Ode to albatrosses

I saw him for the first time in over a year. I was sat in my dad’s car with my sweetheart nuzzling at my neck having just picked him up from the train station. I wasn’t expecting Him.

There wasn’t anything to it. I used to envision the time when by some small twist of fate we managed to be in the same place at the same time. I’d be loved up with my boyfriend on my arm and he’d be just as he always is, we’d exchange small talk and meaningful glances and then I’d walk away with no regrets. That was a long time ago.

Instead I stayed in the car silent. I waited until he’d got into his car and driven away before I left it. There’s nothing left to be gained by deliberately causing an encounter, and too much to be lost if I were to somehow appear even vaguely reminiscent.

I move in with my sweetheart in September. Or, more correctly, he moves in with me. My flatmate is leaving for reasons not entirely unforeseen and we’re going to see what it’s like to live together properly. We effectively do it now anyway. I told him everything before he agreed though. Once upon a time a girl made a mistake with a boy she’d loved for a long time, while she was starting a relationship with another man. And it was a long time ago, over a year and a half, only three months into our relationship. I still thought I was in love, and the other relationship didn’t seem that serious. That night I realised I was wrong on both counts, and regretted it almost immediately. But I stayed silent because what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him, and hurting him seemed like such a waste when I’d realised I could never do anything like it again.

But he always wondered about that month I was away from him. I knew it, he knew it, and we just avoided talking about it. Mostly I forgot the experience entirely. It wasn’t until we started talking about living together that I started thinking about it all again. I felt horrible, immensely guilty. I even started having dreams in which I was almost on the point of infidelity with various nameless men, except just before the point I would push them off me, plea I was in love with someone else. It doesn’t take a dream dictionary to work out what they were relating to.

Sleeping around has never been a big deal to me. Sleeping with too many who had commitments was to be avoided simply to prevent complications. And sleeping around and causing hurt is always the biggest of sins- it’s a pleasure not something to cause pain. But it was a big deal to him and that’s what’s important.

So I told him. I told him I thought I’d been in love; I told him the circumstances and my reasoning at the time. I didn’t make any excuses, I hadn’t been drunk, and I wasn’t going to try and make it sound better than it was. I told him why I hadn’t told him until now, and I told him why I was telling him at all.

It was simple. I hate lying. I don’t feel that you can start a life with someone without complete trust and while he trusted me, it was a misplaced trust rather than something earned and worked at. However had it been just by my judgement I may not have told him even then, and everyone else told me not to. But he’d told me that whatever happened, if someone cheated on him, he’d want to know. He hates lies, and I trusted him. So I ignored everyone else, and trusted his judgement. He forgave me.

So I didn’t get out the car. I watched him and even felt a vague tugging to get out the car and go to him, but it was not due to attraction or even a small place left in my heart for him, but due to a wish to greet someone who had been a good friend. But nothing is worth hurting someone you love. So I watched, I waited, and when he’d finally gone I pulled my sweetheart out of the car and walked along happy knowing I was with the right person for me.

Labels: Mistakes

London has the very best of clubs, and the very worst. My most recent London experience was, unfortunately, the latter.

It started at the apartment in Aldgate. Tired and highly strung from spending four days living in extremely close proximity with my sister (the same bed) was turning into a joke. I love her from a distance, but sleeping, eating, and drinking with her is not exactly my idea of heaven. I layered on the scarlet nail varnish and forced myself to endure the few hours of her prancing around the room in a black mini dress, straightening her naturally poker straight hair, and telling me that my eye brows don’t match, I’m too dressed up, I’m under-dressed, my heels don’t exactly match my belt, and do I think her bum looks big in this?

