"In the morning Greg traces the scars with his fingers.
'Those are hell good,' he says with real admiration in his voice.
'How'd you get 'em?'
I turn and look at him and feel that countdown, how it could go either way. 'Bad relationship.' Greg shifts up the bed and puts his hand on the back of my neck, like there's something I deserve comfort for. I can let myself believe it just for now that I am some kind of victim. He lifts my hair up and I can feel him looking. He kisses the top bone of my spine and says, 'I'll kill him.' And there it is, the lie, and it becomes real, another contract signed, stamped and dated."
From 'After the Hedland', an excerpt from All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld (published 2013; the excerpt in GRANTA, Issue 123, 2013)