Going Up - Now On Amazon

Chapter Twenty Five

“You’re kidding right? That quickly? Is that why you came here tonight?” Janie exclaimed speaking so fast the words ran together like liquid. Still overwhelmed by Nick’s proclamation that whatever we had would diminish, I just shrugged.

In the dim light of the car Janie couldn’t see the tears welling in my eyes. Which was a blessing, because I really didn’t want to have to explain that the person I’d fallen in love with in a ridiculously short period of time had decided that actually, ‘we weren’t meant to be because it was too hard’…. And because I was ‘only’ 18 my feelings weren’t to be relied upon.

“You’ll have to record a song right? Can I watch? I’ll be super quiet” Janie asked, speaking almost twice as fast as before. I shrugged again, and blinked hard to push away the tears threatening to fall from my eyes.

“Uh, I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask. I’m just meeting the guy tomorrow” I replied, my voice was husky, and wavered slightly.

“So I was wrong… You weren’t having an affair with Nick after all! He just wanted to sign you” Josh piped up from the back seat; he sounded a little inebriated, but happier than he had sounded before he’d left.

His words stabbed at me like sharpened knives, and the urge to tell the complete truth longed to poke through, but I just nodded and said a quiet, high pitched “yep” back.

By the time we got home it was almost 10.45 so I bypassed the others and headed straight for my bedroom. I undressed, and chucked on an old baggy t-shirt then jumped on to my bed.

I lay between the crisp clean sheets and my thoughts wandered to the last time Nick and I had been together. Here.

Every time I closed my eyes, I remembered his fingers touching me like I was something precious,  I remembered the way his lips pressed against the curves of my skin. All the times we had been together it had never felt wrong, and to begin with I had believed that I was a terrible person for being with a man who was engaged. Who knows, maybe I was, maybe I was a terrible person for letting myself cross that line whilst Nick was still caught up in the mess he was.  I knew I’d been naïve, at the very least.

Still the sting of his fake relationship coming ahead of something that seemed very real to me at least was becoming stronger.

I opened my eyes and grabbed my cell phone. I scrolled through the contacts and brushed my hand across the screen when I came to Nicks. I sighed deeply, and then hit delete contact.

Maybe he’d done me a favour with his “Don’t forget me, but this is it” spiel.

I placed the phone back down on the bedside table and readjusted myself in the bed. I closed my eyes again and emptied my head of all thoughts of Nick. I had to concentrate on my life. MY life. Me. Sleep slowly pulled me under and I slipped into the silent slumber of night.

When I woke the next morning from a dreamless sleep, It hit me I was jobless again. Nick had probably already had my desk cleared off, hell he was probably already researching his next batch of potential clients. He’d been fast to push me from his life, why would my job be any different. I hopped out of bed and dragged my feet out of the bedroom and up the hallway to the kitchen.

“Morning Star!” Janie exclaimed overly loudly.

The boys, who both looked extremely seedy, groaned at the volume at which Janie spoke and cringed in pain.