Previously…  Part 1

She had known love before… She wished she could say she thought she had known it, but unfortunately, she had been in love in the past.

She didn’t understand people who yearned for love. Looooove… That stupid feeling that drove anyone to do stupid things. The only love she wanted to feel was love for her family and friends.

She hated herself when she fell for a man.

And she hated herself right now and there.

She had walked from her room straight to the living room’s couch wrapped in her duvet. The smell of the dark coffee running made her feel a little better, but she didn’t dare turning her cellphone on just yet.

She had turned it off for good the night before, after answering his stalking series of text messages with five words that said it all, at least she hoped he would get her point.

Home now. Leave me alone!

Only in times like that did she wonder why she didn’t try to make female friends. She knew why. Women were too much on the sensitive side for her. She didn’t care for coffee machine gossip, family matters and “does my toe nail polish match my new purse” chit chat.

She went to the office to work, get the job done and not to socialize.

Still, now, she wished she had a good girl friend who’d rush to her flat with a gallon of her favorite Haagen Dazs and two matching spoons without asking questions… Of course, the feeling would wear off by itself, but it just wasn’t as much fun whining and raging without someone to agree and support her absurd points.

No, not nearly as fun.  She grinned and left her feathery blanket just long enough to fill her favorite mug with the smelly dark roast beverage. Her fingers warming up on the porcelaine, she walked back to safety, and opened her laptop on the coffee table.

She suspected he would have left his trace pretty much everywhere in her cyberspace, and she was right. Email, Facebook, Twitter, Messenger… He even had posted a picture of Hemingway with his furry face framed in a pierced piece of paper saying “we’re sorry” on Pinterest.

-Not as sorry as I am!

She turned off the computer again, before he got the chance to catch her online, and sat back, enjoying the silence of the room.

How could this happen? One day everything was more than fine, and the next she was screwed. Totally.

She had known her fair share of men, and he was one of the worst kind. She didn’t even have the chance of being able to give him the benefit of the doubt. She had spent too many nights discussing his one night stands to even hope he could be a good catch.

The guy had to have a down side… Everything else being so annoyingly perfect about him. He was brilliant, had a good job, lived the good life… He was charming, not too cocky about it, funny as hell and painfully handsome.

How could she have let her guard down? From day one she had done everything to prevent this. She had even pretended having guys over from time to time to give him the impression they had a similar lifestyle, that would never be compatible with them ending in the same bed.

The funny thing being, that she wasn’t even thinking about sex the previous night. Ok, she had thought about it, but it wasn’t what had troubled her. It was that despicable butteflies in the stomach feeling she had gotten, while his voice rocked her like a baby into a wussy brain numbness.

She was falling for him. Like an amateur, and to make things worse, he had noticed.

Her usual trick to fight back was running away. And she was really good at it. But it was obvious that she had to start thinking about plan B. She really wasn’t ready to leave her beautiful apartment, and he lived just doors away. Maybe she could ask him to move, but that seemed a little harsh, even for her.

Falling for him… Really, girl?

She closed her eyes while sipping the last of her coffee, and her thoughts drifted away instantly… Memories of his fingers running through her hair carelessly, of his heartmelting smile before the incident.

From now on, there would be a “before” and an “after”.

She wished she was stupid, and that he was the type of guy who could settle down. But two wrongs didn’t make a right, and at least she wasn’t really sad about the situation. She was furious at herself. And furious at him.

Damn him!

She considered checking if her request to be left alone had been heard. But she left the phone on the table and headed to the door to get her Saturday newspaper. Her hand on the lock, she peeked through the peephole to make sure the hall was clear. But she couldn’t see a thing.

Opening cautiously the door, she found a post it stuck to it, covering her Judas hole. Stepping out to have a look at it, her foot bumped into a little bag left on the floor mat, next to her newspaper. Fresh croissants, and a little pot of his mother’s homemade strawberry-rhubarb jam.

Damn him!

And the note…

No way I’m leaving you alone. 7 pm my place. 

Damn him!….

 

Next… Part 3