This is a Love Story (24 page)

glances. Long legs. Perfect boobs. That hair. She smells divine. She looks angelic. I bet she doesn’t even have cellulite. It really is

the biggest kick in the teeth I could have, if I’m being honest. I wish she would go out on a lunch run and get lost down an open

manhole somewhere.

Fuck. It’s official. I am bitter. ‘Yes, I’d be OK with that.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘One hundred per cent?’

‘All right, all right – no, no, no. It’s not OK!’ I almost shouted out to everyone in the coffee shop. A pair of gossiping mothers

stopped their conversation and stared at me. I ducked my head down and blushed, hoping I could climb between the pages of that

newspaper I’d just been mentally slagging off and hide somewhere between the tits and the sport.

‘I knew it!’ Pete shouted victoriously. The staring continued. ‘Right, so we’re going to do something about this,’ he declared,

sitting up in his chair excitedly.

‘We aren’t, Pete, because I think he has met someone. She sodding works at my office now, she’s everywhere with her sexy

tights all over the photocopier and her lipstick all over the bloody whiteboard, for fuck’s sake.’ I finished my angry little rant and

realised that my face was hot and my heart was racing and that sentence had made absolutely no sense.

‘I’m sorry – what? Who are you talking about?’

‘Chloe. There’s this new girl at work called Chloe and she looks like she just fell out of the pages of Vogue and she smells good

and basically rocks his world.’ Wow, jealously was an unattractive trait. But I couldn’t help it. It was literally spilling out of me.

Jealousy was reaching into my soul, pulling out all the ugly bits and showcasing them in the Tate. I hadn’t even known I felt like this

until now. I chomped into my cupcake, the sweet icing sugaring my bitter mouth a little.

‘This isn’t great,’ Pete admitted, a look of sympathy clouding his face.

‘It’s fine. I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was this bad until you asked. I’m going to be OK,’ I chirped. I hoped that if I said the words

enough they would become real. I. Am. Going. To. Be. OK. All right. Just fine. Super duper.

‘I still think you two are going to be together,’ he said positively, biting down on the free shortbread.

Although I adored Pete, and he was becoming something of a confidant, I thought he was living in a little bit of a dream world.

Playing out his lost love through me and Nick.

The laugh-out-loud, stand-up comedy routine that was me and Nick . . .

Nick

‘Have you ever been in love?’ asked Chloe, nibbling on her straw and raising a cheeky eyebrow. God, she was sexy. This

woman was outrageously gorgeous. I reckon she could get a first-class upgrade on a plane ticket with a simple smile.

This was a difficult one, I thought, pulling on a long thin strand of lettuce that was poking humiliatingly from the corner of my

mouth. Why do sandwiches with salad in them always do that? And why do they always do that in front of someone you fancy? ‘Er,

yes, I guess so.’ I paused, looking deep into her mesmerising brown eyes.

‘You guess so? Wouldn’t you just know?’ She flicked some strands of hair away from her mouth and continued to look at my

panicked face.

Oh bollocks, I was being cross-examined. ‘Well, you know. I’ve been in a couple of serious relationships, so yes, I guess so.’

Nice recovery, Nick. Vague and non-committal.

What I actually wanted to shout out to the whole world was that yes, I had experienced love. Yet the deepest love I had ever felt

for anyone was for someone I had never even kissed. I loved her but she didn’t love me. But I was over that now, wasn’t I?

Strangely enough, the love in question was walking past the pub window with some scruffy-looking guy. I recognised him, but I

couldn’t work out where from. She had a broad smile across her face, and her hair was shining in the brilliant sunlight. I nearly

choked on my sandwich.

‘What are you looking at?’ asked Chloe, turning her head the second Sienna disappeared from view.

‘Oh, nothing. So, er, how about you?’ I thumped the tennis ball back her way.

‘Yes, definitely, once. I met a guy at uni actually,’ she responded, looking down at two rejected prawns that had fallen out of her

sandwich onto the plate and were, for some reason, no longer fit for consumption. I could almost hear them calling out to me from

beneath their thick layer of mayo. I wanted to dig my fork in and steal them, but you aren’t supposed to do things like that with

people you don’t know so well. I always do that with Sienna, though. I once stole a whole chicken wing from her and she didn’t

mind.