I downed the Pimms and lemonade and forced myself to carry on quietly without forcing the tweezers down her throat. A painful tube ride later (strip lighting flashing cheerfully), and a rather awful experience involving eight lemons and two bottles of rum in Tesco’s later, we arrived at Hammersmith and went in search of taxis. The first taxi driver was extremely helpful in telling us he didn’t know the area, and couldn’t help us. The second was marginally better, but took us to the wrong street, dropping us down some dark alley and leaving us to negotiate our own way. After walking for ten minutes in six inch heels the five of us arrived at a strip club where the bouncer helpfully ordered us another taxi.

This taxi did, eventually, take us to our destination. Unfortunately he also took fifteen pounds off us to get completely lost, and then make us find the right street in his pocket A to Z. Personally I felt that this was taking the piss, but our relief at arriving quelled a few of my objections.

Meeting up with the rest of the party meant standing in the doorway of a smallish house just outside Hammersmith and enthusing over the birthday girl’s dresses, property developments, interior design, and the fact that my sister really doesn’t look so young. This, coupled with more pimms and lemonade, and possible the worst Mojito I have ever had the misfortune of drinking, was a headache in the making. But it didn’t stop there. From there the party moved via three cabs across zone two and ended up fuck knows where.

This cab was much better. It only cost us twelve pounds and the driver was flirty, complimentary, but never sleazy, so earning my London cabby thumbs up prize. He was the only one in my entire visit who earned this so he was special. The club was the kind of club where you spend a shit load to get in, then find that the place is half empty and really you’d rather stay at home with a DVD than go to all this trouble and then contemplate staying here for another three hours minimum. In a word, it sucked.

While enduring classics such as the Baywatch theme tune and a disco version of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” I downed Sambuca shots, got off with the birthday girl’s younger brother, and sat on the bathroom floor phoning everyone I could think of who might, just possibly (say in an alternate universe) also be awake.

I then ditched the guy (my brother nicknamed him “The Oompaloompa,” and he sang along to Baywatch) lost one shoe (later found), and completely failed to listen to anything that anyone started to try to tell me. I also got asked if I was on coke, and if so, could I get him and his girlfriend some. Surely I wasn’t that bad?

When finally we arrived home, there were only a few hours before I woke up with a screaming hangover, the taste of truly disgusting curry still in my mouth, and the knowledge that I was leaving in two hours, hadn’t packed, and had a seven and a half hour bus journey before home. Wonderful.

Labels: Alcoholism, Mistakes, Theatrics

Her voice is tired, husky and dry. Her hair shows the remnants of styling, but has been mussed up and is now messy across her face. The bed she sits upon is a wreck; sheets twisted and tangled together, the pillows pushed right up against the wall.

She stands, crosses the room, walking over her own clothes as she does so. Looks in the mirror. Makeup smudged, eyes dark with mascara and eyeliner. And for a while, she doesn’t move. She just stands as if mesmerised. Trying to work out whether she’s happy or sad, trying to work out why it doesn’t hurt more. Trying to work out why all she feels is a quiet euphoria, a sleepy contentedness that creeps up from her toes and through her limbs like a dull fire.

Maybe it should hurt more. Maybe it should make her cry. Maybe she should be sitting realising how much she can’t have. But maybe it’s enough to know that she has had it for a while. Maybe it’s enough to get on with being for a while, and forget about the falling.

She drifts. It isn’t that this moment is exceptional; it isn’t that it hurts more than everything else; it’s just that it seems to sum everything else up. Standing staring at a reflection is hard when you realise that you aren’t just facing a façade, you’re facing yourself. And knowing what’s going on inside your head to give you that expression is like staring into the ocean and suddenly being able to count every fish beneath the surface.

She isn’t happy or sad. She hasn’t been hurt, and she hasn’t felt the need to cry. She’s had happiness, and just because it isn’t there anymore, that doesn’t mean that she’s suddenly going to realise that the loss is any bigger than before, it’s there, it hasn’t changed, how can it be different?

She grimly smiles at her reflection, wipes the makeup from beneath her eyes, and runs her fingers through her hair. It will happen again, and there will be the same recognition. There will be the same joy, and the same pain. Things repeat themselves, and all we can do is work out each time whether it was good it was repeated, or if we wish to avoid it again in future. And each time, we have to work this out for ourselves. Because people will think they know what’s best, people will make their own judgements, people will tell you what they think, and it will make sense.

