It comes back twice more, and then you fall asleep.

It's the sixth event in your log. The fortieth, in March, was the second. You went at the start and stayed three hours. Your friend said "You came!" when she saw you, and you hadn't known until then that she'd been expecting you not to.

The predictions in the log read eight, eight, seven, eight, six, seven, and the results read four, three, five, two, three, three. The five was a dinner where you were stuck next to a man who talked about his loft conversion all evening. It was just a dull evening, and you'd have found it dull however confident you were.

The dread still comes. It probably always will, a day or two ahead. You've stopped treating it as a verdict on the evening.

If you've read this far without changing anything, look at what's on your fridge or in your inbox. Pick the invitation you've been putting off answering, ask yourself chapter 15's question, and if the answer is yes, reply now.