My big night out: I realised I could leave the house party behind and everything else that made me feel small

"We drove out along the coast one afternoon, to a fireworks shop a couple of towns along. It was late in the year, and the light was low and dismal, rain scudding the windscreen. In a couple of days' time it would be New Year's Eve, and then our small town would scatter itself to parties held in bars and houses and nightclubs, and out along the harbour. At midnight, there would be an amateur firework display on the roof of the old lido."

"Then we sat in a chip shop, where in a small tank two fish swam despondently between a lighthouse and a submarine and a burst of plastic foliage. I do not remember this period of my life in colour. When I look back at photographs from that time I am surprised to see the bright blue plastic chairs of the takeaway, and the soft lemon of the beach light. I recall those days only as ashen and cold and unspoken."

I drove along the coast to a fireworks shop on a late, rainy afternoon before New Year's Eve. My small town prepared for scattered celebrations and an amateur rooftop firework display at midnight. In the shop, labeled fireworks sat behind glass with laminated captions. Afterwards we watched the last flare of daylight on a pebbled beach and sat in a chip shop where two fish swam in a small tank. I remember that period as colourless, surprised at bright hues in photographs. The drive home was silent; my boyfriend drove and chose the music. I felt stuck in a long relationship and yearned for warmer, kinder places.

Read at www.theguardian.com