But the girl who stares in the mirror is the one with the view of the fish. We can stand next to her and stare at the sea, but we’ll only see the breakers and seagulls, she sees what lies beneath. Only she can tell you what’s in her heart.

Labels: Falling, Mistakes, Poetic licence, Theatrics

I’ve turned frigid. At least, for the time being. I realised this last night, sitting in a random’s lap, and with his tongue half way down my throat. It was alright, it was actually nice, but only in the same way that cookies and sunny days are nice. There was no accompanying feeling of, well anything. Now, I’m not a slag, I promise, but usually I at least care that someone has their hands wandering all over me. To be honest, I might as well have been sitting having a cup of tea with him for how much I was turned on.

I’m really quite confused. I actually had a guy avoiding me because he though I’d mess him around. Again. Since when have I turned into an icy bitch with no libido? I spoke to Dave about it and he just didn’t understand it at all. I’m not easy, but I’ve really never been frigid.

I’m perplexed. I’ve spent the week promising people things slutty, slagish, and generally all things nasty, and then, as soon as I get into an atmosphere where I can be those things, I just really don’t care. I was reasonably provocative I guess, I don’t think I know how to dance like a “nice girl,” never mind keep my mouth shut when there is the possibility of an innuendo. But I just really could not be bothered with any of it. The only reason anything happened at all was because I was bored and had already tried to fall asleep on a sofa in the back bar. It didn’t work, so I had to find something else to occupy myself. In the end I gave up on the useless Casanova and went to talk to someone about the size of my ex’s cock (not my choice in conversation, but I felt like I should set him straight when Dinky was telling some random person about how small he’d been).

I’m tired. I’m tired, frustrated, and annoyed at myself. I don’t understand me, and I don’t understand this sudden turn towards sainthood. Not that I’ll ever be even close to a saint, but it looks like I’m turning celibate. I’m miserable anyway because I’m packing my life up into a suitcase. Packing is a giant contradiction in my opinion. On the one hand it represents unlimited possibilities and embracing the new, and on the other it means an end to one way of life, the death of something. I hate packing because I hate trying to work out which side I veer towards. Do I embrace the new, or mourn the death of the old? Can I do both while still retaining a reasonable number of brain cells?

I give up. I’ve got things to pack still, passports to check on, and shoes to deliberate over taking. I need to remember to take my toothbrush, and stop thinking everything through because when I do I just end up annoyed at myself. I don’t like the fact that last night I spent the whole time basically unfeeling and ice-queenish, but it’s past and hopefully tomorrow, or sometime soon, this complete disinterest will pass. Unless I’ve really been ruined for good this time.

Don’t wanna think about it anymore. Whenever I next post, possibly not for a while, I’ll be on the other side of the ocean, and a lot less hungover. Until then, auf wiedersehen.

Labels: Alcoholism, Coquetry, Mistakes, Pleasure

I remember the first time we met. Or at least, I remember not remembering the first time we met. I had to write your name on a piece of paper before I drunkenly collapsed. I knew how drunk I was, and also knew that if I had to ask Stacey what your name was again before I could write it down, the odds were I wasn’t going to be able to remember it in another four hours time when I got up.

You didn’t remember me either. You knew vaguely what I looked like because you know Jack, and you’d seen me waitressing before. But you used a bloody line on me. Told me you’d just got a new phone so couldn’t give me your number. I can’t believe I fell for it either. Yeah, so you actually did call me in the morning; I’m still pissed off that you didn’t intend to. Bastard.