‘And do you still, you know . . . love him?’ I asked. Please say she doesn’t. Please. It would be just my sodding luck for her to

still love him, and I could do without any more messy situations and complications right now.

‘Oh no. That was ages ago. But it was definitely love. I just know it.’

This was very interesting. She just knew it.

‘What do you mean, you just knew it?’ I enquired, pretending that I didn’t particularly need the answer when actually I was

desperate to know.

‘Well . . . I’ll be honest with you here . . . I’d describe it as a wild, almost uncontrollable need to be a part of that person’s life. A

passion, really. Yes – in fact, the best way of describing it is if you lost everything – your job, your home, your car – but that person

was still by your side, none of it would really matter.’ She finished her description and her eyes continued to bore into mine.

Shit, what if she was scanning me for bullshit like a human lie detector? I started to sweat. She just couldn’t know how I used to

feel for Sienna. She just couldn’t. It was messy and ugly and painful.

‘Do you want another drink?’ She gestured towards the bar with a slim arm.

‘Yeah, sure, that would be great.’

I watched her get up and walk towards the crowd of midday drinkers in the dingy but painfully cool pub I had chosen. I noticed a

seam up the back of her tights, which went all the way to her . . .

‘Oi, mate.’ A dark, gravelly voice interrupted my mental ascent to heaven; it came from a large, hairy animal who was leaning

over the wooden table towards me. Here we go.

‘Yes, pal, what’s up?’ I asked, puffing my chest out like a cockerel.

‘Is that your bird?’ he said, his tanned face setting off a pair of piercing blue eyes. He was pointing towards Chloe, who was just

far enough away to be oblivious.

A thick gold chain hung from his tree trunk of a neck. He was your typical London wide boy, in a sharp suit, smelling of Joop.

Men like this irritated me deeply. I would put money on the fact that he had a ‘Mum’ tattoo somewhere underneath the fake Ted

Baker.

‘My bird? No, no. She’s not my girlfriend,’ I told him.

‘Excellent,’ he responded, rubbing his hands together and swaggering towards the bar like it was a hog roast. Well, at least he’d

had the decency to ask.

This could be entertaining. Obviously I didn’t want her to have to fend off this horrible, lecherous creature, but at the same time,

she was nowhere near being my girlfriend. Not even a naughty, drunk-dialling on a Friday night kind of girlfriend. I watched as he

raised an eyebrow towards his equally horrible mates, who egged him on with a couple of hip thrusts and some jeers.

Our elegant suitor tapped her on the shoulder. I raised the last drops of my pint to my mouth and watched the car crash. I saw her

point over to me in a desperate bid to pretend she was already taken. It didn’t work, unfortunately, and our urban Mr Darcy

continued in his attempts to work his magic. The whole display was dire. I felt really sorry for her.

It was then that she took a chance. One she shouldn’t really have taken, considering I was a senior member of staff at the

company she worked for. The company she had only been working at for three weeks. In fact, it was verging on ridiculous. She

turned around with the drinks and strutted towards me across the floor of the bar, her hips moving in a way that hypnotised most of

the punters. Even the women. Romeo was starting to follow her again, so she did something crazy. She kissed me.

I don’t know who was more shocked – him or me. But she did it and hell, it was good. She cupped her hand around the back of

my neck and pulled my face into hers. For a second the world stopped. In fact, I think my heart stopped. Her beautiful, soft lips

melted into mine and she moved her hand from the back of my head and traced her fingers across my stubbly chin.

It must have been quite a sight as I’m pretty sure I flung both arms out in panic, all outstretched fingers and tense legs. I must have

looked like a moth in a spider’s web.

Then I realised this was just an act to get rid of him, so I slowly let my hands settle on her waist. Surely she would stop this crazy

behaviour any second.

Oh, no, wait . . . She was still kissing me. Still. Kissing. Me. And I was kissing her.

Shit. This was totally inappropriate. We were only supposed to be going out for a prawn butty, but it was so sexy . . . My stomach

felt like it was plunging into the depths of the pub floor.

