Cwtch Me If You Can (2 page)

I think immediately about the lingerie back in my room, and all the tags I cut off. They were an investment, I tell myself, and I can't just throw them out, even if they will forever remind me of tonight.

‘Well, don't get rid of them,' Sean the waiter says, and I hear the laugh in his voice.

I think I'm blushing from how humiliating it is that I've just said all that out loud, but I'm not sure. I'm too warm from all the wine so it's hard to tell.

‘Just get rid of the necklace,' he says.

I grab the heart pendant and give it a firm yank, like I've seen people do in the movies – but all it does is dig into my neck. ‘Owwwww,' I wail, dropping it and massaging the back of my neck with clumsy hands. I can hear Sean the waiter laughing at me, and glare at him.

My lip wobbles.

‘Oh, please don't start crying again,' he says, sounding frantic.

‘I need a cwtch,' I mumble, thinking about how Will won't be cuddling me to make me feel better about all this. I just need a hug.

‘Um…'

‘I just want to go
home
.'

Sean leans back. ‘Listen, Alex, I'm going to call you a taxi. How about that? And you can go straight home, take a warm bath, sober up, and sleep all of this off. And when you wake up tomorrow you can forget all about him. How does that sound? Does that sound good?'

I nod. ‘Okay. Okay.'

He gets up, and I hear him murmuring behind the bar, as I finish my glass of wine. A cup of tea is put down in front of me by the waitress who was hanging around, and she gives me a sympathetic look.

‘I'm off, Sean,' she says.

‘See you tomorrow,' he calls back to her. I sip the cup of tea, while my head spins and my mind feels foggy, until Sean puts a hand on my shoulder and says, ‘Your taxi's here.'

‘Thanks.' I get up, but between my brand-new three-inch stilettos that gave me blisters just on the walk from the bus to the restaurant, and the wine, I almost fall over. Sean has to catch my arm and put an arm around my waist to guide me outside. After bundling me into the back of the taxi in a tangle of limbs, heels, and handbag straps, Sean leans in to talk to the driver, and then they ask for my address. I slump in the seat after giving it, and start crying again.

I forget to say thank you to Sean.

When the taxi draws up outside the house I share with three other girls, and I lean forward with my purse open ready to pay, the driver tells me, ‘The lad at the restaurant already paid for it, love.'

And that's when I realise I hadn't paid my bill, either.

Chapter Two

On Saturday morning, I wake up fully-clothed, having passed out, lying on my side on my bed. My pastel pink pillowcase is smeared with last night's make-up. My cute red dress that I bought specially for last night's date has ridden up so that it's around my ribs.

I groan, sitting up slowly and wiping a line of drool from the side of my mouth. The room pitches sideways, and I stagger into the bathroom down the hall to throw up, and then retch, until I feel a little less gross.

I clean my teeth, wash off the makeup, change into pyjamas, and stumble back into bed to pass out for a few more hours, hoping to sleep off the hangover that's slowly killing me.

When I wake up again, I feel a little better – until all the memories of the previous night come flooding back to me.

And along with it, the memory that I didn't actually pay for the meal or the taxi.

I should go back to Bella Italia and pay Sean back. I decide to stop by later this week, and spend the rest of the weekend only leaving my room to make cups of tea and to collect a pizza.

Sunday evening, Cathy, my best friend, walks in without bothering to knock.

She's armed with two mugs of tea, and takes one look at my room – used mugs, a half-eaten large pepperoni pizza, dirty clothes scattered around, my stilettos from the other night thrown into the middle of the room… And then she looks at me.

‘Oh,
Alex
.'

I haven't looked in the mirror today, but I haven't washed my hair since Friday afternoon, before the disaster that was my Valentine's date, and I've not changed out of my pyjamas since Saturday morning.

Cathy sighs, puts down the tea on some of my many novelty coasters (some people buy pencils or bookmarks when they visit a museum or go on holiday – but I buy coasters), and then marches over to my window, throwing open the curtains.

