I initially liked this imperfect girl when we first met; thought she was beautiful and without a doubt clever. With such a good start it was spellbinding to watch over a series of months these traits fade fast; like some obscure soap opera that one can’t help but discuss; and so I did - an attempt to make sense of this loss.

Being well-educated and read seems to have severely reduced her capacity for general common sense. She seems dumber by the second when she plays lapdog to Jonny boy. High school sweethearts; why has no one told her that it was never supposed to last? For once just mentioned that it should have been a trial run for better things that have surely yet to come. Then I ask myself, “why haven’t I?”

I feel infuriated when she apologises on his behalf and makes excuses for the rude and rash behaviour. He’s opinionated on things he knows nothing about. When I found out about the things he’d said behind my back and the things that she’d agreed with because she truly laps that boy up, I laughed, enraged. He’d once again spoke hastily on things he had no clue about and it all reaffirmed why at my birthday, after the odd couple had left so silently, no hint of a goodbye, that I apologised to the crowd for inviting them, said it had been a cordial invite, one last chance to mend a breaking tie. “I’m officially cutting that tie,” I said, “I’ve tried but he’s a cunt and she blatantly knows it too.

Sadly that boy follows her about; has no friends of his own. I don’t want this spare wheel in my life, slating the things that I do and all the things I’m so desperately wanting to achieve. He called me naive, a dreamer with no obtainable goals and that I was heading for a fall - a patronising, “don’t get your hopes up.”

“Bastard,” I thought. How dare you attempt to piss on my dreams. And the after taste from the remark that I was selfish, for wanting things that could leave others behind, is still strong and only turning more rancid. He’s trying to drag me down to his awkward, bitter level; wants to crush aspirations so that I can’t go further than him. But I will - too much talent to not achieve success. He however, will forever stew in eternal melancholy. It doesn’t please me but it inspires me to work harder.

So this is an official goodbye. I’ve never before had to be so cold and shut people out. Even those who have seriously wronged me have been given a chance at forgiveness.

You, Jonny boy, are a parasite.

Nick and I had been together for one year too long. We should have called it quits at six months, shook hands, said, “well, dear, I’ve had an interesting time. Good luck with the move and the new job, and lets just put this down to experience.” Instead my eighteen year old self went with him.

A year later we were visiting his parents. I got on grandly with his Dad but his Mother had always been that little bit cagey. I don’t think it was purely to do with me; she was the same with all her children. I just didn’t like it - kindness and smiles felt like they came with ulterior motives. The last two “mother in-laws” had doted on me. The second one had warned her son, “Watch what you’re eating. You’ll get fat and Sophia’ll leave you.” She should have warned him about jealously being an unattractive feature in a man, for in the end that was our demise.

At Nick’s parents we came home from town one evening to find his Mother enrobed in a white dressing gown, legs outstretched, on the new white, leather sofa that had been delivered while we were out. “Oh, very nice,” I lied, wanting to take a scissors to the atrocity that absorbed all attention in such a small living room, and would have been better suited to a Soho strip-club or an elaborate Amsterdam brothel. We said goodnight from the doorway and went to bed.

The next morning we made our way downstairs to an empty house. In the kitchen Nick said, “If you’re going in the living-room don’t sit on the sofa. My Mum doesn’t want it marked.”

“I’m sorry?”

“She said we can’t sit on it wearing jeans. They’ll scratch it.”

Chuckling, I said, “You’re telling me that no one can sit on that sofa wearing the most commonly worn item of clothing?”

His head whipped round and his eyes became small. “Are you taking the piss out of my Mum?”

I failed to take his sternness seriously and laughed, “Well, you have to admit it’s pretty funny.”

Sadly he couldn’t see the joke. “You disrespectful bitch. How dare you insult my family.”

Taken aback I gasped, eyes unblinking, suppressing spluttered laughter in his face. The boy was deadly serious and making the joke worse - the joke he was a mummy’s boy, the joke I was trailing behind on a list of what was important to him, the joke that I was still with him.

On the bus into town we sat in silence and thoughts of making the first scuff on that vomit inducing sofa pleased my aching heart and head.

When we were kids do you remember locking ourselves away in my bathroom, pulling at our woollen school tights as they clung to our feet? Underwear removed we sat on the floor on bare young bums. How innocent it all seemed – two six year old girls intrigued by the anatomy we couldn’t see. I wonder if I was to bring it up in conversation one of these days, if you’d remember in the same detail that liberating, first intimate encounter we shared. We were so unashamed and free, never afraid of suggesting ideas, so confident in each other’s response. You even suggested marriage once although I must say you over-stepped the line by announcing your thoughts in front of my parents. They sniggered and sneered at the things that came out of our young, carefree mouths. They’d forgotten about the freedom of adventurous and uninhibited minds. When they laughed at your suggestion I felt shame for the first time. You were the first person I ever adored. You were my life and I was yours. Things became complex as years went by. We forgot about how to live with open eyes as the world around us forever changed and realigned our perfect, unashamed minds.

 

So I was back in his kitchen with the promise of G&Ts. It had been recently refurbished and he moved smoothly around it, filling my glass with ice from a brand new American sized, ice dispensing fridge. We spent the entire night at the breakfast bar, propped up on barstools. I stroked the black marble work surface, drawing pictures with the condensation from my glass. He sat there watching, mesmerised.

We talked non-stop, but he thankfully never spoke of how I broke his heart. We just talked about the present – the situation we now found ourselves in. I’d been missing his company and longing to see him, even though he irritated me like hell. He had been a constant in a reckless two years. Even when he was out of sight and across the country, he was still my comfort, despite our string of affairs. I wasn’t in love with him. I never had been. The lack of love was what made being with him easy. He could never hurt me but I could always rely on him to save me from my own pain. He could always temporarily relieve me from my thoughts.

