we painted the kitchen yellow

The flat came with a kitchen the colour of an old bruise, and on the first Saturday we painted it yellow, a yellow the man in the shop tried twice to talk us out of. We did it badly and happily, newspaper on everything, her fringe stuck to her forehead, one long streak on the boiler where I gestured with the roller mid-argument about where the table would go.

We ate chips on the floor because the chairs were still in a van somewhere on the M2, and the paint dried three shades louder than the card promised, and neither of us has ever admitted the man was right. Four years on it is still the yellowest room either of us has ever stood in, and it is still ours.