You Found Me

30 Minute Love Affair

"How'd it go?! Is he balls deep in yet?" Steph's message feels like a punch in the stomach. I am in the cab on my way back from the National Park and I decide to ask the driver to do a detour and take me to any good bar that he knows in town. All I want to do right now is get completely off my face and drink all the alcohol in sight. "Yet again he was a no show. Will fill you in later. xo" I respond back quickly, I can't tell her what happened over text. Even though I am desperate to explode and tell her everything I would rather do it in person. The driver chooses an Irish bar situated in a high street where there are lots of different tourist market stalls. I pay him, hop out of the cab and run inside, desperate to get some booze down my throat. "Margarita, please," I say to the bar man. No sooner is the drink handed to me I down it in one gulp and order another. The citrus saltiness flows down my throat and instantly makes me feel tipsy. My mind feels as though it is trapped in a maze, struggling to find its way out. Maybe all the signs were there from the very start and I just chose to ignore them. I feel like such an idiot, I should never of been so gullible to believe in someone who I'd never met. I created a rod for my own back. How could he lie like this to me for months?! It is Inconceivable and downright vicious. I'll never be able to work with him again, I can't even bear to look at him let alone see him for five days a week. I'm on my third glass when Steph calls me, I should keep my mouth shut and wait until we are in the same room, but I'm tipsy and feel like I desperately have to tell someone.

"Lee, didn't turn up. It was Matt," I tell her, feeling the tears stinging my eyes.

"Oh, that is the cutest thing I have heard all day. Did you two make up then?!" She squeals with excitement.

"No Steph, Matt has been impersonating Lee this whole time."

"What are you talking about? Matt is Lee, is this some kind of wind up between the two of you?" She giggles.

"Go and ask him yourself. He's probably on his way back now from the National Park," I sniffle.

"Wait, Matt turned up there?"

"Yep, how would he of known where I was? The only person who knew was you and Lee."

She gasps, "That is totally insane. Did he give you an kind of explanation?"

"Just that he was angry at me because of the bullshit COVID activist thing I was doing last year."

"So, you have been basically sexting your boss for seven months?" She sighs.

"God, when you say it like that it makes me want to peel my skin off," I shudder at the realisation.

"But Annie, you have grown to like and get closer to Matt over this past week haven't you?"

"What has that got to do with anything?"

"Well, you don't have to make a decision now. There is no Lee and Matt anymore. It is just Matt, you don't have to choose," she says innocently.

"Have you fucking lost your mind? You are not implying that I should forgive him are you?!" I exclaim, horrified.

"Did he apologize to you at all?"

"Yes, he did. But how can that change anything? Do you really think that I can forgive him and we can run happily ever after into the African sunset?"

"Of course not. Let him stew for a couple of days and then he can make it up to you. You can talk things over calmly and smoothly."

"Are you on his side or something?"

"Well, there are no sides to take in this situation."

"He is the one who has fucked up my life, making me believe that I was falling in love with someone. I was living in a fantasy world, he lied to not only me, but to you guys as well."