All night we flirted, as if on a first date – both unaware of each other’s barriers. All the time we were drinking ourselves into a dream. We weren’t what each other needed but the idea of familiarity was beckoning. We were slowly erasing the bad times and drawing ourselves an idealistic view.

My hands gripped in his, he said with an indecent grin, “We could have a secret affair. Wouldn’t it be exciting?” I laughed and agreed, assuming he was joking. It was the most fucking ridiculous of notions.

However, several more drinks later and we were back in well-known territory. Sex had always prevailed in our relationship.

It was several days later when he rang me, that I realised the damage. He giddily talked about the night and when he’d see me again. Until then I hadn’t regretted a thing. Breaking his heart for a second time had not been my intention.

It’s sickly and horrific, that cologne you used to wear. I hated it at fifteen, at twenty-one it brings on a sweat. I haven’t seen you for two years but every now and then, sweeping past me in café doorways, I inhale a smell that conjures up an uneasy memory. Not that the memory of you is one I’d like to forget, just the memory of a fifteen year old girl whose sadness became her life. You could never understand my temper, my rage - didn’t believe in such an illness, “you don’t need those kind of pills.” You denied me my salvation, said you didn’t believe in being sad. You never said it but you were sure I revelled in my moods.

After we broke up and I fell for another guy you tried to wheedle your way back in, knowing he was just as incapable of providing me with a cure. I, however, was never so naive to believe that such things came in the guise of lovers. Your telephone calls, though sweet, would never bring me back - not to you, not to the self you thought I could be. Honey, that was me.

It’s bitter-sweet, tragic but not unique. I’m wise without recognition, always loving, always moving, drifting between what’s real and the unknown. You wouldn’t recognise me now, perhaps I’d somehow lose my allure. No longer a puzzle to be solved. Acceptance was the cure.

He’d planned it for weeks - the friendly kiss, no “how do you do?” but as I’m sat there waiting in the reception it occurs to me that this over enthused man won’t meet my acquaintance – not tonight, not ever. As I battle the humiliation from knowing looks from the staff, the fire roaring behind me only adds to the colour in my cheeks. Still I sit there smiling. “Can I help you, Miss Weisz?” asks the manager.

“Not tonight, thank you.”

After a lengthy twenty minute wait, I pick up my bag and elegantly walk to the door. I never lose face – head always held high.

On the short walk home I question what was his intent? Did he get a kick from all the planning, just loved to hear my voice down the phone? I email him my sadness. He replies, “Adultery is such a complex thing.” So it must be if a man can have a mistress for three years yet gain a moral conscience two minutes before the best sex he’d have ever had. My conscience? I always leave it at home.

Ethan and Ava, my worst ever mistake - “who needs enemies?” I’d say, though much needed lessons were learnt. The unlikeliest of couples but getting married in a week. I’d accepted the invitation and scouted out my attire, so the moves he threw on me that night, in my semi-concious state, were unexpected to say the least. At the wedding I really was the scarlet woman, burning up in the back row, with thin, slick red lips, trembling in anger, enraged by his nonchalant attitude to his seemingly innocent, one minute away wife.I tried to tell myself it was just a one last fling before wedded bliss, but his best friend, Aniëla, confided in me the truth of all the others, one week into the honeymoon. I tortured myself for not confessing, for my outrageous cowardice. Three months and still I wasn’t forgetting, constantly reminded of my actions as the unhappy pair bickered inside the flat. But three months of unhappy matrimony and there was an unpredictable change of fate. The modern world has its advantages for exposing truths from those who have the capacity to lie well. Via a text message from Ava to Bobby I discovered the frailty of my own relationship and the crisis that was storming theirs. The man who once stole my heart from that of another was engaged in his own seedy affair with no other than Mrs Ethan Riley. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I stand at the bar drinking the cocktails he places in front of me. I’m on my own but now and then he leans in close to stroke my face. He smiles at me, infatuated. He said he loved the way I could change the atmosphere in a room. So here I am – his mood noticeably uplifted. He slinks from behind the bar, grabs my hand and says he’s taking a break. He leads me to the fire escape and down the concrete steps. Pinned up against the frozen wall, his trousers round his ankles, he fucks me hard, pulls out quick and comes into his hand. He scrapes away his white emission on the concrete steps – pulls up his pants, kisses me hard, then continues to shake their drinks.

We slinked out of my best friend’s party and made our way outside into the autumn night. A car sat opposite the entrance on the other side of the stony road so we lay on the grass behind it, watching high heels clatter on the ground. Between the wheels we could see the shuffle of drunken stumbles and hear the sound of high pitched happy squeals. We listened to Sue ask where we were. We giggled at our proximity. If we shouted “over here,” she still wouldn’t have had a clue. Then a car drew up on the other side of our hiding place, causing us to feel uneasy. Hastily we pulled up our jeans and made an attempt to discreetly walk from behind the car. I brushed myself off and flicked back my head but Sue’s Mum watched through her windscreen as the autumn leaves fell from my hair.

When he sings I feel his groans bellow through the depths of my stomach, grinding out with such distinct tone and soul he touches my skin, caresses the tips of my hairs. I fell in love with that voice, that cold air that swarmed around every note. When he calls round he stops briefly to say “hi,” swings his guitar back over his shoulder and walks back out the shop door. It seems cold – as cold as the voice he has over me. Different affects for different people though, I tell myself. Others would describe his pitch as warm or soothing. Today he’s possibly scorned – today he’s possibly shy.