I was horrible to you those first few weeks, I’m sorry for that. But I really wasn’t lying when I told you that I was confused. That night that I met you, I’d decided before I left the house that I wasn’t going to get involved with anyone for a while. I was pissed off with men in general, and then the first person I saw when we walked in was Mark. I ran away and hid behind this weird huge Greek urn thing. It was propped up in the corner and I sat behind that for half an hour until he went away. He may have been a bit pissed off about that. Though actually, he still probably thinks that I was in the toilets or that he just hadn’t looked properly.

So for a week or so I was blanking Mark, being annoyed, and trying to stay single. Which, of course, meant trying to work out a way to reject you. Quite obviously it didn’t work. In the end you just told me to call you when I was less confused. I figured that was it. But then we got talking again, and you took me out, and you treated me like crap the whole night. Admittedly in the morning you were much, much, nicer, but you still acted like a bit of a cock.

When that other guy was hitting on me, Christ, when you told me to go and get in there cos quite obviously he was interested, I was so ready to smack you. But I think we both got it out of our systems when I said okay, and went to dance with him. Dancing with him was fine; he was sweet and actually not unattractive. But really much younger than I generally go for (i.e. my age) and if I can walk over a guy in the first five minutes then what am I meant to do for the rest of our time together? There’s just no challenge.

Then the night afterwards, Hayley, Christine and I came into the pub. You actually went out of your way to see me, and you just seemed happy that I was there. People being genuinely happy just to see me is unusual at best. It was a crappy night, Stacey was pissed out of her brains, and Christine was grouchy. I had such a huge hangover that I had one sip of tequila sunrise and went onto lemonade for the rest of the night. But I still came home reasonably happy. Because of you.

I’m not sure how I managed fitting you in between my exams and everything else in the following weeks. I think that some of the answers to that question would explain my rather disappointing results. But somehow I managed it.

I suppose we had sex too early. You would have waited for a while; you didn’t push me into anything. But we were drunk, me more than you, and I wasn’t in the mood to go home. Well, to go to Stacey’s home as that was where I was meant to be staying that night. So I left with you. I’m still not sure about that. I feel like I should regret it, and after everything I think that it would have drawn the relationship out longer if I had waited, but maybe it was drawn out enough anyway. It was a reasonable length of time; we had a whole season.

Everyone hates you now. Though, to be fair, I’d say that a few of your friends aren’t too ecstatic with me either (*cough*Jack*cough*). There isn’t really any reason for them to hate you. Yes, on occasion you were arrogant, nasty, and altogether useless. But you never professed to be anything else, and you genuinely did care.

You’re texting me as I write this. I think you’ve worked out by now that my heart isn’t in it anymore. I’ve replied, but haven’t been too forthcoming with my own woes, achievements, etc. I’m acting aloof- something I’ve never before done with you. And I’m sorry, I have no reason to. It’s been nearly three months now; I should be past all of this.

But… Look, I was sure that I was over you. I thought that I’d managed to get past all of this crap. And, in a way, I did. But I loved you. And, I guess that I still do. I couldn’t tell you at the time because self preservation told me not to. I was scared of being rejected, of scaring you away, of you simply not feeling the same way. And you don’t. Yeah, you cared enough, but love? Nope. If I told you then I gave you power over me, power to hurt me, power to make me feel like crap.

This is no longer an open wound for either of us. We’re okay, and I can talk to you without it all being awful. But I can’t act like I used to around you, and I can’t talk to you too much no matter how much I want to. You were my best friend, the person who understood me, and still liked me. Scarily you are one of the few, and I’m including my oldest and closest friends in this.

So it isn’t that I want us to be awkward. And it isn’t that I don’t want to talk to you all the time. When something good happens you’re still the first person I want to talk to and say “yay me!” But that isn’t good. So I’ll talk to you, we’ll remain good friends. But I can’t let you in too close; I can’t let us be how we were before. I need the separation for my survival. Now it’s hard for me to just keep you as friend because I know what it’s like to have you as more than that, and it’s a hundred times better.

Labels: Coquetry, Courting, Falling, Friendship, Mistakes, Past tense

The idea of me being pregnant is preposterous. Firstly because my recent celibacy means that of course I can’t be. And secondly because the idea of me being a mother is simply laughable. I wouldn’t trust me with a potted plant, never mind a developing child.

