Maybe It's Been You All Along - Alex Turner

20

Rosanna's apartment haunted her. All she saw the second she stepped in was Andy. His belongings were everywhere. They stuck out like sore thumbs, catching her eye at every room she walked in.

They made her hate her flat. So she removed them as fast as she could. They were just minor things too so it wasn't like she was throwing out anything that was of value to him. The few items of clothing he left she decided she would mail to him rather than be petty and throw them out.

She tossed his cologne, tooth brush, razor, mouthwash, everything he left in her bathroom into a trash bag and filled it up with the other objects that tainted her house. She felt a weight lift of her shoulders the second she tossed the bag down the garbage disposal. When she walked back into her apartment it was almost like she was breathing in fresh air. Like a bad odour had finally been removed.

She felt her mind cleared with the clearance of the leftovers of her ex-boyfriend. She was ready to start fresh and the second she'd mailed out his shirts and jacket that he left, was able to erase him from her mind — but not before she wrote her feelings down in the form of song.

Rosanna didn't know why she put it together that way but it was the only way she could see fit. She guessed Alex had rubbed off on her. She felt a pang of hurt at the irony of it. Not long ago she was promising Andy she would write him a love song one day and now she was sat writing the lyric: "I'm beginning to wonder whether I'd ever loved you at all."

Much like Alex, she kept it in a book and stuffed it in a bookshelf to be forgotten.

She met up with Beth the day of the Monkey's first show in Sheffield and was able to finally fully talk through her breakup with someone. And then came the part where she told Beth about how much she appreciated Alex and all the things he'd do for her that Andy never did.

  "Hold up," Beth interrupted. "Are you in love with him?"

  "What?" Rosanna asked, shocked. "No? No of course not we're just friends."

  Beth shrugged, "my mistake."

  "What made you say that?" Rosanna asked.

  She knew Beth thought Alex was cute and that he and Rosanna would make a good couple but everyone was saying that these days. How come people can't just understand that a guy and a girl can just be friends? She asked herself. Only thing different with what Beth has said was that she didn't suggest that they should be together, but rather, asked her if she was in love with him. That was a question she hasn't been asked before so she didn't know how to immediately respond.

  It was almost as if the constant suggestions of Alex and Rosanna being a couple had just become a running theme with her. She was always prepared to answer that question the same way because she'd been asked if so many times that it didn't seem like she had to believe in the answer anymore to reply with it. It made her question if she would always say they were just friends because it was her automatic response or whether she actually believed that.

  "The way to talk about him," Beth said. "It sounds just like the day you told me about Andy after your first date. You're all excited and gushy. You've got this look in your eyes. I don't even think you looked like this when you told me about Andy."

  "What do you mean?" Rosanna asked.

  Beth shrugged, "you just talk about him like someone in love. I could be wrong but, you make him sound like he's the most important thing on earth for you."

  "He is," Rosanna said. She mentally kicked herself for saying her thoughts out loud.

  Beth widened her eyes at her and raised her brows.