I cringe from the light – the sun is setting, and the amber glow is just hitting my window. I pull the covers up over my head, only for Cathy to yank them back. She stands amongst my dirty clothes, hands on hips, pursing her lips and looking just like her mother.

‘You look like your mum,' I tell her.

‘And you,' she replies bluntly, ‘look like hell.'

‘I got dumped on Valentine's Day,' I tell her, like she doesn't already know. I bet everyone knows – I mean, how many people get dumped on Valentine's Day anyway? ‘I'm allowed to look like hell. I have no faith in romance any more.'

I try to pull my sheets and duvet back from her, but fail. So, I lean down and reach for another piece of pizza. A loose bit of pepperoni falls onto my pyjama shorts, and I pick it up quickly, popping it into my mouth. There's a faint, greasy red mark left, though.
Damn, that's going to stain.

Cathy, my best friend and stand-in mother while I'm living with her, huffs. She's only wearing leggings and an old
Wicked!
t-shirt, blonde hair pulled back in a plait, but she looks way better than I imagine I do.

‘Help yourself,' I say, after swallowing, gesturing at the pizza box on the floor.

She shakes her head at me. ‘You have work at nine a.m. tomorrow, Al. You've got to pull yourself together. Shit happens. People break up. And, let's face it, Will wasn't even that attractive.'

‘He
was
.'

Cathy snorts. ‘Maybe to you. You were in love with him. But his ears were too big, his eyes were too close together, he was always bringing dirt into the house because he'd never wipe his feet on the mat outside. He dropped out of his one single college class, because his FIFA football team was more important than his homework. And he was too lazy to even
try
to get a job after he got fired from the last one. He didn't even like drinking tea, for God's sake!'

Now it's my turn to purse my lips. Okay, so maybe she has a point (or several) but it still hurts that Will dumped me so brutally. I loved him. Love wasn't a switch I could just turn off because we weren't together any more.

And I know that Cathy's just trying to help me, make me feel better. Her methods seem a little harsh to me right now, but I know I'll thank her later. I always do.

‘Well, not everyone likes tea.'

My best friend rolls her eyes. ‘You're ridiculous, Alex. Face it – Will was a loser, and you were too in love with him to see it. Pull yourself together.'

‘But I loved him,' I moan. ‘I need time to heal.'

Cathy smiles at me fondly, sitting on the edge on my bed. She's always telling me that I'm too much of a romantic, and that I need to ‘check back into reality'. She has had a couple of boyfriends, but I don't think she's ever actually been in love.

‘You don't understand,' I insist.

‘I understand that he was a loser and that you deserve better, and that whoever this other girl is, she'd better hope he doesn't treat her like that, too. And I understand that you have work tomorrow that you cannot be late for.'

‘What's that got to do with it,
Mum
?'

‘I'm just saying.' Her voice is softer now, and she tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. ‘You can't mope around here forever. We're watching
Hollyoaks
after tea, so get up, wash your hair, clean up in here a bit, and come down to watch it with us. And for God's sake, put those pyjamas in the wash. They'll stink.'

‘They don't stink…'

‘It smells like something died in here,' she tells me.

‘All my hope and belief in true love and romance died. Have some compassion.'

Cathy laughs, then opens my windows wide and sprays some of my perfume into the air before picking up her mug of tea and leaving me.

I want to pull the covers back up over my head and sleep until I have to get up for work tomorrow morning, but I know that Cathy's right. She's
always
right.

Cathy and I have been friends since our GCSE years, when we were the only two girls in our small Spanish class.

Everyone always said we're like chalk and cheese – I act on impulse and follow my gut, but Cathy likes to think out every possible consequence of her actions before doing anything. I fall in love, Cathy does not. Cathy can cook, and I defrost ready meals in the microwave. I've got dark skin, thanks to some Indian heritage on my dad's side, and Cathy's so fair that she burns even in a little bit of sunshine.

But we've been firm friends for years, in spite of all that.

I'd been terrified when Cathy told me she was going to Cardiff University, studying French and German. I'd dropped out of Sixth Form by then because I was struggling too much, and I'd picked up a job in Tesco instead. I panicked that she'd move on with her life at uni and forget all about me.