Of course, if it turns out that due to some weird biological fluke that I am, then I’ll just have to deal with it somehow. I’ll truly consider all the pros and cons of both abortion, and adoption. I’ll do some research, talk to a doctor, consult a psychiatrist. I’ll phone up and find out the privacy laws for adoptions these days, and I’ll talk to someone about benefits for single, unemployed mothers.

I’ll do everything I need to for me to make a logical, considered, decision. Then I’ll phone up UCAS and tell them I’m deferring entry to university for a year, then find out about day care for babies in Edinburgh. I already know that I would neither kill it nor give it away. If I have to have it then I’ll change Northumbria to my first choice of university, and live at home. It’s a lot to ask, but I have a hugely extended family and yes, they’d be put out, but no one is going to want to send one of ours off into some random person’s arms just because I’m an inept mother. I’ll go to uni, get a degree, get a job, and be a working single mother. I’m not exactly the first.

I’ll tell you now; this is frightening. But I work best under pressure. It’s the only time I work. But I already know it’s nearly impossible for me to be pregnant, so this is entirely hypothetical anyway. It’s barely worthy of consideration at all except that planning for every eventuality means that I won’t be unprepared.

And the father. Would I tell him? I don’t know. I guess that I would have to. It’s too small a community for me not to. But that’s only if I stick around here. Would I seriously consider just not telling him? Yes. Definitely. I’m not going to ask him for anything. What could he really give? He has many good points, and eventually he’ll make a wonderful father. But tying him to me in that way would cause him to hate me.

I disagree with the type of men who say a woman “got herself” pregnant. In 99% of cases that isn’t true. I can’t say all because occasionally a broody woman will stop taking birth control in order to become pregnant. I didn’t “get myself” pregnant, but I take responsibility for the child if it exists. As a partner I miss him, but neither of us are mature enough to look after a child, and I don’t wish to force him to try. With the right woman he’ll do great, but not with me. It doesn’t matter that I expect nothing; there will be a certain responsibility if I tell him. Whether he accepts it or not, it will still be there.

What’s the point? He’s as broke as me, he’s leaving, and I know I can cope. I have the means to survive, I have my family, and I know that whatever happens, we’ll both be fine. I may not have the future I planned for myself, and I’ll have to make a few sacrifices. But happiness is subjective. A child is worth more than whether or not I sell a novel or get into university. I’m already lucky and happy enough without that.

I don’t want to stop him from seeing his child. But I don’t want him to have regrets about us either. I think I just want to do what I always do: adapt, cope, and get on by myself.

Is that wrong?

Labels: Mistakes, Theatrics

"I wouldn't like to think that this had been one of those dates where you knew within the first ten minutes that it wasn't going to work out, and then spent the rest of the date looking at your watch and feeling really uncomfortable."

I immediately shifted my arm so that it didn't look like I'd been about to check the time, and flashed him a nervous grin. "Of course it wasn't like that! I've had fun."

He smiles, "Good, I didn't think, I was just checking, you seem happy enough."

Well, he was at least good at summing up the date in one sentence. Though horribly wrong at both body language and having even a bit of a clue about me.

It dragged. He was lovely, Confetti was hilarious, though marginally inappropriate as a first date film really, and the atmosphere was good. The only thing lacking was any chemistry whatsoever. Evidently he didn't feel the same. His parting comment: "All good things must come to an end... unfortunately." To which I hastily kissed him on the cheek and then ran down the bus with as much poise as I could on a moving bus and approximately two minutes before I would normally even contemplate getting up and wandering down the aisle. Generally I just press the button and make the driver wait for me, this time we had a nice chat about driving in the dark before he pulled in.

