"Feeling 22, acting 17"

Except at 26, neither feeling 22 nor acting 17 is okay.

All the secrets I have to keep.

I can't tell anyone what I did last night. Except the whole world here, with my anonymous face.
Hiding.

Because I know I should be ashamed.

In Pieces: a Collection of Surrealist and Silent Short Stories, Inspired by Everyday Life and Human Relationships

Marion Fayolle

All week I had been thinking about Gareth. Thinking, longing, dreaming - at the expense of my work and my sanity.
But the strangest thing happened to my eating. No binges, no starving, no vomiting, just level-headed control. Was it the faux joy?

We spoke every day: whatsapp, office messenger, lunches in the bank restaurant and 'meetings' in the bank coffee shop, sessions in the gym and runs along embankment. No sense for being sensible and holding back, getting closer and closer. I wanted to be closer and closer. I kept thinking about having my hands on him. Fuck him. Fuck him for literally putting those thoughts firmly in my mind. And damn me for going back to being the fuck up I'd suppressed for so long.

It's no coincidence that my one-year hiatus from the blog coincided with my one-year relationship with Joe. No drama, literally no drama, no trouble, no distractions, just calm: A falling asleep of the senses.

Look at me now, behaving like the girl I was at 17, at 22. A flirt and a mess, choosing the pretty boys over everything else. I should be a fucking grown up.



I didn't go on my date with Josh. Instead I went out with Gareth, his flatmate and two of his flatmates friends. There was something fateful in us ending up in Cargo (club in Shoreditch) again. Like some crazy deja vu - except this time we could do it all the way we wanted to: we could kiss.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry for feeling the thrill when I was getting ready, putting on my dress and heels, looking into the mirror and knowing it was still going to happen however I looked. I'm sorry for wanting it.

Before I left the house I made the decision I wasn't going to have sex with him - and ensured that I wouldn't be tempted by not doing my usual preparations.

And so I finally got to do what I'd wanted to do a month ago - I kissed Gareth in Cargo. Kissed and kissed him. I nearly died of joy when he lifted me and kissed me - like I'd only seen in movies before. I could let go, I could be, I could live and feel and breathe...

I went back to his, asking to sleep on his floor. The sofa was taken up by the flatmates friend. Gareth's floor was hard and cold. So I got into his bed. And so did he.

I kept myself clothed - my underwear and one of his t-shirts. He kissed me, and tried, and I relented a little - but I refused to allow his hands under my clothes and refused to sleep with him. I thanked myself for my forward thinking.

And then he let me go and poured his heart out: How he didn't want to break up with his girlfriend and make a mistake, but how he could never propose to someone when so many people knew what he'd done, how it felt at the bank with everyone knowing, that it would only be acceptable for him now to be with Naomi - the girl he'd been sleeping with at the bank (she has a boyfriend so this is not a simple solution either), that he'd have to leave the bank, that he'd been so distracted and substandard at work, that he didn't know how he felt about Naomi and if he had stronger feelings for her. And then the best bit: he, Naomi, Kevin and a number of other their friends at the bank are going on a holiday to Barcelona on Wednesday (yes I know, fucking hell), how it's expected that he and Naomi will sleep together because everyone knows, how Kevin encourages it, how Kevin is jealous of him and Naomi, how it's all a mess, Ophelia, it's such a mess...

I felt utterly deflated.
Two things weren't as true and clear as he had made out to me in his messages: he was not going to leave his girlfriend for me, and he was not going to forget about Naomi so easily.

"Why did you say the things to me that you did?" I said sadly and quietly.
"Because it's true, if I were single..."

And then he seemed to think it was ok to carry on kissing me more, like I couldn't hear and couldn't feel.

And I seemed to think it was ok to say I'd sleep with him when he came back from Barcelona.