But Cathy wasn't about to leave me behind. She was the one who convinced me to move in with her and two other girls in their second year of uni, and to start going to some college classes. She's always believed in me way more than I believe in myself.

The two other girls we live with, Ellie and Julia, shared a flat with Cathy during her first year. The guys they lived with were absolute pigs, I'm told, so the girls bonded and got a house together for this year without them.

So once I've done as Cathy said, and cleaned myself and my room up, I go downstairs to watch
Hollyoaks
.

‘Thank God,' Cathy says, as I join them. ‘I thought we were going to have to go up and pull you out of your pit of self-pity.'

‘I'm fine,' I sigh. ‘Just, you know, heartbroken.'

‘Always with the melodrama,' laughs Julia. But then her face turns serious, and her mouth twists in sympathy. She tucks her legs up beneath her on the sofa. ‘You were a mess when you got home. I've never seen you that badly drunk before.'

‘Mmph.'

Usually I handle my drink better; I know when to switch to a soft drink and leave the alcohol alone. But Friday night, I'd drunk that rosé with reckless abandon.

‘Seriously, I know it was rough, being Valentine's Day, and all, but –'

‘But
nothing
, Jules,' Ellie interrupts, jumping to my defence before I can speak for myself. ‘The slime-ball went straight to jump into bed with that other girl.'

‘We don't
know
that they were having sex,' Cathy calls from the kitchen, where she's making tea for us all, ever the voice of reason. ‘I mean, we don't even know who she is.'

‘How much
do
you know about her?' Julia asks, forgetting to be gentle and feel sorry for me, and getting excited. ‘Maybe we can find her on Facebook.'

‘We are not looking up
the other woman
on Facebook,' Ellie snaps, rolling her eyes. ‘We're turning a blind eye to Alex's ex-boyfriend for the next hour and watching
Hollyoaks
. Okay?'

‘Okay, okay,' Julia mumbles. She gives me a smile like we are sharing a secret, rolling her eyes at Ellie, and then wanders out into the kitchen to help Cathy bring the tea in.

I manage to forget about Will for the next hour, but afterwards, I think out loud, ‘I should go back to Bella Italia tomorrow, to try and find that guy.'

‘What guy?' Jules asks, her tired, drooping eyes snapping open.

‘There's
another
guy?' Cathy sounds like she is totally fed up with me, and disbelief is written all over her face. But she smiles at me a little. ‘Christ, and I thought you were too hung up on Will to even notice anyone else.'

‘There's not a guy, exactly,' I try to explain. ‘It's just – the waiter, from the restaurant. Sean. He sort of sat with me while I was crying over Will and sorted me out a taxi home.'

‘That was good of him,' Ellie says. ‘But why do you need to find him?'

‘He paid for the taxi home for me. And I was so drunk I forgot about paying the bill for the meal – and with three courses and all the wine, it won't have been cheap. I should go back and, you know, sort it out. Pay him back.'

I see the other girls exchanging glances. Julia speaks: ‘This guy sounds like your knight in shining armour, Al.'

‘Shining armour,' I say, ‘or a dirty apron.'

Reasons to Never Ever Ever Date Again

• It'll take a long time to get over Will

• Guys are idiots

• They will break up with me on romantic dates

• They will break my heart and probably never think about me again

• Romance is dead

Chapter Three

When I'm not reading cheesy romance novels or trying to do my coursework, I work in one of the many Starbucks in Cardiff. Sometimes the customers can be annoying, but it pays okay, and I love the smell of fresh coffee.

It's Wednesday afternoon, and slow. There's a guy in the corner by the window on a laptop, a couple of girls at a table catching up with each other, and a middle-aged couple with a few John Lewis carrier bags.

I slump against the counter, sighing heavily. Cerys, the other girl working with me at the moment, knows all about me and Will. A friend of hers was at Bella Italia on Friday and saw the whole thing.

Talk about humiliating.

And to make things worse, she hasn't shut up about it. I've asked her to stop, but she's relentless. She's been with her girlfriend for four years, so I think she must love hearing other people's love-life dramas.