I was ready to go home at nine. I was tired, we'd seen the film, and I knew that it wasn't exactly a Romeo and Juliet match. And we would of, we were within metres of the bus station and freedom when he decided, "I feel like going for a drink." It was blurted, quick, he didn't want to go. So I let him drag me in for two hours. Two hours so that we could just catch the last bus, two hours of awkward silences and me inwardly berating myself for flirting with other men over his shoulder. And that was the worst thing about it all. Every other man in there could tell that I was bored stiff and cold for his company, except him. People were laughing. And when he started leaning in closer and steering the conversation towards sex, normally I'm in my element. Even my dad thinks I'm queen of the innuendo. But all I could do was nod, look uncomfortably about me for some sign of relief, and then decide it was time to take a toilet break. And come on, when someone starts talking about how they're really quite dirty...

So I sent Stacey a text saying that I wasn't going to earn my double points on this one, and then went out, downed my drink, and said that we'd better go catch the bus. Which meant another hour of awkward silences and me edging away from him in the seat, but at least we were in the home stretch. I did, admittedly, contemplate getting off the bus on the A1 somewhere and walking it when he brought up further dates, but I contained my urges to run, and not-so-subtly dropped hints that I had too much going on with the exams, and that my break up with the numpty was still fresh in my mind. Bullshit really, but even that was over his head. "You'll be able to get at least one night off sometime, you can't work all the time. And you need someone who will treat you better than he did." All true, so awkward to argue with.

And now I have to think of some way to let him down nicely. I can't just ignore his texts and phone calls because he's Stacey's boyfriend's best friend. Or one of them. And I see him in the pubs all the time. A lot of the time he's in the group that I'm going out with. He's going to be impossible to avoid, and he'll be crushed that I'm not interested. Damn.

Labels: Courting, Mistakes

I used to sit waiting for my phone to ring. I haven't been doing that recently. I guess He weaned me off that. Lately I really haven't cared. I guess it's due to my own insecurity, but I needed it to vibrate, I needed to be reminded that there was someone out there in the ether who gave the tiniest amount of a fuck about me. But recently none of it has mattered.

And the irony is that now someone actually does care about me. I've always got someone who is talking to me, someone who cares that little bit. I don't have the Bastard who made everything go wrong, or Him anymore. The Bastard made me insecure, but it took Him to make me cry. With Him everything just sort of fell apart at the edges. Everyone seems to be under the impression that with us it was just sex. And I don't know, it seemed more than that at the time.

There was a LOT of chemistry. But he also made me be myself. With others I'd felt so fake, like I was trying to be this person, this outgoing, happy person, who everyone would like. With him I could be the pedantic whiney child every so often and he didn't mind. We both let each other act like kids or adults depending on our moods. And sometimes it was too good, it felt like I could lose it at any time. We were good in a sort of explosive way. We didn't fight, but we were both moody and sometimes fighting can break the ice rather than have us both boiling under the surface, but not actually saying anything to each other about it. Not that it helped when I really got annoyed and told him who he was. That pissed him off more than anything else. He suddenly became too "busy" to call me, he only paid me any attention when he wanted sex, and he couldn't be arsed to see me for periods of up to two weeks at a time.

I look back with wistfulness at the good stuff. The ways he could make me feel when he was being nice, the times that we really clicked mentally, and the times when we joked around. And I miss him, but I always said that I wasn't going to let him make me cry. When he did I knew it was over. He made a lot of apologies, and excuses, and he did all the stuff. But he didn't care anymore, it was as fake as it had been with everyone else. And I guess that's what hurt more than anything else- that someone could just stop like that. The sex was still good, better even, but falling asleep afterwards, and waking up in the morning detracted from it all. I guess that the sex was only better because I felt like I had something to lose, so I tried harder to keep him there. And the mornings were so shit because I knew that it wasn't working. It was better, it was really good, but in the end it wasn't enough.