And just like that, she pulled away and turned back to him. ‘Sod off,’ she said flatly.

He looked embarrassed, crestfallen and particularly angry with me. I could just see the headlines now: MAN’S HEAD FOUND

PINNED TO PUB DARTBOARD.

‘Chloe!’ I whispered into her ear. ‘You’re going to get me beaten up, for God’s sake!’ I was genuinely quite angry about what

she’d just done, but also very horny. It was a confusing mixture. And horny was definitely winning in this arm wrestle . . .

‘What? I just needed him to think I had a boyfriend,’ she said casually, taking a sip of her fresh Diet Coke like it was no big deal.

Jesus H. Christ. What a nutter. I quite liked it, though. It might be best not to tell anyone what had just happened, I thought,

dropping a carefully placed napkin onto my lap.

Seven

I can be anonymous. I can be anyone.

Sienna

Tuesday night. Treadmill. 4.5 km. 295 cals. 22 minutes and 40 seconds. Two buckets of sweat.

I felt like crap.

The gym is always a bit of a mixed bag. I drag my sorry backside over there after work through rain, hail, sleet – you name it, and

I’m in a bad mood the whole way. Yet something keeps me going. Fear, I think it is.

I left school about five years ago now, and since then a large proportion of my friends, apart from Elouise, have put on weight.

And I’m not talking a little bit, either. I’m talking additional chins, new stomachs and bouncier bottoms. It scares the shit out of me.

So like a hamster in a trance, I move around on these machines in a stuffy ex-warehouse and wish the time would hurry up so that I

can be watching The Apprentice and painting my nails. Surely no one actually likes going to the gym, do they? Do they?

I’d been here for an hour and I resembled a beetroot left in a plastic container on a sunny day. On the treadmill to my left was a

tall, slim young girl with extremely long blonde hair. Not a strand stuck to her face. Not a wedgie in sight. Not even a teeny, tiny bit

of VPL. All the while, next to her, I plodded away on the black band, drops of sweat running into my eyes and rendering me

temporarily blind.

I am mildly entertained by the men in here. It’s all tattoos, bulging guns and dreadlocks. Some of these guys must come here every

day, I reckon. And they do this really strange thing where they sit in front of the mirror and stare at themselves pumping iron.

Looking at themselves. The last thing I want to see in this place is me.

I started to think about random things as I went into a running trance, my feet striking the belt, hard. I have a whole pile of ironing

to do. We’ve run out of fabric conditioner. Dad needs to go to the hospital on Friday and I haven’t booked the taxis yet. I love my

dad. Wow, Elouise’s birthday is coming up really soon. Sugar, what do I get her? I keep forgetting to burn that album for Nick. Oh,

and I must ask Chloe out for a drink one night after work, it would be nice to get to know her. But where could we go? And so it

went on . . .

The pleasure of the gym is I am such a mess that no one bothers me. It’s joyous. I can be anonymous. I can be anyone. I don’t

have to bump into people and talk to them about the weather, the price of stamps or the antics of inane celebrities. I have deliberately

avoided talking to people so I can just be known as that excessively damp and angry-looking girl that everyone stays away from. It

suits me perfectly.

‘Er, excuse me?’ came a voice barely audible above the thumping music coming through my earphones.

I ignored it. He was probably talking to Britney Spears next to me.

‘Sorry, ahem. Excuse me,’ came the voice again, but louder this time. A man’s chiselled face was right in front of mine. A man I

see here regularly because he owns this overpriced and slightly pretentious boutique gym.

Dear God, he’s talking to me. I yanked one of the plugs from my ear irritably and looked at him.

‘Yeah, sorry to disturb you. I just noticed something about your gait,’ he said, a cheeky grin spreading across his face.

I turned around in confusion, almost slipping off the treadmill in the process. There wasn’t a gate anywhere. ‘My what?’ I said,

frantically starting to slow down the machine so I could actually breathe.

‘Your gait. G. A. I. T. It’s the way you run. I think you overpronate. I hope you don’t mind . . .’ He looked embarrassed this time.