Always You

Chapter 4

{Layla}

"Been a bit of a dry few months, hasn't it?" Jonesy observes nonchalantly taking a bite of his meal.

"Yeah, the lack of rain is making me nervous, we could very well be facing a wild fire soon." I say around a mouth full of chicken, the food too good to stop eating long enough to talk.

"I was talking about your love life but yeah the weather is also not ideal. I feel like I'm in a sauna suit when we get called to a job."

"You're a sweaty bugger anyway. Plus, for the record, it hasn't been that long since I last had a girl over."

"Quite a few months by my reckoning."

"Please, you're never here anymore to keep track. Anyway, things may have changed in that department."

"Oh yeah, working on your new conquest."

"I don't think of them as conquests." I protest. That's such a crude way to look at dating. Yes, I've had the odd one-night stands but for the majority of the time I am trying to find a girlfriend. They just don't tend to last long-term. Since Meg, my longest relationship was ten months. Alexia, no, Jackie, or was it, Gina? Taylor, it was Taylor, of course it was. Shit, how did I forget that?

"Well, you don't exactly react like any of them are long term material."

It's not like I go into a relationship with the intention of it being short term. I do want a long-term girlfriend. Someone that I can come home to and talk to about anything. Someone that I can love and take care of. I just can't seem to find the right girl. After the first few weeks all I get to know about the girls is that I don't want to be with them.

"This one is different. She was my first girlfriend. I ran into her the other day."

"Whoa, that is different. Isn't she the one that got away, the one you've based every relationship on since then?"

This gets me to stop eating. "I wouldn't say I've used my relationship with Meg as a bench mark for all my other relationships."

He scoffs. "Okay then."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask. I haven't compared any of the girls I've dated to Meg. I will admit to wondering where she is now regularly over the years. There was a time I was in love with her though so of course I would want to know that she was happy. That's it, just friendly curiosity. The occasional late-night fantasies don't mean that I still see a future for us.

With a sigh he puts his fork down and takes a moment to think of his answer. "It just seems that when you talk about your ex, this Meg girl, it's always with a tone suggesting there is unfinished business between the two of you. Until you sort that out, I don't think your able to give other girls an actual chance."

"I don't see how I can have unfinished business with her. It was a mutual spilt. We were going to separate universities and didn't want a long-distance relationship to ruin things between us."

"So, you would say you had a good relationship with her. How long were the two of you together?"

"We were together about two-years. Throughout sixth-form. I loved her."

"How did your friends take it when they found out the two of you were together?" he asks. It's an innocent question but I'm pulled up short. Something that he picks up on. "What? What's with that face?"

Slowly I answer. "She never came out."

"What? You've always said you've been out since sixth-form."

"I have, but she never did. When we broke up nobody even knew we'd been together."