Thinking that it could be was naive, being hurt when it wasn't was stupid. It was a losing battle, and then I'd lost. I knew I'd lost when he went to his friend's, but he didn't want to see me. It dragged for a week and a half after that, but I knew it was over. Admittedly I didn't make things that much better. I treated it like it was over, and I had a flirtation with someone else that I wouldn't have let get that far had I not decided it was over. But he didn't know about it, and as it ended four days later I don't really think it was that relevant.

I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I feel like I'm drifting through men simply so I don't have to sit back, look at myself, and realise that I'm alone. Every time I receive a text, or phone call, I'm just thinking "what's the point?" It isn't him, and he's the only person that really matters. I've got a date tomorrow and I used to be enthused. I used to have hopes, I used to care. Now I'm only thinking about it in an "it's going to cost me this much for this, and more for that" way. I haven't even thought about what I'm going to wear yet.

I can't say that I don't like him, and that I don't like the idea of spending a night with him. But he won't be the same, he won't be as good, and I'm sitting here wishing for someone else. Why am I doing this at all?

Labels: Coquetry, Falling, Mistakes

Labels: Courting, Falling, Mistakes, Past tense

“The best things in life are free.” The Beatles, Money.

She was fifteen. Barely that, having only just had her birthday the week before. He was twenty three. It was, as these things always are, at a party. She’d been drinking for six hours, he was probably worse. I knew she’d gone, but I couldn’t find her. A pretty large part of me didn’t want to find her. When she came back I’d collapsed.

We haven’t had a mother. I couldn’t be a mother to her, she was too strong willed and stubborn. But I was her confidante, I looked after her, stuck up for her, helped her whenever I could. But I couldn’t stop her, and I couldn’t leave her. So while I waited I drank. I drank away the memory. I saw her walking out the door, hand in hand with him, into the darkness. I just kept seeing it; over and over. And every time it came back I’d drink more, faster.

She came and lay next to me, “I’m sorry Harriet, I’m so sorry, I know its cos’ve me, I’m just so sorry.” I cried. I cried as she told me all of it; I didn’t want to know, I didn’t want her to tell me. It hurt too much- I understood. She went to the hospital the next morning and took the morning after pill. When she got home she cried too. She cried for hours with my dad shouting in the background, wanting to know what the hell was going on. I told him she was feeling really ill and that someone had rejected her the night before. He believed me unquestioningly.

I knew it had to happen eventually. She looks old for her age, and she dresses provocatively. She wasn’t ready. I knew it, she screamed at me when I approached the subject with her months before that. She knew she was ready, how dare I try to influence her life like that, it was none of my business. But I knew what would happen, I went through the same phase at her age, and I knew how much she would regret it.

The best things in life aren’t free; they come at a high cost emotionally. It took her weeks to recover, and six months later she still hasn’t regained nearly half of her previous confidence. She regrets it. I don’t tell her, “I told you so.” I barely tell her anything anymore. We don’t talk; I find it hard to get on with her at all. I love her, but ever since then I’ve found it increasingly hard to communicate with her.

Yesterday she cried. She told me that she feels like she can’t talk to anyone anymore, like I hate her. She feels lonely and hates it because she’s always fighting with both me and dad and there’s no one on her side anymore. I can’t explain why I’m not on her side anymore. I know that I stopped sticking up for her, I stopped covering for her. In a slightly vindictive way, I guess I’ve made things harder for her recently. She was hurt that I’d returned from my interview and she’d had to hear what had happened from dad as I was on the phone to Stacey.

I don’t know. I guess I just gave up. I still remember feeling completely powerless, it’s the one feeling that I can’t physically tolerate. Whenever it happens I do something incredibly stupid. Since that Saturday night I haven’t been properly drunk. I have had only one hangover, but it didn’t even compare to the one I had at work the next day. They nearly sacked me for that one shift alone. Since then I haven’t been sick while drunk or hungover. So it cured me of binge drinking, it cured her of casual sex, and it stuck a gradually widening rift between us. I knew there was nothing else I could do for her. And I don’t know what I can do now.

Labels: Alcoholism, dynasty, Mistakes, Pleasure