Mirror Man

Paul - Phil!

"Just get out Paul", Danny sighed, "just bloody go", turning his back to the man at the door Danny sighed heavily.

"But..... but Dan, I love you" Paul stuttered.

"Yeah yeah, just like you love your wife and four kids", Danny stopped and turned, a look of tiredness and defeat etched on his face.

"Just go Paul Mason, or should I say 'Phil Madison'?", the man at the door flinched, bags in hand, a tear forming in one hazel eye, face white and drawn.

"Oh, and, put some extra security on your Facebook profile yeah" Danny turned back, opened the door, shoved the man outside and slammed the door on the man's retreating back.

Danny Taylor, 28, turned back towards his bedroom, stretched and grimaced at his own repeated stupidity.

Three times he'd given his all, three times he'd been played, you'd think he'd have learned his lesson, but no, here he was facing his fourth agonising rejection, his fourth soul destroying break up, only this time he wasn't being rejected, he was the one doing the rejecting, but that had somehow made it worse.

"Agh why do I always trust these idiots, am I that desperate for attention?", throwing a punch into mid air the 5ft 10 inch blonde growled in frustration.

Blue eyes rimmed red with tears, not tears of misery or sadness but tears of pure shame at himself for being pulled in, yet again.

So many promises, so many declarations of love and vows of faithfulness, and every single time he'd fallen, hook, line and sodding sinker, only to be reeled in, shoved in the keep net then thrown back into the murky depths once his usefulness expired.

Danny gave himself a literal wake up slap, then scowled darkly at the feeling of the hot patch forming on his cheek.

"That actually bloody hurt" he grumbled.

Pinching his brows together to ease the pounding headache he walked slowly, hunched, tired, towards the bathroom, turned on the shower, undressed and zombie walked straight into the hot streams, steam fizzing around his body, the hot water instantly staining his fair skin pink.

Still flushed from the heat of the shower, wrapped in a towel he took in the face of the gullible idiot staring back at him in the mirror.

"You gotta sort yourself out Danny mate" he hissed at his reflection.

He could cry, he could wail and wring his hands but what good would that do?, would it solve his problems?. No!.

Would it bring Paul/Phil back and make him unmarried, not the father of four kids, not a steaming closet case?. No!.

Would it bring back John, or Damon, or Evan?, would it make them faithful, true?.

No!.

So why bother?.

In truth Danny was just tired, at 28 he was fed up, fed up with life in general, parents who hated him, friends that only showed up when there was some benefit to them to do so, a job he abhorred with a passion, and a dingey basement flat in the crap end of town.

The life he used to be a part of twirled around him in a big colourful haze, he was once part of that swirling myriad of colour and activity, now though he was at very the centre of the tornado, in the dead zone, no movement, no colour, just that tempestuous swirling wind of life that he'd dropped out of, now passing him by, time after time.

His one saving grace and only true friend Hina, was the only person he could and would ever trust again, the one good thing that came from his crappy dead end job, was meeting her.
Pretty, mouthy, loud, coffee skinned, dark haired, eyes like chocolate brownies, hailing from somewhere in India way back in her familys heritage, she was the one light in the darkness of Danny's miserable existence.

Hina had been there for him through his past three disasters, and he knew that she would be there through this one, as soon as he could summon up the energy and the motivation to find his phone from where he'd slung it, he would text her.

Tell her she was right, tell her the random guy she'd spotted in a family photo, beaming at the camera attached to a pretty dark haired woman, with four equally pretty children that she'd seen in a Facebook post that someone had tagged her brother in, was not some random guy, he was as the girl suspected, Danny's 'boyfriend' Paul Mason, AKA Philip Madison.

Unknown to him, and to Hina and obviously to Paul/Phil, whatever his name was, Hinas brother Jamir worked in the same company as the closeted father of four, and had attended the same outdoor family day with his wife and daughters as the offending married man, fun photos were posted on social media, people were tagged and yeah........ Paul/Phil was exposed.

One quick tag on Facebook by Hina and a bit of stalking both 'Pauls' fake profile and 'Phils' real one, and it was all over bar the shouting.

Not that there was any shouting, just a minor blip of rage and a flying phone, strategically aimed at the sofa so as not to break it, for as much as he would've loved the shrill crack of a disintegrating Samsung, Danny couldn't afford a new one, so he'd settled for the dull thump of the sofa cushions and a small puff of dust.

"Sod it" he muttered to his reflection, "no work tomorrow, don't need the alarm, I'll find it at some point" he huffed at his sullen face, the dark bags beneath the blue eyes, the stubble of his unshaven chin darker than the blonde of his messy hair, and the red friction burn on the end of his nose where he'd rubbed it aggressively as he'd scrolled through his exes profile.

Dabbing a spot of antiseptic cream on, he huffed again, screwed the lid back on the tube and threw it aside.

A sharp jingle telling him he had a text came from somewhere in the vicinity of the sofa, peering out of the bathroom door of his tiny flat, that led directly onto the sitting room, he tried to follow the sound, knowing it was probably Hina checking in with him, knowing that he'd inevitably confronted the cheat by now.

Three more jingles as he crept around like a thief in the night, zeroing in on the childish tinkling sound, he found it, wedged between the faded cushions of the second hand faded dusty grey sofa, embedded between a Mars bar wrapper and a screwed up Wotsits packet.

"Four texts, Hina, Hina, Hina and, oh for gods sake, Paul", he exhaled as the eyeroll he'd perfected over the years almost turned his blue eyes inside out as he deftly deleted the blathering plea for forgiveness from his ex, and blocked his number.

Plodding over to his tiny kitchen, which was nothing more than an alcove set back into the wall of the living room with a small cooker, a few cupboards and just enough room to squeeze in a washing machine he rifled in the crap draw for pain killers.

The crap draw, everyone has one, the place where every piece of miscellaneous stuff you find ends up, usually because it has no actual classification, it's just random stuff that doesn't have any other place to go.

Trawling around with his slim fingers, avoiding anything sharp, hopefully, he finally came up trumps, a packet of paracetamol, probably from the age of the dinosaurs, very likely out of date and very possibly lethally toxic, but at that moment his aching head didn't care.

"Might be a good way to get out of this shitty life", he mused as he gulped down a pint of water and two very dodgy looking tablets, he was sure paracetamol was supposed to be white not grey, and stumbled through his tiny flat, flicking off the lights, bumping into the doorframe and eventually falling into bed.

It wasn't actually difficult to fall into his bed after bumping into the doorframe, the room was so small the bed barely fit, the whole place was so small one could effectively play 'the floor is lava' all day, hopping from furniture to furniture and never ever touching the ground.

Pulling the duvet tightly around his tired body he sighed, "well another end to another shitty week, two days of peace then back to the shit" he mumbled, yawned and began to doze off.