Chapter Sixty Five - Juggling Act & Spinning Plates

The afternoon I’ve just had at work has been the hardest ever! I feel completely rejected and downtrodden. I can’t eat, I can’t drink, I can’t smile or even answer the phone properly. I have absolutely NO conversation and even AJ’s smirking isn’t grating on me like it usually does. I know that Delaney had sussed that something was wrong. It was blatantly obvious anyway, but I think she guessed that I’d spent the night with Ade. She even looked at me sympathetically a few times, but that steely glint still left me in no doubt that I have to see this next date through. I’m so emotionally fragile and keep crying, which is made worse by Delaney’s sales pitch. She called me into her office and starting hyping me up in preparation for the next dilemma tomorrow! As if I didn’t have enough of a dilemma to contend with at the moment. The brief is this - I have a date with up and coming comedian Jonny Kowlowski, and guess where we’re going? To The Circus Space, near Old Street tube station! Fuck, how could this be worse? I feel as shit as I do - broken and busted up, sick at myself for giving myself to Ade so easily and making a complete fool of myself and believing that he liked ‘me’ and, and and......
And now.
I have to pretend that it’s laughs all the way.
I have to learn to juggle and ride a unicycle and walk a fucking trapeze.
With a comedian.
Shit.

*
One hot bath and 2 glasses of wine haven’t helped me to relax or feel remotely better about things. I hate Ade for doing this to me, but hate myself too for falling for it all. HOW could it have been just insincere words to him? How? I feel shattered and am having serious trouble remembering that he’d said he was looking for something ‘different’, as my brain continues to recount his words as looking for something ‘better’! I’d NEVER have got into that situation with him if it hadn’t all been reinforced by the foundations of a relationship. It had taken a big leap for me to feel comfortable enough to get naked with him - and now look! I knew he was a player but didn’t dream that he was playing ME! What was behind all that about making it up to me? Why the helicopter and stuff? Did it mean that much to him to prove a point? Or was it because he couldn’t handle the fact that I really liked him too much? I was being a hundred percent genuine.
And he was simply taking the piss.

*

Tam’s cab pulled up outside her house and she was warmed to see the lights on inside. Rob had said he’d call in and turn on the heating but she wasn’t expecting him to still be there.
“Fantastic!“ she squeezed her rucksack in excitement, “he is SO the best brother in the entire world dot com. I can’t wait to tell him how gorgeous the log cabin was.“

The sounds of Tam shuffling in through the front door and dragging her luggage behind her broke Rob’s concentration. He’d been lured by her computer and, despite being glued to www.sophiedilemma.com, he wished he’d never turned it on. He knew she had her second date tomorrow and wondered how things could possibly get worse? He’d watched her slow dancing with Adrian Ford and saw the helicopter landing and her hesitating. And then he’d felt sick as he watched her catch Adrian’s hand and get into the chopper with him as they’d been filmed taking off and flying off into the London night sky. He was having trouble watching this and knew now that he could never compete with a connected guy like Adrian. He thought Sophie had been somebody that he could rely on and thought he knew her - how wrong he was. He hated the whole cosy notion of Christmas too and was having problems walking past the florist shop down the road, loaded with sprigs of mistletoe and Christmas bouquets. He’d had such high hopes for their first Christmas together and was gutted that he’d had to give the log cabin treat to his sister. And here she was - with a huge smile on her face as she stood ready to tell him all about it. He took a deep breath before fixing a smile on his face and spinning around on the chair to face her.
“Hey Tam,” he breezed, “how was Scotland?”
“Oh Rob, you really SHOULD have been there. It even snowed! It was SO romantic....”

*

OK, so tonight is my next date and I feel even more crap today than I did yesterday. I hardly slept at all last night and have called in sick today. Delaney had been shocked when I‘d told her,
“I‘m sorry, but if you want me to go on this date tonight, then I can‘t come in today. I have to get my head together. I‘m sorry.”
Her silence had shocked me. I‘d never known her lost for words. And so I‘d continued, in a calmer tone,
“I need to sort a few, em, ‘things‘. In my head. And I am finding it difficult to concentrate. I need some time. To prepare. Ha ha, and to, em, dust off my red nose and leotard maybe?”
Her voice was unexpectedly calm and balanced,
“Sophie. Take the day. You need some time to recover from Tuesdays, er, ‘date‘. I know. I understand. Go for it. Maybe get some sleep and perhaps a couple of hours in the beauty salon might help you to relax? A nice massage and facial maybe? We need you at The Circus Space for 6pm. OK? Ross and Darren will be there too. See you then.”
Which was really nice of her.
I tried to take her advice and climbed back into the soft warmness of my bed, willing myself to catch up on some more sleep. After all, when I’m sleeping then I can’t torment myself with the same old questions that I have no answers for. My eyes are clamped closed and yet a faceless voice relentlessly asks me the same tirade of questions:
How can a guy go from talking about all the things he wants to do with me, all the places he wants to take me, to the sending a text message saying that he’s looking for something ‘different’? I mean what was it about me? That spot on my arse cheek? My slightly jibbly tum? Was i too unparticipative in bed? No! I wasn’t, I know I wasn’t!
How dare he say he’s looking for something different! And there I was, ready to be so understanding at his lack of technique and ultra skinny willy!! I was even prepared to put up with his small dick and crap sexual techniques! I was all up for working on the small stuff over the following weeks, but now I’ve been ceremoniously dumped AND am plagued with the horror that I might be BIG ‘down there’!

I am having to accept that I will never be able to fathom what changed from that long night together in Ade’s arms and how we were together that following morning - to how things shifted that afternoon and that sudden, bizarre rejection.

All I want is a friend.
All I want is Rob.
To hold me and hug me.
To tell me that everything will be OK.
And that Adrian is a TOTAL arsehole - just as he’d always told me.

But there is no Rob.

There is nobody.....
No shoulder to cry on.
No Rob.
No.
Rob.


Chapter Sixty Four
Chapter Sixty Six