I put my drink down, not even half finished and stood up. ‘I’m so sick of thinking,’ I nodded, holding out my hand.
That evening, that night, the early dawn hours, everything was just as intense as the first time. By Thursday morning, I was emotionally and physically knackered, but in so deep, I didn’t know how I was supposed to find a way back out. It was hard enough finding a way out of the bedroom. After several attempts, we finally managed to install ourselves on his sofa in T-shirts and underwear, to listen to his new demos. They were totally stripped back, just Alex and his guitar, nothing like the songs I was used to hearing from his band.
‘Is this how all your songs start out?’ I asked, my head resting in his lap.
‘Yeah,’ he nodded, gently tapping out the rhythm on my collarbone. ‘They all start this way. Sometimes they get built up, sometimes they get thrown away. These are still really new though.’
‘I think they’re beautiful,’ I said, nodding along. ‘They’re so soft.’
‘Glad you think so,’ he said. ‘They’re kind of about you.’
‘Really?’ I craned my neck up and looked at him. ‘They are?’
‘Uh-huh,’ he said, pushing me up gently and curling his body around mine. I could feel his heartbeat speeding up against my shoulder blade. ‘About you, me, about this. Meeting you has really helped me clear my head up. I think I’ve figured out what I want again.’
‘That’s funny,’ I felt my heartbeat find its rhythm against his, ‘you’ve managed to have the completely opposite effect on my life. I don’t have a clue what I want.’
‘I think you do,’ Alex said, ‘you’re just not ready to deal with it yet. That’s OK. I’m just ready, that’s all.’
‘You’re not going to split up the band, then?’ I asked, resting my head against his chest just underneath his chin.
‘I’ll give it another shot,’ he said. ‘It was me that was messed up, not the band. I wasn’t being fair.’
‘Well that’s good news. You’re really feeling better?’
‘Really, really,’ he nodded, stroking my hair. ‘What about you, how you doing working your stuff out?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, rolling over and looked at him, all sharp cheekbones and dark eyes. ‘I’m getting a fairly certain feeling about some stuff.’ I stretched up and kissed him gently. ‘And I can’t stop thinking about what you said, about staying here. Maybe it is possible.’
My hair dropped down into my eyes as I turned, just as Alex’s long, messy fringe flopped into his. Before I could reach out to comb it back, his long fingers were brushing the hair out of my eyes.
‘Well, why don’t we just work more on the stuff you’re certain about?’ He kissed my forehead gently. His hand stroked my hair, then moved back down my cheekbone, tracing the line of my face all the way down my chin, my throat, my collarbone. I pushed against him, wedging my body underneath his, forcing him on top of me. ‘And once you’re absolutely positive about that,’ Alex whispered, ‘we can start thinking about everything else.’
Afterwards, when Alex had dozed off, I slid off the sofa, pulled my underwear out from its hiding place under the coffee table, and logged on to my Gmail. I sat, gazing at him sleeping and really didn’t know what to write. I didn’t want to pretend this wasn’t happening any more, even on the blog. I absolutely had to end it with Tyler and find out where this was going. I looked at the empty screen and decided to be honest. With Tyler, with Alex, with Mary and with myself.
The Adventures of Angela: Last Exit to Brooklyn
So, I’ve been writing to you for about two weeks now. Does it feel loads longer to you? I feel like I’ve been here for ever.
Since I left London, it’s been the craziest two weeks of my life. I’d forgotten that there were lots of cool and interesting people out there who can make your life incredibly exciting if you let them. I’ve had the most amazing opportunities and well, between me and you, I’ve met a couple of people I think might change my life for ever. Even as someone who loved London with a fiery passion when I moved there, I can’t get over what an unbelievable place New York City really is.
When I found out about my ex and his extracurricular tennis lessons, all I could think about was what a horrible, awful thing he had done to me. And I’m not making excuses for him, he still is a great big giant scumbag, but, and this didn’t even occur to me until today, if he hadn’t done what he did, if I hadn’t caught them at it in my car, if I hadn’t completely destroyed my best friend’s wedding (that actually feels worse every time I mention it) I wouldn’t be here today. I wouldn’t be writing to you at all. I wouldn’t be in Brooklyn, blogging in the living room of a wonderful man who is asleep on his settee with a smile on his face. A man I would never even have met if it weren’t for that turd and his two-timing.
So, and I really mean this, thank you, Mr Ex, you hateful little scumbag, I hope you’re having fun back in England.
I’m learning how to have fun again and it feels nice.
I emailed the entry to Mary. It felt good to get that out, but it hurt to admit it. At least some stuff was finally starting to make sense, I had to let go of the past before I could move on to the future.
For someone who had flat out refused to go to Brooklyn for one evening only one week ago, I returned to the apartment on Friday morning to find a note from Jenny saying she was staying at Jeff’s for the weekend. As far as I could tell, she hadn’t been in our apartment since we’d had dinner at Scottie’s on Monday, but it was weird how the place already felt like home to me, whether she was there or not. Jenny had been quick to add some photos of us from Gina’s leaving party to her clip-frame montages, and since we had terrifyingly similar taste in films and TV (read hot actors), heaps of my favourite DVDs were lying around the place. I’d even picked up some copies of books by my favourite authors at The Strand second-hand bookshop. I couldn’t think of a single thing I needed from the flat in London. Not one single thing.
Necking what was left of my iced coffee, I logged on to check my email. I had precisely two hours before my meeting with Mary and in that time I needed to shower, choose an outfit that said ‘please don’t fire me’, and come up with my very first ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech for dinner with Tyler that night. Flicking through the acres of spam in my Gmail account, I played the scenario over and over in my head. I was sure he would be fine, we could just be friends, it would be great. Absolutely fine. And I definitely wasn’t going to be terribly terribly English if he wasn’t OK with it, and accidentally sleep with him. Nope. Wasn’t going to happen. I was just reassuring myself that one single polite goodbye kiss would probably be OK, when I spotted an email from The Look. But it wasn’t from Mary or Cissy, it was from someone called Sara Stevens.
Dear Angela,
I hope you don’t mind me emailing, this was the only contact information on The Look server.
Firstly, I just want to say I absolutely love your blog – so much fun! I really feel like Im in New York with you.
So here comes the exciting bit. We’re currently setting up the UK version of The Look, launching in January and I would absolutely love to talk to you about you working with us as senior staff writer. Everyone here thinks your style is perfect for our magazine, and we’ve been tracking the popularity of the blog here in the UK as well as in the US, you’re a hit!
Obviously I’m not