Chapter Thirty Three - Here Comes The Sun

I feel desperate. Betrayed, used and abused. I don’t let my guard down easily and yet Adrian, or Ade – as in Ade Gets Laid - as I’ve since found out, massaged me into a comfort zone. And I let it all out. And now I feel terrible. I don’t know why I trusted him, except for the fact that it all felt so right and natural. Maybe I’m just a stupid romantic – and maybe that’s why I should stay single – I’m not safe to be let out there into the whirlwind world of dating and relationships. I’m a fucking liability! What kind of an idiot falls for that trick? Except for a clown like me.

What a fool I am.

I wouldn’t mind, but I hadn’t really wanted to talk to him about all that stuff, but he’d kept on and on; his voice gentle and calming as we laid there in the early hours. He’d been stroking my cheek gently and I lost myself in the moment. He’d said that he wanted to know everything about me – what made me laugh, what made me sad, what made me angry and scared. And I hadn’t wanted to tell him, but he’d hugged me and said, “I know you’re freaked out about a relationship, but if you don’t tell me, if I don’t get to understand why you want to stay single, then you’ll run away. And then I’ll lose you.” And we simply don’t talk to each other like that on a day to day basis. None of us do. And now I can see how I fell for the oldest trick in the book – get the woman to talk about herself…

I need to get away from this. I can’t cope with the emotional bungee jump of launching myself from a height and now I’m left dangling hundreds of feet below. And I feel sick and disorientated and lost. I’m going straight into see Delaney about that singles holiday. Any excuse to escape for a few days!

*

OK - so here comes the sun.... Really, I’d been thinking more of a health spa, perhaps a European Chiva Som, but Delaney is delighted that I'm so willing to go. The problem is, she's booking me in for one of the singles holidays that are more resembling an 18-30’s brawl, but anything will do right now. I won’t tell Delaney that I have no intention of joining in with the drunken bar crawls or the intoxicated beach parties. I’m going for some time-out and a little recuperation. If I’m going to see this staying single idea out to the end, then I need to recharge my batteries. I obviously got a little lost on the way there – what with the Paul Ashkuri date, the relentless bouquets of flowers and then the mishap with Adrian. I can’t even bear to say his name. We’d been fantastic in bed together and I get a serious ache somewhere between my collar bones and my pelvis whenever I think of what he’s done to me. The lies are endless and the betrayal is too much to bear.

*

Tam came shopping with me after work and I started to get into the holiday spirit. I told her all about what happened with Adrian and she was really sympathetic, especially when I kept filling up with tears whenever I said his name. I feel so crap now that I couldn’t even muster some attitude when she said that she’s going to give Pete a second chance! How can he deserve a second chance? I don’t he should have even had a first chance! And with his wife pregnant too! It’s abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous, but I can’t continue to be Tam’s conscience. She’ll do what she wants anyway, and all I can do right now is be here as a sounding board – as much as it infuriates me that she’s happy to settle for second best. Anyway, I bought 4 bikinis and a gorgeous beach bag from Primark, along with a few pairs of flip flops too. Tam was dangling floaty tops and gypsy skirts at me every time I turned a corner, but I’m not interested. I’m determined to go with just the basics – a few bikinis, shorts and little else. I’m going to spend a week lying beside a pool. Even if I have to make up a few stories for Relationship Rehab this week – Delaney will never know! If Trevor Malone is organising a photo shoot for me to appear in Geezer, then I’m going to make sure I look shit hot for it – I’ll teach him and bloody Adrian to try and make a fool out of me!

*

Adrian hated himself. He had big feelings for Sophie and would have peeled the skin off his own arms for the opportunity to rewind a couple of days and to not have told Trevor about him and her. He should have known what a competitive bastard he was and now he’d ruined everything. He detested himself with such venom that he was embarrassed even to look in the mirror at his own reflection. But the damage had been done. He didn’t even have the nerve to try and call Sophie to apologise or to explain. And all the while Trevor was gloating that he’d been honest with Sophie Regan from the start, and that Ade should never have pretended that he worked for anything other than Geezer.

And now it was too late.

He felt like shit.

Chapter Thirty Two Chapter Thirty Four